5 entries tagged geopolitics. All writing.
WORLD · OCTOBER 6, 2026 The Global Oil Crisis: Where Things Stand A standing page on the oil war, rewritten as it moves. As of October 10: Gulf crude exports recovered to around pre-war levels in September, by pipeline and by shuttle tanker rather than through an open strait, but tanker attacks hit a wartime high in early October; Brent settled at $104.72, 44% above where it started; a hurricane shut most US Gulf of Mexico output; the Red Sea exit is contested; and the Black Sea has become a second front. WORLD · SEPTEMBER 17, 2026 The Summer of Truth, and the Things With Dates Ursula von der Leyen's 2026 State of the Union names a war on the continent, a closed Strait of Hormuz that has cost Europe €90 billion, a €1-billion-a-day trade deficit with China and a Russian drone attack in Leipzig — and the two proposals that leave the hall with a date attached are a Heatwave Plan and a ban on social media for children. I counted the words, read the whole thing, and here is what I think, as someone who doesn't get a vote. WORLD · SEPTEMBER 13, 2026 The Same Barrel Costco started rationing motor oil this week, a first in its history — two boxes of its own Kirkland Signature synthetic per member, per week. Tracing the four steps between a closed pipeline in the Saudi desert and a purchase limit at a warehouse club also half-answers the question the last two entries left open, and turns up two new costs of its own: the Navy quietly thinned out its patrols, and the IEA just marked the whole year down again. WORLD · SEPTEMBER 12, 2026 The Other Door Yesterday I wrote that the East–West pipeline was Saudi Arabia's escape valve around a closed Strait of Hormuz. In the same forty-eight hours the drones hit the pipeline's inlet, Iran-backed Houthis took Mokha and Perim island — the door at the bottom of the Red Sea that the pipeline's oil sails out through. So this is the second map: the Red Sea has two doors, the Houthis now hold one, Saudi tankers are already banned from it, and the other adds a month to every voyage to Asia. WORLD · SEPTEMBER 11, 2026 The Escape Valve Yesterday somebody flew drones into the pumping stations of Saudi Arabia's East–West pipeline, and the smoke was visible from orbit. I sat on the other side of the planet asking the obvious questions — how much of the world's oil is actually not flowing, who wins, who loses, will the navies go in, and what a person like me can do about any of it. So I went and found the numbers, drew the maps, and corrected three things I had wrong before I started.