The degree of projection in this paper is genuinely insane. Your regular reminder that Anthropic was the first AI frontier lab to actively work with the Pentagon and US intelligence agencies to help them with their global surveillance program. Back in 2024 already, they partnered with Palantir "to make Anthropic's Claude models available to U.S. intelligence and defense agencies" ( And remember the whole story earlier this year on how they refused that their AI be used for “mass domestic surveillance”? Notice something there? By definition it means that they agree with *NON-domestic* mass surveillance, meaning Anthropic has absolutely no problem with the U.S. military-industrial complex using their AI to surveil all 8 billion inhabitants on Earth, provided it excludes the 340 million Americans. And even the latter can be surveilled, just not in a “mass” way (whatever that means). Which, incidentally, is actually merely a restatement of U.S. law. Mass domestic surveillance of Americans is prohibited anyhow by the Fourth Amendment, and mass foreign surveillance is authorized under FISA Section 702 and Executive Order 12333 - the legal architecture Edward Snowden exposed in 2013. So Anthropic’s so-called “principled” stance is them actually supporting very same legal architecture that, back when the Snowden revelations broke in 2013, was rightly condemned as the most sweeping surveillance regime in the world (which it factually is). Which means that them warning that China's AI may be used for surveillance, and as such is dangerous, is literally them taking everyone for complete idiots. All the more due to the fact that, because China's AI is largely open source, you can use it in a way where you keep complete control of your data - unlike Anthropic 🤷‍♂️

This ( is, by any measure, an extraordinary article: Prince Turki Al-Faisal is a son of King Faisal and ran Saudi intelligence (the GID) for over two decades. He is writing that the plan of "the US-Israeli war on Iran" was "to ignite war between us [Saudi Arabia] and Iran," so that Israel could "impose its will on the region and remained the only actor in our surroundings." This further confirms that, contrary to what many have asserted, the notion that the Saudis were quietly backing the war on Iran was a myth (alongside the recent fact the Saudis denied the U.S. access to its bases and airspace: From the horse's mouth they're literally saying it was as much a war on them as it was on Iran! Pretty crazy when you think about it: this is Saudi Arabia saying that their real enemy in this war was the U.S. and Israel. Hard to overstate how significant a rupture this represents. Now of course they could be saying so because, seeing how the war turned out, they're trying to retroactively position themselves on the winning side (at least strategically, by saying they didn't take the bait), or trying to justify domestically why they absorbed hits from Iran without retaliating. And, of course, it's not like they're presenting Iran as some sort of ally here: Prince Turki explicitly calls them a "neighbor" that caused "pains." But still, the end result remains: the Saudi establishment is now committing, on the record and in plain language, to a framing in which, while Iran is a "painful neighbor", the U.S. and Israel represent the deeper strategic threat, having tried to engineer their destruction. If you had any lingering doubt that this war accelerated the collapse of U.S. influence in the region, this should settle it.

Every year, this has to be the one report I look forward to the most: the Democracy Perception Index, compiled by the Alliance of Democracies Foundation (in partnership with Nita Data). In fact, my yearly thread on the report is apparently such a tradition that, this year, its lead researcher personally sent me the report with this message: "every year, I look forward to your thread about it!". That's how you start wondering whether you tweet too much 😅 Why do I like this report so much? A few reasons: 1) The Alliance of Democracies Foundation, the organization behind the report, cannot even remotely be suspected of being some sort of anti-West outlet: it was started by an ex-NATO Secretary General (Anders Fogh Rasmussen) and its stated purpose is "to unite world democracies" 2) It's surprisingly honest and the methodology is actually democratic. Unlike other reports on democracy the scoring isn't done by the report's authors (like the report by Freedom House or The Economist's "Democracy Index"). It simply asks people what they think and, when it comes to democracy, that's kind of the point 🤷‍♂️ 3) I love the expression "perception is reality" because, like it or not, what people believe about their system is what determines its legitimacy. A democracy that nobody actually experiences as one can't credibly claim to be one. And conversely, a so-called "autocracy" that its people overwhelmingly believe is actually a democracy might... actually be a democracy. Anyhow, this year's edition did not disappoint. The data is absolutely fascinating and frankly, a little terrifying. So here you go: my thread on the 2026 Democracy Perception Index 🧵

When the Iran war started I wrote - in response to claims it was all about cutting China's energy supply - that, on the contrary, it'd prove to be the best advertising campaign ever for China's green energy platform (my article: It's now a fact 👇