Max Bergmann

Solar shines in the rush for power in Africa’s largest petrostate Nigeria has become a major importer of Chinese panels as buying on the continent begins to boom

Not everything sucks! If you need power today, you build solar. Cheap Chinese solar panels should just be embraced. Because they’re a product, not a commodity no real dependencies are created.

on.ft.com/3VOGbOA

Bottom line, stop blaming renewables, blame the grid for the outage. Very useful report.

God this chart should haunt every French president from Chirac onwards, very much including Macron.

Where did all the money go?

Even accepting Germany should have run looser fiscal policy, it's still shocking to see French profligacy -- being broke makes "strategic autonomy" a distant dream.

I loathe all Europeans with Yankee hats

Definitely not a bubble

It’s the Internet, Stupid What caused the global populist wave? Blame the screens.

I disagree with parts of this (Fukuyama hugely underplays "cause #1") but agree best explanation for populism's 2010s-20s surge is social media.

There's an optimism for Europe in his thesis: we're the continent that sets democratic limits on digital giants.

www.persuasion.community/p/its-the-in...

CRINK Security Ties: Growing Cooperation, Anchored by China and Russia This brief utilizes data to explore the strengths and limits of security cooperation among China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea (CRINK), with a focus on lessons learned from Russia’s war in Ukraine and Iran’s conflicts in the Middle East.

China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea are not unified actors, but recent years have shown that Washington and its allies should not discount their capacity to work together in opposition to U.S. and allied interests.

Read more from @chinapower.csis.org: www.csis.org/analysis/cri...

a group of men are sitting around a table with a pitcher of water on it ALT: a group of men are sitting around a table with a pitcher of water on it

Me after I open LinkedIn after like 3 months...

This shouldn't be shocking. The public sees Dems as the party that likes government. And Rs as the party that doesn't. Hence, if govt is shut its probably the fault of the party that doesn't like govt.

Hugely important perspective from Max.

The EU may not be directly seizing the Russian assets. The link to the Russian bank deposits in Euroclear is political I think.

But the glass is still more than half full - 140 billion in Ukraine funding is as big a deal as it sounds.

This!

Believe me, I have the utmost respect for sausage makers. Both those who actually make delicious sausages and those in the policymaking process who make palatable policies that improve things!

Just discovered this fantastic oral history of the Brussels media bubble 🇪🇺 thanks for sharing!

But the EU machine is moving. Huge steps are being taken on mobilizing money to replace the US on Ukraine and to push Ukraine EU membership forward. The EU finds a way and while sausage making ain't pretty... sausage is pretty great in the end.

The Brussels Media Landscape Explained feat. Matthew Kaminski Podcast Episode · The Eurofile · 08/28/2025 · 38m

Brussels leaks like a sieve b/c so many countries involved and no consequences, etc. So everything plays out in the press. (See this great podcast episode with Politico.EU founder Matt Kaminiski). And this creates drama, will it or won't it happen... etc. But... 3/ podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t...

Stuff is happening! Germany has shifted! There's a recognition (finally!) a huge mobilization of money is needed by the EU for Ukraine. Now they have to figure that out... which means lots of posturing, negotiating, in-fighting, institutional jockeying...and Brussels reporters get all of it! 2/

So much of the coverage of the EU is hyper-micro. It's all about the sausage making. So story out of Copenhagen European Council is "dithering," "all talk, no action," nothing fully agreed, etc. It's an effing meeting! Take a step back... they are moving on Eurobonds/frozen Russian assets. 1/

"Neither a sanctions-induced extended recession nor a slow-growth economy is likely to cause Putin to worry about regime stability," @maxbergmann.bsky.social and @msnegovaya.bsky.social write.

Read about the next chapter of Russia's war in Ukraine from @erep.csis.org: www.csis.org/analysis/rus...

quick while the government is shut down let’s all switch to metric

Member states can't borrow that much AND this means the fund will be administered by the EU... giving it coherence and potentially with huge impact on Europe's defense industrial base.

Imagine if the EU institutions bungled their budget-setting process so badly that all staff would be placed on leave without pay. You'd never hear the end of it! But oh hey it's America so just one of those things.

Russia’s War in Ukraine: The Next Chapter Russia’s war in Ukraine has persisted for over three years. Despite U.S. mediation attempts, from Saudi talks to a Trump-Putin summit in Anchorage, and European debates on peacekeepers, Russia continu...

What now. Peace talks are going nowhere. So where now for the war in Ukraine? That's what @msnegovaya.bsky.social and I assess in a new @csis.org brief. We lay out 4 potential scenarios. All involve the war continuing at its current ferocity into 2026. But what then? www.csis.org/analysis/rus...

I think the plan is the EU will just borrow the 140bn. The Russian assets are collateral for the loan. Say you got a home loan. The bank assesses your credit to determine an interest rate. They look at your assets and see you own a car - hence you have an asset you could tap. The car =Russian assets

Russia’s War in Ukraine: The Next Chapter Russia’s war in Ukraine has persisted for over three years. Despite U.S. mediation attempts, from Saudi talks to a Trump-Putin summit in Anchorage, and European debates on peacekeepers, Russia continu...

Our latest brief is out! @maxbergmann.bsky.social and I analyze the plausible trajectories of the war as peace talks stall. The takeaway is the war is unlikely to end soon. Russia has the resources/motivation to continue & Western strategies need to adjust accordingly.
www.csis.org/analysis/rus...

YouTube video by Sky News North Korean soldiers perform 'extreme martial arts' show

After the speech today, it is clear, this is gonna be the US military in a few years...

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pv3L...

So roll-over and create some own resources… By agreeing to create a monetary union, shouldn’t be shocked that a fiscal union follows.

Love dad jokes about Eurobonds!

Next mental hurdle for Germany to over come is to just roll over the NGEU debt and this, effectively creating an EU safe asset. That’s the inevitable next step.

yes, fair take. It's eurobonds with a particularly tenuous form of "own resources" repayment that nobody expects will materialise (in the same way few expect NGEU eurobonds to be repaid by EU own resources).
DE plan seems to rely more on investment income than seizing assets tho (not seen details)

It’s just Eurobonds. They are doing Eurobonds! Yay!

But politically the Germans need to make it look like something else.