Category Power Structures

A Backbone Built on Nepotism – How Washington Hands Its China Deterrence to the President’s Family

A call from the White House, a $620 million Pentagon loan, and an investment firm with ties to Donald Trump Jr. What looks like another case of potential nepotism reaches into the heart of America's national security strategy. Washington wants to break its military dependence on China, yet the very financing mechanism designed to achieve that goal is coming under scrutiny over political connections and family ties. The documented events raise a question that extends far beyond the Trump family: How resilient can a deterrence strategy be when the industries supporting it are increasingly selected through personal networks?

Terafab – Part 3: Escape Upward

Elon Musk is planning a computing infrastructure in space on a scale that could surpass anything built before. But whose laws govern millions of satellites operating beyond national territory? The 1967 Outer Space Treaty provides a surprisingly clear answer: Space is anything but lawless. While Europe's Digital Services Act continues to apply to services targeting the European market, the ability to physically enforce regulations against orbital hardware changes dramatically. SpaceX, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission, and international space law form a framework in which technological infrastructure becomes geopolitical power. Part three of the Terafab series examines why moving into orbit does not free Musk from the law - it places his infrastructure under a different legal jurisdiction.

Newsletter No. 48

What connects a gigantic AI factory in space, Europe’s emerging defense architecture, Kaliningrad, global sea lanes, and the question of who gets to define political rules? Newsletter No. 48 examines the architecture of power - the structures beneath visible decisions that determine who can act, who remains dependent, and where real control ultimately lies.

The West – Briefly Explained

A military alliance receives a peace prize while protesters gather outside. A Nobel Peace Prize laureate presides over years of military airstrikes. And international law appears to be interpreted differently depending on which country violates it. From NATO interventions and the Strait of Hormuz to political contradictions in Berlin and Brussels, Michael Hollister examines the double standards of the so-called values-based West. A critical examination of peace rhetoric, military power, and a rules-based international order whose rules seemingly do not apply equally to everyone.

Terafab – Part 2: Why Space? The Physical Wall

Elon Musk’s vision of orbital AI data centers may sound like technological megalomania. Yet neither energy supply nor radiation creates an insurmountable physical barrier - and even the enormous cooling problem can be mitigated by distributing computing power across satellite swarms. The real wall lies elsewhere: millions of tons of hardware would have to reach orbit every year. Part 2 of the Terafab series examines why computing in space actually makes technical sense - and why, in the end, a single number may determine whether the vision ever becomes reality.

The Weapon Turned Outward: How the Same Architecture That Captures the Citizen Is Now Directed at States – Part 7

What sounds like a trade-policy instrument may in fact amount to a far-reaching mechanism of power: A new proposal from Berlin and Paris would make it possible to restrict access to the European single market quickly - not through an active majority, but already where no qualified blocking majority can be assembled. The article shows how this principle fits into an existing architecture of trade defense, regulation, and shifting power - and why it creates not only pressure on third countries, but also new risks for the EU’s own member states.

The Answer as a Risk – What Brussels’ New AI Oversight Really Regulates

By designating ChatGPT as a Very Large Online Search Engine, the European Commission is extending platform oversight from the distribution of information to its generation. The decision does not prohibit any answer - but it creates the regulatory capacity to influence how generative systems respond to 159 million European users. Who will define when an AI-generated answer becomes a “systemic risk,” and where will the line between protection and legitimate dissent be drawn?

Terafab – Part 1: The Factory for AI in Space

A building five times larger than the world’s current record holder. A chip factory designed to produce 50 times today’s global annual AI computing capacity. And 80 percent of its output is not intended for Earth. Part 1 of the Terafab series reconstructs the project’s extraordinary scale, examines the logic behind Musk’s seemingly impossible demand, and shows why he may be the only competitor in the race for orbital data centers who could control the chips, rockets, and communications network himself.

Judge With A Stock Portfolio

The European Union demands ever greater transparency from citizens, companies and elected officials. Yet at the very top of its judicial system, a remarkably different principle applies. Judges and advocates general at the Court of Justice of the European Union may hold corporate investments, largely assess potential conflicts of interest themselves, while previous financial declarations disappear from public view. There is no evidence that judgments have been bought. The deeper issue is institutional: while Strasbourg, Washington and Karlsruhe have strengthened safeguards around judicial integrity, Luxembourg still relies heavily on self-disclosure and self-policing. The greater the power, the stronger the scrutiny should be. At the EU’s most powerful court, that principle appears to run in reverse.

Four Days in The Hague: Germany’s Defense in the Genocide Proceedings – and What It Reveals

For four days, Germany defended itself before the International Court of Justice against the allegation that its arms deliveries to Israel made it complicit in genocide. Yet that allegation itself was not argued. Berlin is first seeking to have the entire case dismissed for lack of jurisdiction. This analysis reconstructs both sides’ arguments, examines Germany’s arms-export record, and shows why far more is at stake than Germany’s policy toward Israel.