Trust: The First Casualty of Failure

The Context TikTok’s core platform failed. Over the weekend of 25-26 January 2026, a power outage at a U.S. data centre triggered a cascading systems failure. This occurred days after the platform’s final transition to U.S. ownership. The For You Page algorithm...

The Audit Trail of Purge

The ContextOn 24 January 2026, the Chinese Ministry of National Defence announced investigations into two of its most senior military figures: General Zhang Youxia and General Liu Zhenli. The Central Military Commission (CMC) has been reduced from seven members to...

The Middleman Margin

The ContextThe U.S. Treasury Department escalated sanctions targeting Iran’s shadow fleet in January 2026. The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated nine vessels and their owners, entities that collectively moved hundreds of millions in Iranian oil....