<![CDATA[Alex Burns]]>https://www.alexburns.nethttps://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!-h9m!,w_256,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F57998a43-15e2-449d-b68d-4f6333273bac_256x256.pngAlex Burnshttps://www.alexburns.netSubstackWed, 20 May 2026 03:47:33 GMT<![CDATA[Decision Regret]]>https://www.alexburns.net/p/decision-regrethttps://www.alexburns.net/p/decision-regretMon, 18 May 2026 12:08:53 GMTA. Utah seeks to ban prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket.

B. Why Bob Dylan is unique.

C. AI Slop has a prehistory for automating authorship.

D. I remember Hollywood’s Girlbosses from its Pre-Code era (1930-34).

E. The richest cat in the world.

F. Trump’s dangerous Taiwan gamble.

G. Cannes in 2026.

H. Famous Author decision regret.

I. Sinologist tips on the Trump-Xi Summit.

J. Today’s MIT OCW free course is on Japanese Literature and Cinema, created by Professor Ian Condry.

K. The Maurin Academy’s Political Philosophy podcast.

M. The new PBS Frontline episode about President Donald Trump and the Federal Reserve on YouTube.

N. Australia’s If You’re Listening current affairs show on Palantir’s Alex Karp.

O. FT on big oil.

P. The ANU’s Professor Hugh White on the realist historian E.H. Carr.

]]><![CDATA[Current Reading]]>https://www.alexburns.net/p/current-readinghttps://www.alexburns.net/p/current-readingSat, 16 May 2026 02:31:18 GMTRecent secondhand book purchases:

1. The Change Masters: Corporate Entrepreneurs At Work by Rosabeth Moss Kanter (London: Unwin, 1983). When a former colleague & I worked with the compassionate Professor Arthur Art. D Shulman at Melbourne’s Victoria University, Kanter's book was one that he would often mention to me in terms of the research culture change that our Research Facilitation Unit was trying to implement. The Change Masters is the classic study of change management in early 1980s corporate United States.

2. Overview of Buddhist Tantra: General Presentation of the Classes of Tantra, Captivating the Minds of the Fortunate Ones by Panchen Sonam Dragpa (Dharamasala, India: Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, 1996). Dragpba covers a range of Buddhist Tantra schools, with an emphasis on the Mahayana. There are chapters on Action, Performance, Yoga and Highest Yoga Tantra. This is an introductory overview of the pedagogical (learning) content of Buddhist Tantra and a guide to its cultural transmission in Teacher-Student lineages, including what some of the vows and commitments of the Tantric Path are.

Some other recent reading:

3. Who Moved My Cheese? An Amazing Way to Deal With Change In Your Work and In Your Life by Dr Spencer Johnson MD (London: Vermilion, 1998). A few years ago a clinical psychologist suggested this book to me. It is written for a broad audience. Johnson's parable addresses the decision fatigue and the cognitive dissonance (Leon Festinger) that people feel during organisational restructures and management by objectives driven change. This is Kanter (MBA managerial elites) for the masses (Gustav Le Bon's The Crowd).

4. Navigating The New International Disorder: Australia In World Affairs 2011-2015 edited by Mark Beeson and Shahar Hameiri (South Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 2017). A now historical snapshot of how Australia as a middle power has attempted to articulate its own diplomatic and foreign affairs oriented vision of a rules-based international order. I particularly liked the chapters by Nick Bisley (on the evolving international order); Andrew Walter (the post-Global Financial Crisis or Great Recession environment); Jacqui True (advancing her now very impactful research program on gender and foreign policy, and on women and security); and Michael Wesley (an elite insider's view of the policy process at the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, with awareness of consultative and interagency dynamics). This edited monograph is an initiative of the Australian Institute of International Affairs. Hameiri has been professionally very supportive in the personal context of Australian International Political Economy Network workshops.

5. Born To Crime: The Genetic Causes of Criminal Behavior by Lawrence Taylor (Westport, CT and London: Greenwood Press, 1984). This book is from the genetics and the biosocial criminology period during the 1980s in the United States in which biological psychiatry, biological neuroscience, and evolutionary psychology influenced lawmakers. The chapter The Programmed Assassin (pp. 123-137) goes beyond post-JFK assassination oriented conspiracy theories and 1970s political thrillers to examine the multilevel causal pathways into becoming a political assassin or what today might be called incel and lone wolf terrorists.

The case study is John W. Hinckley Jr who attempted - and failed - to assassinate President Ronald Reagan, due to being infatuated and obsessed with the actress Jodi Foster. Much of the chapter deals with DSM-III era definitions and debates on schizophrenia and being prone in stressor related situations to potential (interpersonal) violence. One of the key observations that Taylor makes is the lifespan impact of when Hinckley Jr had finished high school and had left his family of origin, and drifted in high school. Here is the key section from page 125:

"Yet sometime after his graduation from high school, he began unaccountably to change. He spent seven interrupted years at Texas Tech, yet apparently made no friends. The few people who knew of him recall him as "an expressionless blank." Said one, "I only saw him with another human being one time." Eventually, he dropped out and went to California, flirted with the Hollywood subculture and then returned to Texas Tech where he suddenly joined the American Nazi party; he was kicked out because, as a party member said, "When somebody comes to us and starts advocating shooting people, it's a natural reaction: the guy's either a nut or a federal agent."

"Looking back at the young man's life, a friend of the family observed, "Something happened to that boy in the last six to eight years to break him from the family tradition and family lifestyle. What did happen?""

Criminology and terrorism studies researchers now have some idea of Hinckley Jr's pathway into violence, and also the causal, operative role of delusional, disordered, fixated, and obsessive beliefs (all failures of reality-testing and what the psychologist Roy F. Baumeister might note as also being illustrative of a flawed Self concept, due to psychological enmeshment schemas).

Hinckley Jr was released from prison in June 2022. The recent documentary Hinckley: I Shot The President (2024) is available on the DocPlay streaming service. I have not seen it yet. Here is the trailer:


Thanks for reading. Have a great weekend.

]]><![CDATA[Madisonian Worldviews and Catalyst Events]]>https://www.alexburns.net/p/madisonian-worldviews-and-catalysthttps://www.alexburns.net/p/madisonian-worldviews-and-catalystSun, 10 May 2026 07:45:22 GMTA. On who sets the Doomsday Clock: the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

B. Relatedly, Iron Maiden’s classic film clip for 2 Minutes To Midnight (1984).

C. How top-earning Australians make money.

D. Teaching poetry in the AI age.

E. On the Enhanced Games.

F. Polymarket’s hot new bet: hantavirus.

G. United States civil servants are under threat again.

H. Today’s MIT OCW free course is Frameworks of Urban Governance, created by Professor Deborah Kobes.

I. AI and jazz.

J. The Madisonian view on religious freedom.

K. Martin Shkreli on the semiconductor cycle.

M. How to start a cult - strictly for affiliative marketing purposes, of course.

N. Pink Floyd’s live concerts for The Wall (1979) from 1980, fan curated.

O. The conservative historian Niall Ferguson believes that new, major warfare has begun.

P. Radiohead’s live concert from Bologna, Italy on 17th November 2025.

]]><![CDATA[Challenges to the MAGA Movement]]>https://www.alexburns.net/p/challenges-to-the-maga-movementhttps://www.alexburns.net/p/challenges-to-the-maga-movementFri, 08 May 2026 10:30:26 GMTA. Russian nuclear reactors are spreading globally.

B. The second Trump administration has escalated Antifa as a largely non-existent domestic terrorist threat.

C. The Alt Right and the MAGA Movement’s Tradwife ideology has become an identity trap.

D. Artists and designers are rebelling against artificial intelligence.

E. Today’s MIT OCW free course is on Disease and Health: Culture, Society and Ethics, created by Professor Jean Jackson.

F. Democratic fascism is for some people, a thing.

G. On United States-India relations in the Indo-Pacific.

H. The MAGA Movement faces an ideological (splitting) challenge with Evangelical Christians.

I. The power of libraries.

J. President Donald Trump’s foreign policy in an historical perspective (London School of Economics).

K. The Future of Mathematics Symposium at Stanford University.

L. Palantir’s Q1 2026 earnings webast.

M. Discovering electronic music: a 1970 documentary.

N. An MTV interview in 1984 with Frank Zappa.

O. Francis Ford Coppola’s picks from the Criterion Closet.

]]><![CDATA[Longevity Research Has A New Client: Your Next Dog]]>https://www.alexburns.net/p/longevity-research-has-a-new-clienthttps://www.alexburns.net/p/longevity-research-has-a-new-clientSun, 03 May 2026 04:26:56 GMTA. The University of Queensland faces an author exodus in response to an antisemitism scandal.

B. Beck’s symphonic turn.

C. What happens when Presidential assassins fail.

D. How The Fast & Furious film franchise took over Hollywood.

E. The artist Francis King teaches how to conceal.

F. Longevity research may benefit your next dog.

G. Halogencore films or so-called corporate thrillers are initiatory journeys into white-collar crime and institutional corruption in late (neoliberal) capitalism.

H. Today’s MIT OCW free course is on the Economics of Education created by Professor Frank Levy.

I. The important Nine Inch Nails song that is still not on most streaming services.

J. Turing Award winner Mike Stonebraker on Google, Postgres, and databases.

K. 44 hours of pure black screen - the black beyond black (Don Webb) or where the black stars hang (Lustmord).

]]><![CDATA[Why Australia Really Has Low Wages]]>https://www.alexburns.net/p/why-australia-really-has-low-wageshttps://www.alexburns.net/p/why-australia-really-has-low-wagesSat, 02 May 2026 10:18:02 GMTA. Why the United States has military bases in Germany.

B. The 30 greatest living American songwriters.

C. Monotask your way to success.

D. Hypnopedia (sleep learning) is an experimental technique that I used to hallucinate about in my teens. It’s apparently making a comeback.

E. An ageing population (a gerontocracy) challenges the United States political and social order. Generational cohort analyses have foreseen this for at least three decades: now the (posited) scenario is coming to pass.

F. Jacobin thinks that Australia has just entrenched lower wages for younger workers. Actually, since the 1990-91 “recession we had to have” (then Treasurer and later Prime Minister Paul Keating), that’s always been the case: a cheap workforce in part to ensure low credit ratings for favouring international capital to find a safe haven in the Indo-Pacific that is not an offshore financial centre like Singapore or Hong Kong. However, Karl Marx did not really cover shadow banking or tax havens.

G. OSINT satellite analysis is helping Oregon State University researchers to better understand how effective United States (and Israeli) missile strikes against Iran have been.

H. Today’s MIT OCW free course is Risk and Decision Analysis created by Professor Richard de Neufville.

I. Young and disconnected in America.

J. What the Iran War is really costing the United States.

K. How to looksmaxx - if you can afford it.

M. Martin Scorsese on Alfred Hitchcock’s classic film Vertigo (1958).

N. John Cale and Lou Reed on Sunday Night (1989).

O. The classic thriller No Way Out (1987).

]]><![CDATA[Wartime Economy Flak]]>https://www.alexburns.net/p/wartime-economy-flakhttps://www.alexburns.net/p/wartime-economy-flakThu, 30 Apr 2026 12:35:55 GMTA. The healing and self-expressive power of (private) journaling. Julia Cameron’s Write For Life (London: Souvenir Press, 2023) is very helpful.

B. The Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion has found that counterterrorism intelligence funding in Australia has fallen.

C. Your digital life can disappear. Free advice from my therapist: choose immersive experiences instead.

D. The new PBS Frontline episode on immigration arrests in the United States.

E. SCOTUS guts the Voting Rights Act. The majority opinion in Louisiana v Callais.

F. Acting on women’s rights.

G. The rumoured Ukraine-Al Qaeda link in West Africa.

H. An update on quantum computing - AUKUS Pillar 2 relevant.

I. The Strait of Hormuz in 8 charts.

J. Mobilising for war.

K. A wartime economy would be different this time.

L. Today’s MIT OCW free course is Modeling and Assessment for Policy created by Professor Noelle Selin.

M. The digital-democratic doom loop.

N. Paul Tudor Jones II on current trends.

O. Andy Warhol & William S. Burroughs on the Chelsea Hotel.

P. Classicist philosopher and Alexandr Dugin translator Michael Millerman on the Palantir Manifesto.

Q. Venture capitalist John Doerr on why execution trumps having just business ideas.

]]><![CDATA[The UAE Leaves OPEC]]>https://www.alexburns.net/p/the-uae-leaves-opechttps://www.alexburns.net/p/the-uae-leaves-opecWed, 29 Apr 2026 11:56:49 GMTA. The UAE has decided to leave the OPEC oil cartel. This is significant: it signals likely short-term volatility and readjustment in Middle East oil supplies. More broadly, the petro-dollar economy that emerged after the OPEC oil crisis in 1973 is transitioning as part of on-going fragmentation of the global world order.

B. Brittany Higgins has spoken out in order to protect the counselling records of victim-survivors. This is really significant as any disclosure of medical records or confidential / personal / sensitive information to third parties can mean that this unauthorised disclosure can lead to targeted, weaponised disinformation as part of a DARVO playbook.

C. Wars often lead strategic actors and leadership involved in other conflicts to re-evaluate their decision sets and their strategic repertoires. Oliver Schmitt’s new book Preparing For War: Strategy, Power and Military Change (London: Hurst Publishers, 2026) also addresses varied aspects of this.

D. Today’s MIT OCW free course is Libertarianism in History created by Professor Malick W. Ghachem.

E. Michael Mandelbaum on how to build an American foreign policy.

]]><![CDATA[Impression Management]]>https://www.alexburns.net/p/impression-managementhttps://www.alexburns.net/p/impression-managementTue, 28 Apr 2026 09:22:52 GMTA. The New Republic’s Timothy Noah on how the Tech World became evil.

B. The second Trump administration’s negotiation strategy with Iran.

C. The Pentagon’s impression management about the Iran War.

D. Poisoning the forest for the trees.

E. People think the post-truth era is really here. It’s not.

F. Political violence in the United States.

G. Today’s MIT OCW free course is Music and Technology by Professor Christopher Ariza (Academia.edu; Google Scholar).

H. Amelie turns 25.

I. Miles Davis on Prince and Michael Jackson.

J. The Munro Lecture with Columbia University’s Professor Adam Tooze.

K. Stanford University’s Professor Francis Fukuyama on how to defend Taiwan from China.

]]><![CDATA[Rolling Back Authoritarianism]]>https://www.alexburns.net/p/rolling-back-authoritarianismhttps://www.alexburns.net/p/rolling-back-authoritarianismSun, 19 Apr 2026 05:01:05 GMTA. Geopolitical risk traders are extracting crisis alpha from the on-going Iran War.

B. How childrens TV programs shape their values and worldviews about families and divorce.

C. Why the film The Sorrow and the Pity explains the contemporary United States. The re-release trailer.

D. Rehearsing for a Mars human base.

E. The Coachella influencer bubble.

F. Credit Default Swaps on private credit are going to blow up the economy, again. An Australian informed viewpoint.

G. More fiction authors are embracing self-publishing.

H. Ibogaine and treating trauma. Plus: the Trump-Rogan-Ibogaine connection.

I. Hungary after Viktor Orban.

J. The International Monetary Fund on managing global imbalances.

K. Thom Yorke live at the Sydney Opera House.

L. A BBC documentary (1997) on Black Wednesday (16th September 1992) when the United Kingdom withdrew from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism.

M. Goldman Sachs asks: why aren’t more investors worried?

N. How the Iran War is shaping a post-American world.

O. Bitcoin’s origins and the search for Satoshi.

]]><![CDATA[Illiberal Dead Ends]]>https://www.alexburns.net/p/illiberal-dead-endshttps://www.alexburns.net/p/illiberal-dead-endsMon, 13 Apr 2026 12:58:24 GMTA. Hungary’s Viktor Orban lost his election. The New Yorker considered the potential global fallout.

B. ‘Super El Nino’ could be a thing.

C. The MAGA movement wanted a civil war - it got a different one.

D. In many families, siblings are a fiction.

E. Harrison Ford battles his most significant foe: depression.

F. How YouTube fueled the career of horror film director Damian McCarthy.

G. Generative AI as a weapon of war in Iran.

H. An FAQ on the Russia-Ukraine negotiations.

I. The second Trump administration is now blockading the Iranians who are blockading the Strait of Hormuz. This will likely end the truce.

]]><![CDATA[Ceasefires, Optionality, and Endings]]>https://www.alexburns.net/p/ceasefires-optionality-and-endingshttps://www.alexburns.net/p/ceasefires-optionality-and-endingsSat, 11 Apr 2026 04:47:43 GMTA. What options does the United States have in Iran?

B. AI comes for white-collar workers.

C. What the Iran War ceasefire hides.

D. Some pundits now believe the United States is an apocalyptic terror state.

E. Trump, Bukele, and El Salvador’s gangs.

F. Pink Floyd’s moon landing soundtrack.

G. ChatGPT query histories are ending romantic relationships.

H. Why ‘cosplay is not consent’: protocol for attending conventions.

I. Tracking think tank funding and Iran War advocacy / agenda-setting.

J. Reining in the export arms race.

K. Democracy Now! as incredibly influential for indie, left-wing, progressive media.

L. Today’s MIT OCW free course is an Introduction to MATLAB Programming by Yossi Farjoun.

M. Artemis II (still rumoured to be Capricorn Two the successor mission to Capricorn One) has landed safely. The Artemis II crew now may be able to answer a key intelligence question / research question posed by the Graeco-Armenian magus George Gurdjieff: Is there Life on Earth?

N. The classic 4 Corners investigation on alleged war crimes by Australian Special Operations Forces Operators.

O. Barbara Kopple’s documentary American Dream (1991) is getting a 4K restoration re-release. The trailer.

P. Goldman Sachs on the Iran War ceasefire.

Q. Slayer’s demo in 1986 for Def Jam Records.

R. Steve Brenner’s album Signals (1985).

S. The New Yorker discuss OpenAI’s Sam Altman and trust.

]]><![CDATA[Artemis II and the Earthly Human Condition]]>https://www.alexburns.net/p/artemis-ii-and-the-earthly-humanhttps://www.alexburns.net/p/artemis-ii-and-the-earthly-humanTue, 07 Apr 2026 10:16:19 GMTA. Ronan Farrow and Andrew Marantz have a bombshell story for The New Yorker on OpenAI’s Sam Altman. Worth reading with Keach Hagey’s book The Optimist (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2026).

B. Livestreaming NASA’s Artemis II and its Moon flyby.

C. Australia’s most decorated soldier (and Special Forces Operator) Ben Roberts-Smith has been arrested and charged with five war crimes in Afghanistan.

D. Jacobin Magazine on managerial power in workplaces.

E. President Trump and paramilitary violence in the United States.

F. Today’s MIT OCW free course is Non-Violence As A Way Of Life created by Dr Lee Perlman.

G. Don’t be haunted when your family (essentially) cuts you off: it’s their loss.

H. Memes have taken over United States culture. Sadly, those interviews I did with memetics authors in 1998-99 (the tapes were stolen before being transcribed) means that my originally planned book will never come out.

I. AI may shape career pathways to better jobs.

J. The Heritage Foundation has released its 2026 Index of Military Strength.

K. Cato on the great political realignment that is unfolding.

L. AUKUS Pillar 2 relevant: quantum’s industrial moment.

M. Tehran’s strategic calculus.

N. 10 hours of NASA’s Artemis II and its Moon flyby.

O. Adam Tooze talks with David Harvey for two hours about Karl Marx (Capital volume 1) and Harvey’s new book The Story of Capital (New York: Verso, 2026).

]]><![CDATA[The Dalek Master Plan, Rediscovered]]>https://www.alexburns.net/p/the-dalek-master-plan-rediscoveredhttps://www.alexburns.net/p/the-dalek-master-plan-rediscoveredFri, 03 Apr 2026 10:50:01 GMTA. FT on how an energy crisis unfolds.

B. Bloomberg on how the second Trump administration has alienated US financial markets.

C. Five artists who grew up in cults / new religious movements.

D. Former Attorney General Pam Bondi has been effectively fired by memes.

E. Two lost episodes from the Doctor Who story The Dalek Master Plan (1965) are now released on the BBC (you may need a VPN to view BBC iPlayer).

F. Kanye West has an AI era record.

G. Geoengineering is apparently now a thing. Neal Stephenson (Substack) wrote about this in his book Termination Shock (New York: HarperCollins, 2021).

H. What happens when a nuclear site is hit?

I. Sovereignty & Security Forum 2026.

J. The politics of oil have fundamentally changed.

K. Mapping History: a lecture by Sir Martin Gilbert.

]]><![CDATA[Nuclear Weapons, the Iran War, and Economic Growth]]>https://www.alexburns.net/p/nuclear-weapons-the-iran-war-andhttps://www.alexburns.net/p/nuclear-weapons-the-iran-war-andWed, 01 Apr 2026 10:53:34 GMTA. David Holloway has recently written the magisterial Nuclear Weapons: An International History (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2026). Holloway’s extensive archival and primary source based research promises to rewrite the prehistory and the first / second generation of strategic culture theory-building.

B. What happens when a whale is born?

C. A Federal Judge has just saved NPR and PBS from the second Trump administration.

D. Economist and Nobel laureate Paul Krugman on the Iran War. He also has a Substack.

E. Today’s MIT OCW free course is on Economic Growth by Nobel laureate Dean Acemoglu.

]]><![CDATA[War Arbitrageurs and the Quest for Superintelligence]]>https://www.alexburns.net/p/war-arbitrageurs-and-the-quest-forhttps://www.alexburns.net/p/war-arbitrageurs-and-the-quest-forTue, 31 Mar 2026 08:36:04 GMTA. The US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth attempted to use the broker Morgan Stanley to buy BlackRock’s Defense Industrials Active ETF (IDEF) before the Iran War. Hegseth has denied that the portfolio acquisition ever took place. (The Atlantic Monthly’s Tom Nichols would describe this as “vice signaling.”) ETFs are designed for sector / thematic / diversification plays (and smart beta) rather than the single stocks (equities options) or pairs trades that benefit from event catalysts and volatility. The practitioner literature on ETFs grew after the Great Recession or Global Financial Crisis in 2008. ETFs helped to drive the widespread adoption of algorithmic trading. The leading academic / practitioner work is Professor A. Seddik Meziani’s Exchange-Traded Funds: Investment Practices and Tactical Approaches (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016). Here is the BBC’s Adam Curtis on BlackRock’s founder Larry Fink and his ALADDIN portfolio management system.

B. Oil traders are arbitraging the second Trump administration on Iran War related geopolitical risk. This is no surprise whatsoever for readers of Leah McGrath Goodman’s classic The Asylum: Inside the Rise and Ruin of the Global Oil Market (New York: HarperCollins, 2011).

C. Muskism is the new reactionary modernist ideology that Quinn Slobodian and Ben Tarnoff have detailed in their new book Muskism: A Guide for the Perplexed (New York: Penguin, 2026).

D. The game theorist, political economist, author, and politician Yanis Varoufakis on who will likely win the Iran War.

E. What tail risk inflation hedging is.

F. Today’s MIT OCW free course is Energy Economics by Professor Paul Joskow.

G. Sebastian Mallaby (Council on Foreign Relations) has a new book out today called The Infinity Machine: Demis Hassabis, DeepMind and the Quest for Superintelligence (New York: Penguin, 2026) available now on Amazon Kindle and Audible. All of Mallaby’s books are highly influential in finance, investment, and public policy circles - and are very highly recommended as long-form creative non-fiction and journalism.

]]><![CDATA[Talking Your Book]]>https://www.alexburns.net/p/talking-your-bookhttps://www.alexburns.net/p/talking-your-bookMon, 30 Mar 2026 11:13:41 GMTA. Geopolitical risk arbitrageurs / speculators do volatility farming on prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket. Many are young people taking significant financial risks.

B. Why Australian universities rely on external consultants: 4 Corners investigative journalism episode (Australia) and YouTube hosted version (for international viewers).

C. How to discuss additional work-from-home days with your employer.

D. A new book by Rose Gottemoeller on US-Russia space geopolitics / exopolitics after 1991.

E. The “international rules-based order” is increasingly viewed as being dead.

F. Has Russia won the Russia-Ukraine War?

G. Barry Eichengreen “talks his book” at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft on 9th April 2026.

H. Today’s MIT OCW free course is Social Science and the Iraq and Syrian Wars created by Professor Roger Peterson.

I. Wargaming the Pacific (United States Naval College and the Hoover Institution).

J. Lloyd Blankfein “talks his book” with Anrew Ross Sorkin at the 92nd St Y, New York.

K. A talk by Sir Lawrence Freedman at Google on his influential book Strategy: A History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013).

L. The trailer for the new film Palestine ‘36 (2026).

M. Rush returns with its new lineup at Canada’s Juno Awards to play its very first ever song, Finding My Way.

N. The SXSW 2026 panel The Knowledge Paradox: When Does Sharing Become Theft?

O. An hour of Iranian jazz.

P. The Nature of Genius - a free course at Open Yale Courses created by Professor Emeritus Craig M. Wright.

]]><![CDATA[The (Present) Iran War, Disruption, and Deeptime]]>https://www.alexburns.net/p/the-present-iran-war-disruption-andhttps://www.alexburns.net/p/the-present-iran-war-disruption-andFri, 20 Mar 2026 12:15:48 GMTA. The re-emergence of Pauline Hanson’s One Nation in Australian politics.

B. Has Russia won the Russo-Ukrainian War?

C. Jeffrey Epstein and the Gates Foundation.

D. On Vilfredo Pareto’s sociology of feared elite decline.

E. Wartime versus Deeptime.

F. The US and China are fighting over talent. It’s actually in Singapore, enjoying a hawker-style delicious lunch.

G. Why Iran’s disruption of the Strait of Hormuz matters. “Move fast and break things”?

H. How actively managed funds work. Also called a research product that promotes your think tank’s philanthropic funders from finance.

I. Data is now the frontline of warfare.

J. Setting the rules for AI warfare.

K. Iran’s escalation strategy won’t work, RAND claims. Tehran (obviously) didn’t hire RAND to run Herman Kahn scenarios and stress tests.

L. A recent thrift store purchase: James Rickards’ The New Case for Gold (London: Penguin House UK, 2016) that foresaw today’s “crisis alpha”, “safe haven” and “de-risk behavioural herding” gold bugs.

M. Tyler Cowen and Harvey Mansfield talk about Niccolo Machiavelli’s realpolitik and Leo Strauss’s elitism.

N. The initial post Cold War period (called the interregnum) was meant to bring us the “peace dividend.” The Council on Foreign Relations explores why this actually never happened.

CFR also considers the Iran War’s ripple effects in geoeconomics.

O. Stephen Kotkin (Hoover Institution) considers how strong Iran’s decision elite is.

]]><![CDATA[ISA Virtual Conference 2026 Proposals]]>https://www.alexburns.net/p/isa-virtual-conference-2026-proposalshttps://www.alexburns.net/p/isa-virtual-conference-2026-proposalsFri, 13 Mar 2026 22:01:56 GMTThe International Studies Association is holding its latest Virtual Conference in June 2026. This is particularly helpful for Global South scholars and for those who do not have access to institutional support for travel funding.

My two submitted proposals which are both under consideration are below.

Old Myths, Nearly Dead: Why The Rules-Based International Order Is No Longer Credible

In early 2026 the second Trump administration of the United States launched Special Operations Forces in Venezuela; began an Iran war that triggered volatility in energy / oil markets; and released its National Defense Strategy. Russia continued its conventional war with Ukraine. China flexed its growing sphere of influence in the Indo-Pacific—and, together with Russia and the United States—underpinned continued shifts in nuclear tripolarity.

These catalyst events all highlight that the rules-based international order touted by middle powers like Australia is an aspirational myth that is no longer credible. Yet it is also time to move beyond outdated classicist historical narratives such as frequent reliance on analogical reasoning with Thucydides, the Stoics, and Augustine (in political philosophy). Economic statecraft, denial strategies, and weaponised interdependence as prioritised policy instruments now requires more contemporary frameworks, found in the study of coercion, special operations instruments (beyond direct action / surgical strikes), space-based strategy, burden-sharing in strategic alliances like the AUKUS security compact, and geopolitical risk arbitrage.

Disorder, disruption and volatility are often fetishised: this paper seeks to go beyond outdated paradigms.

Strategic PSYOP for Advancing Impellance-Based Crisis De-Escalation and Facilitating Positive Peace

On 2nd December 2025, the United States Secretary of War Pete Hegseth signalled in a widely circulated memorandum for Senior Pentagon Leadership that he would revert to the prior designation Psychological Operations (PSYOP) from the prior Obama administration’s shift to Military Information Support Operations (MISO). Secretary of War Hegseth signalled this transformation of PSYOP doctrine, campaigns, and instruments prior to recent operations in Venezuela and Iran, and public controversy over the Pentagon, Anthropic, and Palantir Technologies.

Informed by decade-long doctrinal reform debates in what is now the PSYWAR School at Fort Liberty (formerly Fort Bragg), this paper establishes an agenda-setting initiative that restores PSYOP to its strategic level over MISO’s far more limited tactical emphasis. Integral to this strategic level PSYOP re-emphasises on indirect, diachronic, longitudinal, non-kinetic, shaping forms of diplomatic, information, military and economic (DIME) instruments for the title’s identified two core strategic objectives. I go paradigmatically beyond Vallely/Aquino (1980) and Aquino (2013, 2016) oriented MindWar frameworks, to integrate strategic doctrinal insights from Sun Tzu, Sir Basil Henry Liddell Hart, John Boyd, Gene Sharp, Johan Galtung, Sohail Inayatullah, and William T. Vollmann.

]]><![CDATA[Deepfake War Is Here]]>https://www.alexburns.net/p/deepfake-war-is-herehttps://www.alexburns.net/p/deepfake-war-is-hereMon, 09 Mar 2026 06:49:41 GMTA. Iran’s new Supreme Leader.

B. On the Department of War’s Pete Hegseth (political psychology as attack PR).

C. China has closely studied Western classics (to better understand its foundational strategic thought, and to differentiate this from modernity).

D. Catalyst events (war) + prediction markets now facilitate insider trading: a new threat to national security.

E. Today’s MIT OCW free course is an Introduction to International Relations, created by Professor Richard Nielsen.

F. The deep harms of deepfakes, redux.

G. How to read 100 books a year.

H. Palantir and the US Federal Government workforce. What Palantir’s ontology is.

I. The heterodox economist Michael Hudson on Iran’s grand strategy in the Middle East.

J. An album that was part of my undergraduate years.

K. Dr Brian Keating (Peterson Academy) on cosmology.

L. Disinformation alumnus and Magick.me founder Jason Louv on strategic communications and perception management.

M. I listened to this on the weekend: Adam Tooze on the War in Iran.

N. Netflix has a new documentary on the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ early years, out on 20th March 2026.

O. The Santa Fe Institute on the origins and future of economic inequality.

P. A 90-minute Bloomberg special about the Iran war oil shock.

Q. James Baldwin, Martin Luther King and Malcolm X interviewed in 1963.

R. Some useful strategic studies lectures from Dr Julian Spencer-Churchill (Concordia University).

S. A talk by the late United Kingdom cultural critic Mark Fisher: “All this is temporary.”

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