There’s a new sheriff in town

Quote of the Day

“It’s no surprise that the National Security Council, which is the part of the US policy apparatus that specializes in ensuring consistency, has gone through so much chaos and upheaval in the first months of Trump’s term. So too, for many other parts of the government apparatus. Every administration is trying to build the plane as it flies. This may be the first administration that is yanking random pieces out of the engine, and chucking them out of the cargo bay in mid air.”

• Henry Farrell

Musical alternative to the morning’s radio news

R.E.M. | Nightswimming

Link

Beautifully evocative of Eliot’s lines:

“The awful daring of a moment’s surrender/ which an age of prudence can never retract./ By this, and only this, we have existed.”

Long Read of the Day

Incoming from outer space: The geo-military radicalism of Iran v. Israel 2025

If you want an illustration of how inadequate journalistic coverage of the US/Israel war on Iran is, then this edition of historian Adam Tooze’s substack would be hard to beat. And it has implications for a Europe that is just waking up to what the next phase of war with Russia could be like. Drones are interesting tactical weapons and the Ukrainians have been amazingly inventive in adopting them. But they’re not where the real action would be if the worst happens. Which is why Europe is buying the Arrow 3 systems that are a cornerstone of Israel’s anti-missile defences.

Here’s how Tooze concludes his essay:

The fact of two military powers trading blows over a span of 1000 miles, over the heads of millions of uninvolved bystanders. Massive rockets roaring at hypersonic speeds into outer space … and being intercepted there.

Mark this moment!

With the Russian assault on Ukraine and the ramifications of the October 7 attack, 2023-2025 may well go down in history as the moment not only of the advent of drone warfare, but as the opening of a new era of missile and anti-missile combat. Against this backdrop, Israel’s conventional aerial bombardment of Iran, as dramatic and effective as it may be, is the “ground game” compared to the hypersonic contest raging on the edges of the atmosphere and beyond.

My commonplace booklet

Michael Moritz’s advice to Silicon Valley

Michael Moritz is one of the big-shot venture capitalists in Silicon Valley. He had some useful advice in the FT (Gift article) for his friends and clients in the Valley.

While Musk has left Washington with his reputation tarnished and his businesses impaired, the president’s family has inked deals for new hotels and golf courses around the world. Membership fees at Mar-a-Lago, his Floridian sanctuary, ballooned last year. And he is milking the enthusiasm of his supporters with his own controversial memecoin, launched days before his inauguration.

One word of advice for those in Silicon Valley who followed Musk’s lead and sided with Trump. Leave. Don’t delude yourself that you are working to make crypto a part of global finance, minimising artificial intelligence regulation, helping start-up companies or protecting the interests of Silicon Valley. You have no sway. You are just cannon fodder.

Linkblog

Something I noticed, while drinking from the Internet firehose.

• The mystery of tattoos. Economist Tyler Cowen has been in Paris, and one of his notes on the visit reads:

An amazingly high percentage of young women have publicly visible tattoos. I do not understand the logic here. I do (partially) understand tattoos as an act of rebellion, differentiation, or counter-signaling. I do not understand tattoos as an act of conformity.

Me neither.

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