Conflicts

Egypt, Ethiopia and the hydropower trap: with the GERD complete, the Nile dispute has moved from construction to flow control. Three scenarios, calibrated probabilities, and operational implications for organisations exposed to East African power, Egyptian sovereign debt and Red Sea logistics.

Updated 22 Oct 2026 — The South China Sea was not stabilised by diplomacy in 2026; it was placed under administration: 101 vessels around contested features, a warship-escorted resupply blockade, and deliveries now "permitted" under Beijing's monitoring. Our post-summit attrition scenario has come true; the updated assessment runs three scenarios from the Shenzhen summit through Q1 2027.

The breakaway Sahel states are negotiating the terms of their regional reinsertion at the precise moment their one credible asset — a monopoly on security — is being repriced downward by the war their exit was supposed to end. The Oudalan battle sets the asking price; Moscow collects it.

The FAA sealed the Rio Grande's airspace for a year on 19 October. The next day, Russian intelligence supplied a narrative no one can disprove. CES Intelligence reads the frontier as an attribution contest — and prices what comes next.

Sixteen dead in a single day of junta airstrikes; US$5.6 billion in coerced migrant remittances now the regime's largest foreign-currency source; the last Big Four firm liquidating out. The bombing and the exodus have converged into one machine: the people Myanmar's war expelled are financing the war that expelled them.

Eleven days of drill rehearse who holds the chokepoints around Taiwan; a year of embargo decides who pays for them. Inside Keen Sword 2026, the US NMESIS debut on Yonaguni, and Beijing's mineral invoice.

With military channels suspended as Chinese presence around Philippine outposts nearly doubles, the hazard in the South China Sea is no longer the collision — it is the vacuum around it.

Egypt's National Defence Council has approved "all necessary and possible forms of support" for Saudi Arabia, sending a troop deployment mandate to parliament. The vote converts Washington's reticence into an Arab guarantee — and moves the bill to the Suez Canal, where Cairo's hard-currency lifeline meets a Houthi naval blockade. Reading time: 5 minutes.