@alanderminna
Analyst @sceeus-ui.bsky.social at @uisweden.bsky.social | Associate Fellow @chathamhouse.org | @cepa.org Fellow. Plot twist: not from Åland. 📸 Stas Kartashov ✍️ Northern Flank Notes: https://open.substack.com/pub/minnalander
Markets are a bunch of lemmings. One week ago they said oil would barely rise. Now everyone sees Brent going above $100. Take it all with a grain of salt. A big risk premium's now in Brent, which is up 28% versus 17% after the Ukraine invasion in 2022...
robinjbrooks.substack.com/p/markets-in...
On international women’s day I want to tell you about Tetiana. She’s a paramedic and she underwent rehabilitation after a combat injury while being 8 months pregnant
Women are extremely cool, I love women, happy women’s day!
Viewing this with an academic interest, now we have an archive of intensely weird comms to analyse in the future.
I just hope this stays a historical anomaly and doesn’t become a new normal
Sadly, this isn’t even the worst one… They had also one featuring real battlefield footage immersed in a video game feed and one that had footage of explosions happening at touchdowns at a football game
This is a real video from the official White House account on a war that is currently killing people. I don’t know how the US is going to come back from this.
The post was “JUSTICE THE AMERICAN WAY. 🇺🇸 🔥”
Sadly, this isn’t even the worst one.. They had also one featuring real battlefield footage immersed in a video game feed and one that had footage of explosions happening at touchdowns at a football game
Thread. NB: “Taiwan should in any case be producing lots of drones.” Yup, and sooner rather than later.
Great piece from AP - appreciate that it brings in the compounding climate risk in the region.
apnews.com/article/iran...
What isolationism ? With a new war somewhere every month ? 😅
Taiwan should in any case be producing lots of drones. The US somehow managed to be surprised by the Iranian use of Shaheeds, maybe China will be too.
On the contra side, Russia getting bogged down in a static frontline in a land invasion, which is supposed to be easier to conduct than an amphibious attack that Taiwan would require, may give China pause.
Plus that this US administration is clearly very trigger happy
Thinking about the intel prediction that Xi Jinping wants the Chinese military to be ready to take Taiwan by 2027 (without making an assessment about likelihood):
On the pro side, China must be loving all the data they get on American missile/ ammunition consumption in Iran as well as stockpiles
It seems the velvet gloves are coming off, at least in some cases, when dealing with Russia’s shadow fleet in the Baltic Sea.
Here’s one of them 🇸🇪👊
It is a struggle for us every week to avoid making the entire paper consist of "How country X reacted to Trump's latest thing." This is a genuine problem that has no easy solution. Anyway, here's our briefing www.economist.com/briefing/202...
One of Sweden’s most dangerous weapons.
An equal defence, is a stronger defence.
🇸🇪 Armed Forces, International Women’s Day 2026
Not only is Trump having his 2001 moment, but also discovering the 80s again
Well, I guess it feels more meaningful if you know that you actually have follow up measures and won’t just have to let the ship and crew go and pay their legal costs…
Kampkraft kender ikke køn.
Derfor er værnepligten fra i år blevet ligestillet, så vi kan uddanne endnu flere dygtige soldater.
I dag hylder vi alle kvinder, der yder en kæmpe indsats i det danske forsvar.
#værdatkæmpefor
We are starting to see results of this effort to identify a legal base for criminalising the shadow fleet more effectively even if in international waters:
I think it’s thanks to this effort to identify a legal base for criminalising the shadow fleet more effectively even if in international waters:
Starting to see Nordic countries detaining and boarding more shadow fleet ships. There has been a hard to understand hesitancy to do this www.dn.se/direkt/2026-...
"War is mankind's most tragic and stupid folly; to seek or advise its deliberate provocation is a black crime against all men. Though you follow the trade of the warrior, you do so in the spirit of Washington -- not of Genghis Khan. For Americans, only threat to our way of life justifies resort to conflict." Graduation Exercises at the United States Military Academy, 6/3/47 "Possibly my hatred of war blinds me so that I cannot comprehend the arguments they adduce. But, in my opinion, there is no such thing as a preventive war. Although this suggestion is repeatedly made, none has yet explained how war prevents war. Worse than this, no one has been able to explain away the fact that war creates the conditions that beget war." Remarks at Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 10/19/50 [DDE's Pre-Presidential Papers, Principal File, Box
Was browsing the Eisenhower Library site this morning trying to find a quote I remembered.
President Eisenhower, WW2 military hero:
“In my opinion, there is no such thing as a preventive war… none has yet explained how war prevents war.”
Worth considering
Nordic nuclear weapons politics rapidly changing:
Finland proposes legal changes to allow for transport of nuclear weapons if "coupled to military defense."
In Sweden, 5/8 political parties are open for the placement of nuclear weapons during wartime; peacetime placement is still ruled out.
Thank you for reading !
While the world is concerned about rising oil prices, Sweden is concerned about saffron prices.
Iran accounts for ~90% of the world’s saffron exports, which have now been halted.
Saffron is incredibly popular in Swedish holiday baked goods, as well as fish soup.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Deleting X and only posting on Bluesky was a great decision, not only because X seems to be a bad place but also because it’s so boring here.
My feed here is mostly middle aged men posting way too many very uninteresting details about their lives. Brings my scrolling time basically down to zero.
