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Notes On: The Post-Westphalian Landscape
1. The Wall Street Journal carries a piece today reporting that “more than 200 million people across 60 countries live in areas controlled or contested by armed non-state groups.” These range from areas that are totally controlled by drowning in rebel fighting and religious terrorist extremism. [wsj.com/world/africa/t…]
2. These areas span the globe. Some remain, at face value, countries. They have UN representation and recognisable systems of governance, even if underneath the sheen, it is actually a section of land run by violent & smart factions.
3. We exist in a moment of change. Technological change yes, but also a more transactional approach to violence, and a withdrawal of a sustained Western funding to police the periphery - international personnel deployed on multilateral peace operations fell 49% between 2016 and 2025 alone [sipri.org/sites/default/…] The focus now is largely directed towards current conventional wars - Ukraine, Iran and so on, with an eye on future China-related conflicts.
4. This means we have two systems at play. The first is the collection of countries that understand the world through the Westphalian lens, who play - or pretend to play - by UN and global governance rules. Let us call this the Westphalian Establishment.
5. The second is the motley collection of failed states and new groups, many of the former just arbitrarily created decades or centuries ago, which now host smart and brutal factions and non-state actors. Let us call this the Emergents, which includes this wide set of actors.
6. As with any time two parallel systems come into existence - two sets of frontiers - you will find people and ideas that bleed between them. Negotiators, merchants, dealers, miners - Forward Deployed Vagabonds. Both groups require each other.
7. The global information and media narrative is controlled by the Westphalian Establishment. The Emergents occasionally leak through onto the radar of those living under the Westphalian Establishment through clips of extreme violence going viral, or stories of significant narcotics busts, or occasional documentaries. But mostly it is out of sight and out of mind.
8. But the Emergents exist. They increasingly control sections of critical supply chains (you need to email Houthi administrators to request the ability to traverse the Straits unmolested, even in a country still nominally run by a Westphalian Establishment team), and run shadow governments from within fallen states. However, it would be foolish for the Westphalian Establishment to write off the models being pioneered by some of these groups.
9. For example: despite being swamped in civil war for the majority of my adult life, by 2019 the Houthis were global pioneers in solar power adoption with over 80% of households in Al-Bayda governorate utilising solar panels [theborys.substack.com]. Elsewhere, members of the Emergents have deployed the latest technologies to further their own systems - from Starlink aiding Myanmar’s scams, to drones across the African continent. Notably, the Westphalian Establishment has a level of tolerance for this IF it is dressed up in forms they understand - shadow companies, hidden away in havens - or if it doesn’t harm their own interests.
10. An ongoing area worth watching closely: how do the Emergents use technologies? Do they seek to apply them to good or bad ends? How much of the current ‘risk’ thinking factors this in?
11. Finally, a small handful of people I would describe with affection as Forward Deployed Vagabonds have relayed stories of the opportunities that have arisen in the grey areas between these two systems. In Somalia, traders hire brokers called dilaal to negotiate fees with Govt and al-Shabaab checkpoints along the same trade route. In the DRC, we hear of PMCs looking at mines.
After all, the Spice Must Flow.
1. The Wall Street Journal carries a piece today reporting that “more than 200 million people across 60 countries live in areas controlled or contested by armed non-state groups.” These range from areas that are totally controlled by drowning in rebel fighting and religious terrorist extremism. [wsj.com/world/africa/t…]
2. These areas span the globe. Some remain, at face value, countries. They have UN representation and recognisable systems of governance, even if underneath the sheen, it is actually a section of land run by violent & smart factions.
3. We exist in a moment of change. Technological change yes, but also a more transactional approach to violence, and a withdrawal of a sustained Western funding to police the periphery - international personnel deployed on multilateral peace operations fell 49% between 2016 and 2025 alone [sipri.org/sites/default/…] The focus now is largely directed towards current conventional wars - Ukraine, Iran and so on, with an eye on future China-related conflicts.
4. This means we have two systems at play. The first is the collection of countries that understand the world through the Westphalian lens, who play - or pretend to play - by UN and global governance rules. Let us call this the Westphalian Establishment.
5. The second is the motley collection of failed states and new groups, many of the former just arbitrarily created decades or centuries ago, which now host smart and brutal factions and non-state actors. Let us call this the Emergents, which includes this wide set of actors.
6. As with any time two parallel systems come into existence - two sets of frontiers - you will find people and ideas that bleed between them. Negotiators, merchants, dealers, miners - Forward Deployed Vagabonds. Both groups require each other.
7. The global information and media narrative is controlled by the Westphalian Establishment. The Emergents occasionally leak through onto the radar of those living under the Westphalian Establishment through clips of extreme violence going viral, or stories of significant narcotics busts, or occasional documentaries. But mostly it is out of sight and out of mind.
8. But the Emergents exist. They increasingly control sections of critical supply chains (you need to email Houthi administrators to request the ability to traverse the Straits unmolested, even in a country still nominally run by a Westphalian Establishment team), and run shadow governments from within fallen states. However, it would be foolish for the Westphalian Establishment to write off the models being pioneered by some of these groups.
9. For example: despite being swamped in civil war for the majority of my adult life, by 2019 the Houthis were global pioneers in solar power adoption with over 80% of households in Al-Bayda governorate utilising solar panels [theborys.substack.com]. Elsewhere, members of the Emergents have deployed the latest technologies to further their own systems - from Starlink aiding Myanmar’s scams, to drones across the African continent. Notably, the Westphalian Establishment has a level of tolerance for this IF it is dressed up in forms they understand - shadow companies, hidden away in havens - or if it doesn’t harm their own interests.
10. An ongoing area worth watching closely: how do the Emergents use technologies? Do they seek to apply them to good or bad ends? How much of the current ‘risk’ thinking factors this in?
11. Finally, a small handful of people I would describe with affection as Forward Deployed Vagabonds have relayed stories of the opportunities that have arisen in the grey areas between these two systems. In Somalia, traders hire brokers called dilaal to negotiate fees with Govt and al-Shabaab checkpoints along the same trade route. In the DRC, we hear of PMCs looking at mines.
After all, the Spice Must Flow.
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Notes On: Whitehall’s China Expert Problem
1. @LOS_Fisher and @pmdfoster report that the “British state is facing a chronic shortage of China expertise following an exodus of senior diplomats with first-hand experience of working in Beijing.” The article cites Dan Chugg and Kate eing key civil services players who have since departed. It’s a good piece and speaks to a real issue.
2. I wanted to add some extra views. I worked on China stuff in/around Parliament for a few years, ran a company analysing the UK-China bilat, and know a good number of the folk involved/people who would find this article interesting. Plus the article also cites the US ‘China House’ model, and my friends and me were the first people to suggest to Parliament that they should pressure the Government to do a British version of ‘China House’ in November 2022 [committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidenc…], which others have echoed a few years later.
3. The issue of building China Capabilities has been a problem for decades, but becomes a critical problem from the beginning of the Golden Era onwards really. That’s because ‘China’ is a super complex entity that we trade with and have security concerns over, with a governance structure totally alien to most British people, and a language very few speak, among many other complexities.
4. So let’s say you’re a mandarin-speaking uni grad. The civil service may offer you a gig (if you’re lucky) but you’re not going to get in to a China role on your strength alone. You have various Whitehall-brained hoops to jump through. Your starting salary will be very bad, and your chance to go visit China in a non-govt role at a junior to mid level v slim indeed, esp if you work on interesting stuff. HSBC, StanChan - other companies exist, and can offer more interesting work too.
5. Anyway, despite efforts to ‘upskill’ civil servants - that’s the alluded to £5m figure at the end of the piece - the Government hasn’t managed to find a way to hire people who have actually been to China in a coherent way. That is a blocker. Journos should ask for granular detail of how those Mandarin lessons look.
6. Then let’s imagine you’re senior in Whitehall, working on a brief that involves China. Depending what department you work in, your driving ambition is often at total odds with your peer in a different department. Trade or security? Climate or AI? These worlds do not overlap in Whitehall coherently. This comes at a time where China expertise needs to run alongside increased situational awareness of many other pressing issues.
7. Finally, in general, you can expect whatever you do as a senior mandarin working on China to be criticised by the press and by various groups in Westminster. Politicians will leak stuff about you, blame you for their inability to articulate a trade off, blame you for a lack of strategy. It is, often, a thankless job. It pays well at the top, but paths to the top aren’t good. Many of your peers just leave.
8. In my closing Beijing to Britain (2024) note I set out some ideas for a more coherent approach to China for the incoming Labour Government. I argued “something is going wrong. The relationship between Government, Parliament and Whitehall is not working, and the reality that foreign, domestic and industrial policy are interlinked has not sunk in. This is not just in relation to our bilateral relationship with China, but speaks to a wider inability to see the world for what it is, rather than what we want it to be. Things can, and must, change. This is not a time to smuggle indecision dressed up as caution, or to hope things just work out. It is time to reform the systems which underpin how we understand the world.”It covered languages, the need for AI Dialogue, security, and called for a China Audit. It’s here: beijingtobritain.substack.com/p/towards-a-co…
1. @LOS_Fisher and @pmdfoster report that the “British state is facing a chronic shortage of China expertise following an exodus of senior diplomats with first-hand experience of working in Beijing.” The article cites Dan Chugg and Kate eing key civil services players who have since departed. It’s a good piece and speaks to a real issue.
2. I wanted to add some extra views. I worked on China stuff in/around Parliament for a few years, ran a company analysing the UK-China bilat, and know a good number of the folk involved/people who would find this article interesting. Plus the article also cites the US ‘China House’ model, and my friends and me were the first people to suggest to Parliament that they should pressure the Government to do a British version of ‘China House’ in November 2022 [committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidenc…], which others have echoed a few years later.
3. The issue of building China Capabilities has been a problem for decades, but becomes a critical problem from the beginning of the Golden Era onwards really. That’s because ‘China’ is a super complex entity that we trade with and have security concerns over, with a governance structure totally alien to most British people, and a language very few speak, among many other complexities.
4. So let’s say you’re a mandarin-speaking uni grad. The civil service may offer you a gig (if you’re lucky) but you’re not going to get in to a China role on your strength alone. You have various Whitehall-brained hoops to jump through. Your starting salary will be very bad, and your chance to go visit China in a non-govt role at a junior to mid level v slim indeed, esp if you work on interesting stuff. HSBC, StanChan - other companies exist, and can offer more interesting work too.
5. Anyway, despite efforts to ‘upskill’ civil servants - that’s the alluded to £5m figure at the end of the piece - the Government hasn’t managed to find a way to hire people who have actually been to China in a coherent way. That is a blocker. Journos should ask for granular detail of how those Mandarin lessons look.
6. Then let’s imagine you’re senior in Whitehall, working on a brief that involves China. Depending what department you work in, your driving ambition is often at total odds with your peer in a different department. Trade or security? Climate or AI? These worlds do not overlap in Whitehall coherently. This comes at a time where China expertise needs to run alongside increased situational awareness of many other pressing issues.
7. Finally, in general, you can expect whatever you do as a senior mandarin working on China to be criticised by the press and by various groups in Westminster. Politicians will leak stuff about you, blame you for their inability to articulate a trade off, blame you for a lack of strategy. It is, often, a thankless job. It pays well at the top, but paths to the top aren’t good. Many of your peers just leave.
8. In my closing Beijing to Britain (2024) note I set out some ideas for a more coherent approach to China for the incoming Labour Government. I argued “something is going wrong. The relationship between Government, Parliament and Whitehall is not working, and the reality that foreign, domestic and industrial policy are interlinked has not sunk in. This is not just in relation to our bilateral relationship with China, but speaks to a wider inability to see the world for what it is, rather than what we want it to be. Things can, and must, change. This is not a time to smuggle indecision dressed up as caution, or to hope things just work out. It is time to reform the systems which underpin how we understand the world.”It covered languages, the need for AI Dialogue, security, and called for a China Audit. It’s here: beijingtobritain.substack.com/p/towards-a-co…
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Was reading about how ancient cultures digested natural disasters. Came across this old text.
On the 21st of July 365AD, the southern shores of the Mediterranean were hit by a tidal wave. The Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus writes about it. He talks of the water retreating ea creatures in the mud, and how many of them went out wading into the slime.
Then the wave crashed, hitting cities and ports all along the shore, killing many thousands of men. He claims to have seen a ship wrecked in land, and reports some were smashed and left as far as two miles inland.
On the 21st of July 365AD, the southern shores of the Mediterranean were hit by a tidal wave. The Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus writes about it. He talks of the water retreating ea creatures in the mud, and how many of them went out wading into the slime.
Then the wave crashed, hitting cities and ports all along the shore, killing many thousands of men. He claims to have seen a ship wrecked in land, and reports some were smashed and left as far as two miles inland.
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Siri, of the major AI companies, which one of them have leaders in a heterosexual married relationship?
President Trump reveals the DOJ warned the head of a major AI company "get ready to go to jail, please give your wife a kiss goodnight...do you like the color orange?"
Asked why he isn’t worried that AI builders say there’s a 10% chance it kills humanity:
TRUMP: “The DOJ. We omebody was reported to us to be doing something bad with AI. We called them very strongly and said, get ready to go to jail. Please give your wife a kiss goodnight.”
Interviewer: “Who was this person?”
TRUMP: “I can’t tell you.”
Interviewer: “Or this company?”
TRUMP: “I can’t tell you. But we said, do you like the color orange? Because get rid. It said, go home right now. See your wife and children. Give them a kiss. Good night. And that’s the story.”
Interviewer: “If the Democrats wanted...”
TRUMP: “Because tomorrow morning you’re going to jail.”
Interviewer: “If they wanted to make a deal to put that to...”
TRUMP: “Let me tell you, this person totally changed everything. Totally. Yes, sir. Yes, sir.”
Interviewer: “Was it a leader of a major AI company?”
TRUMP: “One of the big ones, yeah.”
Interviewer: “Okay.”
TRUMP: “One of the big ones.”
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sam retweeted
“If we don't have it, China's going to have it. That would put us at an unbelievable disadvantage,” President Trump says about the race to develop artificial intelligence.
Trump tells 60 Minutes he doesn't mind AI safety guardrails, but warns: “I don't want to put us in a deep leading number one. And China has no guardrails, by the way.” cbsn.ws/4sOiMMF
Trump tells 60 Minutes he doesn't mind AI safety guardrails, but warns: “I don't want to put us in a deep leading number one. And China has no guardrails, by the way.” cbsn.ws/4sOiMMF
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You like one picture of an attractive woman on your timeline and Twitter decides you must only see semi-naked women for the next 48 hours
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sam retweeted
I mashed up my rant from Friday's Odd Lots about how tech people love to tell people when they're "updating their priors" with Saturday's All-In with @chamath.
1:39 of all your time is all I ask.
1:39 of all your time is all I ask.
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@rivatez I see you’re working on this! So awesome. Reckon scraping gofundme would be another good thing to do.
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sam retweeted
Nonsense. The principle of legal certainty is a fundamental norm of the criminal law (see Ashworth's Principles of Criminal Law). Parliament is in fact supposed to write laws such that people know if they are risking imprisonment or not.
I’ve been resisting posting about this, but I’ve seen so many bad takes about the new pornography provisions with the PCA 2026 that I have to say something. No one can tell you for sure what the law covers. That’s not the job of MPs and all new laws have the same issue
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sam retweeted
Here's what Nvidia's Jensen Huang sent to staff, admitting to affair:
"To my colleagues at NVIDIA,
I owe my family and all of you an apology.
I was unfaithful to my wife. My actions hurt her and our children. There is no excuse for what I did. I am deeply sorry.
Throughout my life, my family has given me love and support. They deserve my honesty and loyalty. Instead, I let them down and damaged the life we built together. I take full responsibility for what I did and the hurt I caused, and I accept the criticism that comes with it.
To my wife and family: I love you. I know an apology cannot undo what I have done. I hope our family will heal and that, over time, I can earn back your trust.
To my colleagues at NVIDIA, including those I have worked alongside for decades, and to our board, partners, and shareholders around the world: you deserve better from me. Leading NVIDIA is the privilege of my life. My responsibility is to serve you and be worthy of your trust. I have fallen short of that responsibility. I am fully committed to NVIDIA and will work to earn back your confidence.
Regarding the national security concerns raised in news reports, NVIDIA’s Board of Directors has initiated an independent investigation. I support the investigation and will cooperate fully. I love our country and our company. I am committed to protecting NVIDIA and supporting America’s national security. I am proud and grateful to be an American.
My family bears no responsibility for my choices. I do. Please give them privacy.
Jensen"
"To my colleagues at NVIDIA,
I owe my family and all of you an apology.
I was unfaithful to my wife. My actions hurt her and our children. There is no excuse for what I did. I am deeply sorry.
Throughout my life, my family has given me love and support. They deserve my honesty and loyalty. Instead, I let them down and damaged the life we built together. I take full responsibility for what I did and the hurt I caused, and I accept the criticism that comes with it.
To my wife and family: I love you. I know an apology cannot undo what I have done. I hope our family will heal and that, over time, I can earn back your trust.
To my colleagues at NVIDIA, including those I have worked alongside for decades, and to our board, partners, and shareholders around the world: you deserve better from me. Leading NVIDIA is the privilege of my life. My responsibility is to serve you and be worthy of your trust. I have fallen short of that responsibility. I am fully committed to NVIDIA and will work to earn back your confidence.
Regarding the national security concerns raised in news reports, NVIDIA’s Board of Directors has initiated an independent investigation. I support the investigation and will cooperate fully. I love our country and our company. I am committed to protecting NVIDIA and supporting America’s national security. I am proud and grateful to be an American.
My family bears no responsibility for my choices. I do. Please give them privacy.
Jensen"
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sam retweeted
This is a great list from Sam and applies when talking to US politicians as well:
1.Assume they have a dozen other meetings that day and will forget the bulk of what you say to them.
2. Assume your deeply held positions will not seem obvious or compelling to them on their own.
3. Have a specific ask which is sensitive to the incentives that drive a politician’s own interests.
1.Assume they have a dozen other meetings that day and will forget the bulk of what you say to them.
2. Assume your deeply held positions will not seem obvious or compelling to them on their own.
3. Have a specific ask which is sensitive to the incentives that drive a politician’s own interests.
Notes On: Talking To Politicians
I worked around Westminster for the better part of my twenties: first analysing politicians, then working for a politician, then writing analysis for other politicians and ambassadors, then running a company analysing the entire space. I find nding ways to move ideas through opaque systems and introducing the right people at the right time to the right information.
In the spirit of publishing scattered field notes more frequently, this fun note sets out some bits that will hopefully be relevant to people interested in British politics. It is not a ‘how to’ assessment, rather a series of observations gathered first hand or observed from conversations with others.
There are three useful primary rules you should follow when speaking to a British politician.
1. Assume they have a dozen other meetings that day and will forget the bulk of what you say to them, even if they requested the meeting. Time is one of the many commodities they cannot buy and their attention is often scattered (they will sometimes literally tweet during a meeting).
2. Assume that positions which seem obvious to you won’t necessarily be obvious to them or their team, or compelling on their own. Politicians have heard many predictions of catastrophe and imminent disasters before. This is particularly important if you decide to start pontificating about AI risk or something that seems abstract.
3. Have a specific ask which is sensitive to the incentives that drive a politician’s own interests. Will this help them win an election or vote, win praise from their peers (online and in the media), or help their ego and legacy? You are almost certainly not here for a general chat and it’s going to annoy both sides if the MP leaves the room and says to their researcher “what the hell was that about?”
Some secondary rules.
1. Please dress appropriately. You are not Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network. Shower, shave, put on a suit or at least something smartish looking. You are engaging with an institution several centuries older than you and your company/organisation/field (in some cases).
2. Don’t just read out a massive report summary. That ties back into the point above about understanding incentives. I used to observe this and have since coined a term for it: The Academic Radicalisation Pipeline.
3. Do some research on the politician. They are human (most of the time). They have families, they usually have a sports team they support/pretend to support, or are running a campaign locally too. In a totally ‘rational’ world it may seem like small talk is a poor expenditure of energy, but it’s not. It is how you begin to form the very human bonds you will need to pass your ideas through a system. You have absolutely no idea if the person you’re speaking to has had the worst morning of their career.
On that point: you should be extremely clear with yourself what it is exactly you do. Are you an advocate? A campaigner? An analyst? Westminster is swamped with people in the first two camps pretending to be from the last. It damages our democracy if you try to smuggle ideas as non-partisan or analytically neutral to a non-expert audience that doesn’t know better.
We often talk of politicians not being able to make trade offs, but - in my view - this is in part because too many groups/advocates/lobbyists present solutions without bothering to articulate or cost any meaningful trade off. This is particularly painful because it retards/impoverishes our ability to have strategic discussion.
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sam retweeted
this is a fun thread and from my very little and limited experience speaking with bureaucrats, holds true for india as well
Notes On: Talking To Politicians
I worked around Westminster for the better part of my twenties: first analysing politicians, then working for a politician, then writing analysis for other politicians and ambassadors, then running a company analysing the entire space. I find nding ways to move ideas through opaque systems and introducing the right people at the right time to the right information.
In the spirit of publishing scattered field notes more frequently, this fun note sets out some bits that will hopefully be relevant to people interested in British politics. It is not a ‘how to’ assessment, rather a series of observations gathered first hand or observed from conversations with others.
There are three useful primary rules you should follow when speaking to a British politician.
1. Assume they have a dozen other meetings that day and will forget the bulk of what you say to them, even if they requested the meeting. Time is one of the many commodities they cannot buy and their attention is often scattered (they will sometimes literally tweet during a meeting).
2. Assume that positions which seem obvious to you won’t necessarily be obvious to them or their team, or compelling on their own. Politicians have heard many predictions of catastrophe and imminent disasters before. This is particularly important if you decide to start pontificating about AI risk or something that seems abstract.
3. Have a specific ask which is sensitive to the incentives that drive a politician’s own interests. Will this help them win an election or vote, win praise from their peers (online and in the media), or help their ego and legacy? You are almost certainly not here for a general chat and it’s going to annoy both sides if the MP leaves the room and says to their researcher “what the hell was that about?”
Some secondary rules.
1. Please dress appropriately. You are not Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network. Shower, shave, put on a suit or at least something smartish looking. You are engaging with an institution several centuries older than you and your company/organisation/field (in some cases).
2. Don’t just read out a massive report summary. That ties back into the point above about understanding incentives. I used to observe this and have since coined a term for it: The Academic Radicalisation Pipeline.
3. Do some research on the politician. They are human (most of the time). They have families, they usually have a sports team they support/pretend to support, or are running a campaign locally too. In a totally ‘rational’ world it may seem like small talk is a poor expenditure of energy, but it’s not. It is how you begin to form the very human bonds you will need to pass your ideas through a system. You have absolutely no idea if the person you’re speaking to has had the worst morning of their career.
On that point: you should be extremely clear with yourself what it is exactly you do. Are you an advocate? A campaigner? An analyst? Westminster is swamped with people in the first two camps pretending to be from the last. It damages our democracy if you try to smuggle ideas as non-partisan or analytically neutral to a non-expert audience that doesn’t know better.
We often talk of politicians not being able to make trade offs, but - in my view - this is in part because too many groups/advocates/lobbyists present solutions without bothering to articulate or cost any meaningful trade off. This is particularly painful because it retards/impoverishes our ability to have strategic discussion.
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