See my latest on US intelligence collection in Africa in the 1970s, and the limits of HUMINT. nathanielkpowell.substack.com/p/on-the-lim...

On the Limits of HUMINT and Political Intelligence

In an earlier post, I noted that by the mid-1980s, the CIA only had a dedicated staff of some 30 analysts to cover all of Sub-Saharan Africa, located in its Office of African and Latin American Analys...

nathanielkpowell.substack.com

Could be an amazing Game of Thrones' style TV show.

David Ho@davidho.bsky.social · 3w ago

Who going to make History of the Peloponnesian War into a movie?

Zarho, 200 km à l'est de Tombouctou, Mali, 23 juin. Les Russes ont tué deux jeunes Touaregs. L'un d'entre eux a été décapité et démembré. Ses bras et ses jambes ont été placés au sol autour de sa tête pour former une croix gammée. La photo fait le tour des réseaux depuis hier

Liz Soto and Savanna Batten are 2 of those sentenced to 50 years in prison for Prairieland. I visited them in a north Texas jail—11 months into their incarceration over a July 4 noise demo—to meet the Trump admin’s “Antifa terrorists”. from behind glass, Soto said, “They didn’t like my book club.”

‘This is injustice’: how leftist zines were used to sentence anti-ICE protesters to decades in prison

Advocates sound alarm after zines were used as evidence to convict protesters of terrorism charges tied to 2025 protest at Texas ICE facility

theguardian.com

Excited to host our first workshop for the RSE-sponsored award which explores Soviet-African military relations during the Cold War. See our website www.strath.ac.uk/humanities/d... @strathclydehass.bsky.social @natkpowell.bsky.social

2016: Could the GOP nominating a twice-divorced NYC celeb who’s friendly with gay people mark the end of the culture wars? 2026: Donald Trump, somehow still president, harangues McDonald’s delivery driver about trans people in sports hours after depicting himself as the second coming of Christ

"Congress should immediately reconvene to pass a War Powers Resolution disengaging U.S. Armed Forces from hostilities against Iran. Lawmakers should also make clear that they will not support any supplemental appropriation whatsoever to fund this unauthorized war."

Congress and Other US Officials Must Act to Counter Trump’s Genocidal Threats against the Iranian People - CIP

April 7, 2026 – Center for International Policy President & CEO Nancy Okail issued the following statement in response to President Trump’s escalating threats against the Iranian people: “President Tr...

internationalpolicy.org

same Overton Window-shattering tactic he’s always used: Even if worst doesn’t happen tonight - rhetorically he’s opened up possibility of the unimaginable, making lesser (but still horrible) actions seem moderate by comparison… all increasing likelihood that one day the worst really will happen

This doesn't make a whole lot of sense, and would have been dangerous in October. Also the sources don't say four days. It was more than 2 weeks between the battles and he could have covered the distance on horse with some retainers and assembled a different army in the south.

Jack Blackburn@hackblackburn.bsky.social · 5mo ago

BIG history news this morning Harold Godwinson’s famous march where he sped from Stamford Bridge to Hastings in four days is a tale as old as time But now it looks as though the march never happened www.thetimes.com/article/a4b9...

Howard is absolutely right.

Howard French@hofrench.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Here's hoping against an American victory in Iran. That's right. My column. foreignpolicy.com/2026/03/20/u...

An overconfident Team USA getting embarrassed by a much smaller country in front of a global audience is their last and most beautiful tribute to the American military yet

Gettysburg (I grew up in Gettysburg, so cheap field trip).

Happy tyrant assassination day!

This is a really compelling statement from Alex Thurston on the grotesque amorality of Democratic Party "natsec" circle criticisms of the Iran War. They are laser-focused on strategy and legality rather than the monstrousness criminality of the act itself. alexthurston.substack.com/p/the-iran-w...

The Iran War: Establishment Voices Criticize the Strategy But Accept the Premise

It's better to reject the war root and branch.

alexthurston.substack.com

This is big. The Netherlands and Iceland have both joined the case brought by South Africa against Israel over breaches of the Genocide Convention in Gaza 👇

I know this one. Flabby Road, right?

This is key, as long as the tools are there (presidential war powers framework, network of overseas bases and logistics emplacements, institutionally powerful Pentagon and national security state, etc), they will be used to ill purpose. The only morally coherent position is to dismantle them.

John Carl Baker@johncarlbaker.bsky.social · 5mo ago

I get the sense that some liberal natsec types just want those to their left to get on board with “US empire but good” and I’m sorry but that’s not going to happen. And I don’t just mean that politically - I have serious doubts about whether restoration is even possible, let alone desirable.

The war on Iran & the war on immigrants aren’t different stories— wars justify investments in technologies of violence, create a foreign threat that manufactures consent for the abrogation of domestic rights. See: “War on Terror” that killed millions & in whose shadow DHS was formed.

Digitized photographs from Guinea-Bissau's struggle for independence...

Liberation in focus: Rare Guinea-Bissau photos added to NAI Library online archive - The Nordic Africa Institute

Historic photographs from Guinea-Bissau’s liberation struggle, taken in 1970 by Knut Andreassen, are now accessible through the NAI Library’s Liberation Africa archive.

nai.uu.se

A foreign policy for the working class is one where states collaborate to discipline capital instead of working with capital to discipline our democracies. Kitchen table conversation about anti-fascist economics with the one and only @aoc.bsky.social in Berlin.

I'm quoted in this Le Monde article on Macron's efforts to reconfigure France's security policy in Africa. As we've seen recently in Benin and Madagascar, la Françafrique isn't dead, and there's more continuity here than a break with the past. www.lemonde.fr/afrique/arti...

La France reconstruit sa stratégie de défense en Afrique

Alors que Paris a perdu du terrain, ces dernières années, dans son ancien pré carré ouest-africain, les autorités françaises s’apprêtent à ratifier un accord avec le Kenya, lequel illustre leur volont...

lemonde.fr

I simply couldn't keep quiet about some people's reaction to @davidolusoga.bsky.social's Empire episode dedicated to Mau Mau. Read my two cents in my latest article for @africasacountry.bsky.social. 🇰🇪

Africa Is a Country@africasacountry.bsky.social · 6mo ago

David Elstein’s attack on David Olusoga’s docuseries on the legacy of the British empire reveals less about historical error than about the enduring impulse to rehabilitate British colonial rule. africasacountry.com/2026/02/who-...

Lew, like McGurk, Sullivan, Blinken: more than complicit. Meaningfully responsible.

Chris Osieck@chrisosieck.bsky.social · 6mo ago

"But the U.S. ambassador to Jerusalem, Jack Lew, and his deputy, Stephanie Hallett, blocked the cable from wider distribution within the United States government because they believed it lacked balance, according to interviews with four former officials and documents seen by Reuters."

A clip from my interview with Nikhil Pal Singh - on his recent essay in @equatormag.bsky.social

Politics Theory Other@poltheoryother.bsky.social · 6mo ago

"Obama helped to put what was still in some ways a fledgling agency (ICE) and built it up into the institutional node that it is now. Obama is extremely important as a fulcrum between the origins of Homeland Security... and its hypertrophy and abuse in Trump." - Nikhil Pal Singh

Lol. Lmao.

I wrote book reviews for a while for the WSJ well over a decade ago, and Bari Weis was my editor. One of her special tricks was to try to insert a sharp rightward slant into my essays *after* it had been copy edited, as a way of slipping her viewpoint in at the last minute.

this is your mission. our pedophile president needs you to jump out of a helicopter to kidnap a head of state and his wife so some oil ceos can make a lot of money. we’ll be watching from a resort in florida that still serves wedge salad and checking how many retweets we get. good luck soldier