Copper now sits at the center of a fast-tightening web of electrification, digital infrastructure, and geopolitical tension. Why has this unassuming metal turned into a strategic chokepoint? And why are the systems that supply it faltering just as demand accelerates?

This week we examine the growing backlog in US weapon deliveries to Taiwan, the long-term prospects of a recent ceasefire in the Thai-Cambodia border war, and President Trump’s Christmas Day strikes on Islamic State camps in Nigeria.

This week we examine the expanding quantity and range of Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian shadow fleet tankers, a US ‘declaration of vengeance’ against ISIS in Syria, and how the Thai-Cambodia conflict reflects a global system in flux.

This week we examine a resumption of hostilities between Thailand and Cambodia, interdictions at sea by the US military in the Caribbean and Indian Ocean, a tentative recovery in Canadian exports, and Ukraine dropping its longstanding aspiration for NATO membership to move peace talks ahead.

This week we examine a conspicuously warm visit by President Putin to New Delhi, Washington’s new and impractically hard line on European operations under NATO, a setback for a Trump-endorsed peace plan in Eastern DRC, and warning signs in Japanese bond markets that could spill over into global financial flows.

The industrial and military applications of tungsten make it a mainstay in critical minerals lists. Yet despite an evident strategic value that dates back to World War II, China currently dominates all portions of the global tungsten supply chain. This article explores the strategic importance of tungsten and the recent push by the United States to secure independent sources of supply.

This week we cover missile deployments near Taiwan, a brewing water crisis in Europe along with a far more advanced one in Iran, and President Trump’s latest posturing over Venezuela.

This week we cover the corruption scandal in Ukraine which triggered the latest round of ongoing peace efforts, new suspected hybrid warfare attacks in Poland, the sale of a new missile defense system to Taiwan, and the long-resisted approval of F-35 sales to Saudi Arabia.

This week we cover escalating tensions between Japan and China, a timely intervention by President Trump to rescue the Thai-Cambodia peace process, Prime Minister Carney’s latest recommendations for Canada’s major projects drive, and the latest signs of a state capitalist renaissance in the West.

This week we cover the commissioning of China’s latest aircraft carrier, details of Canada’s long-awaited military overhaul in Prime Minister Carney’s first budget, the devastation of Hurricane Melissa, and hints of procurement reforms in the US military industrial complex.