Development and Inequality

Infographics about the green colonialism.

The global shift toward a post-carbon economy is functionally a new phase of imperialism, where the ecological costs of renewable energy are externalized onto the Global South. This analysis examines the historical parallels between fossil fuel extraction and the emerging mineral economy, revealing how the 'green transition' reproduces colonial dependencies while exacerbating environmental destruction. We explore the devastating material demands of technologies like electric vehicles and batteries, the weaponization of lithium and rare earth minerals in geopolitical conflicts, and the systematic silencing of indigenous and marginalized communities whose lands are sacrificed for the sake of planetary salvation.

IKEA's strategic investment in renewable energy has insulated it from global energy shocks, turning a potential crisis into a competitive advantage. This case study explores the timeline, economics, and strategic implications of IKEA's energy transition.

An examination of Belgium's colonial venture in the Congo — its origins, its atrocities, and its enduring shadow over Central Africa today

A five-part series examining the system-level failure hidden behind displacement statistics: 117 million people forcibly displaced worldwide, a median exile duration exceeding 20 years, and an international framework built around a crisis it was never designed to make permanent.

A five-part series using Wintrobe's loyalty-repression model and Verwimp's commune-level data to show that the Rwandan genocide was not the explosion of ancient hatreds but the rational outcome of a budget constraint the dictator could no longer meet.

A five-part series examining why the countries best endowed with natural resources are so frequently the worst governed, and how the arithmetic of commodity dependence — not culture, not climate, not colonial history alone — explains the pattern.

A four-part series tracing the arc from Cold War-era academic optimism about declining conflict, through 25 years of contradicting data, to two new metrics — the Human Cost Index and Casualty Rate — that expose the true human cost and velocity of asymmetric modern war.

7 out of 10 of casualties in Gaza are women and children.

Rwanda killed 800,000 people in 100 days. Gaza has killed more than 75,000 in 2.5 years. The numbers are not the same — but the Casualty Rate metric reveals that the mechanism is. This post introduces the velocity of killing as the field's most urgent missing variable.