Middle East and the Gulf
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Izzat Maxing
X.T.M answers Q’s claim that India–Pakistan wars will stay short, arguing that allies matter only for the fifth day. He tests this against 1971, Kargil, Operation Sindoor and the Gulf…
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Racial curve fitting analysis
Indosaurus questions the popular claim that Arab culture explains Arab military defeats, noting that the same traits appear in Japanese corporate life and that Houthis and Hezbollah have outperformed. He…
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Open Thread: Nepal Floods + 20 months since Assad
Open Thread, 27 August 2026. X.T.M opens by suggesting that Middle Eastern hybrid regimes balance the great powers nimbly, while democracies such as Israel and India pursue grander foreign policies,…
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The Failure of Pakistani Alliances & The Instability of the Middle East
0M-3 examines why alliances involving Pakistan, CENTO, SEATO and the recent Saudi Arabia and Turkey pacts, have failed, arguing that regional infighting and diverging interests, not colonial-drawn borders, are the…
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Islamicate Civilisation is a Supreme Culture: But Who Stands to Inherit It?
The post argues that Ottoman, Safavid and Mughal high culture is a supreme achievement, yet Islamicate civilisation has no custodian state among some sixty Muslim-majority countries, unlike the West, China…
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Cholistan: The Desert at the Edge of Everything
X.T.M portrays Cholistan as a seam rather than a border region: Gulf royalty hunt there, Seraiki is its language, and the dry Hakra river runs through its past. The post…
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The Façade of a rules‑based international order
Nachiketa argues that geopolitics runs on strategic interest, not ideology or cultural history, so India’s ties with Israel, Iran and Russia are pragmatic. He says Indians should not cheer the…
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The Hormuz Ultimatum: Wealth Doesn’t Win Wars
X.T.M disputes the view that military power follows GDP. He argues that the richer US-Israeli side is losing the economic war over Hormuz, and that Iran’s culture of honourable death…
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The Strait That Broke the World
X.T.M argues that the closure of the Strait of Hormuz after the 28 February US-Israeli strikes on Iran is already a global economic shock. He traces the cascade from oil…
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A Deleted Tweet Just Moved the Oil Price 17%. Welcome to the New World.
X.T.M uses the oil price shock after the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, including a deleted US Energy Secretary tweet that moved prices 17 percent, to argue the global…