Nathaniel Powell

The war on Iran & the war on immigrants aren’t different stories— wars justify investments in technologies of violence, create a foreign threat that manufactures consent for the abrogation of domestic rights.

See: “War on Terror” that killed millions & in whose shadow DHS was formed.

Liberation in focus: Rare Guinea-Bissau photos added to NAI Library online archive - The Nordic Africa Institute Historic photographs from Guinea-Bissau’s liberation struggle, taken in 1970 by Knut Andreassen, are now accessible through the NAI Library’s Liberation Africa archive.

Digitized photographs from Guinea-Bissau's struggle for independence...

A foreign policy for the working class is one where states collaborate to discipline capital instead of working with capital to discipline our democracies.

Kitchen table conversation about anti-fascist economics with the one and only @aoc.bsky.social in Berlin.

La France reconstruit sa stratégie de défense en Afrique Alors que Paris a perdu du terrain, ces dernières années, dans son ancien pré carré ouest-africain, les autorités françaises s’apprêtent à ratifier un accord avec le Kenya, lequel illustre leur volont...

I'm quoted in this Le Monde article on Macron's efforts to reconfigure France's security policy in Africa. As we've seen recently in Benin and Madagascar, la Françafrique isn't dead, and there's more continuity here than a break with the past. www.lemonde.fr/afrique/arti...

I simply couldn't keep quiet about some people's reaction to @davidolusoga.bsky.social's Empire episode dedicated to Mau Mau.

Read my two cents in my latest article for @africasacountry.bsky.social.

🇰🇪

Well to be fair he's rather on the opposite side of the war from the Chadian government, especially after Déby executed his brother to eliminate him from the presidential election.

Honestly probably one of the least surprising ones in my mind.

Lew, like McGurk, Sullivan, Blinken: more than complicit. Meaningfully responsible.

A clip from my interview with Nikhil Pal Singh - on his recent essay in @equatormag.bsky.social

Lol. Lmao.

I wrote book reviews for a while for the WSJ well over a decade ago, and Bari Weis was my editor. One of her special tricks was to try to insert a sharp rightward slant into my essays *after* it had been copy edited, as a way of slipping her viewpoint in at the last minute.

this is your mission. our pedophile president needs you to jump out of a helicopter to kidnap a head of state and his wife so some oil ceos can make a lot of money. we’ll be watching from a resort in florida that still serves wedge salad and checking how many retweets we get. good luck soldier

Ist Statement On Venezuela <figure class="image image-style-side"><img src="https://internationalsocialists.org/storage/images/fZmIDzdCzANpT5VG5XR4fKGcheByfopgMJKEtjZs.jpg"><figcaption>President of Venezuela Nicolas Maduro. Pho...

IS Tendency statement on Venezuela internationalsocialists.org/announcement...

Found my old pog collection. Some pretty sick slammers in there. Rocking the holiday season like it's 1994.

A few excerpts from Darmok's Christmas Story:

Ralphie and Flick, at the flagpole.

Randy, his arms down.

The Old Man, when the lamp broke.

Santa and Ralphie, on the mountain.

This is all about militarist aesthetics and nothing to do with actually countering these groups. One can only hope that the Nigerian government can manage US posturing in a way that limits potential negative consequences.

HARPERS WEEKLY. JOURNAL OF CIVILIZATION Vor. VII.-No. 314.] NEW YORK, SATURDAY, JANUARY 1863. GELCOM SANTA CLAUS SANTA CLAUS IN CAMP.-[SEE PAGE 6]

Nast's image was published in the 1862 Christmas issue of Harper’s Weekly, during days filled with both trials for the Union and rising hope. Santa Claus has arrived by sleigh in a Union army camp to distribute gifts. This was the moment that Nast conceived and introduced our modern image of Santa Claus. Combining European traditions of St. Nicholas with folk images of elves from his native Germany, he created the jolly gift-giver now associated with Christmas that here offers cheer to soldiers far from home. He distributes boxes of necessities such as warm socks, copies of Harper's Weekly, and entertains the crowd with a jumping jack dangling from a noose, its chest lettered "Jeff" in reference to the Confederate President Jefferson Davis. In the background, soldiers chase an escaped hog, roast meat on a spit and play fairground games such as climbing a greased pole. This image on the title page of the journal was supported by a two-page spread within the journal that shows Santa visiting sleeping children in New York (see 33.35.26 and 29.88.4(8)).

One of the earliest-ever modern portrayals of Santa Claus features him gifting Union soldiers with a jumping-jack doll of Jefferson Davis dangling from a noose - as drawn by political cartoonist Thomas Nast.

www.metmuseum.org/art/collecti...

Scene from Star Trek The Next Generation's Christmas Special and it's a real Worf masterpiece. He's standing, in uniform, and holding his arms out gripping the air like Macho Man Randy Savage pumping up the crowd. There are two black cattle prod looking objects with glowing red lights on the end of them being poked into his chestal region, basically straight in them nipples. His face is alive with the fire of a thousand suns. Merry Christmas.

O holy night

This 100%. I'm military history- adjacent, and it has definitely hurt me on the job market. But it has nothing to do with "woke" hiring practices and much to do with disciplinary biases. The academy still disproportionately hires white males.

Opération Colère de Dieu : quand les espions européens ont aidé le Mossad à tuer Des archives jusque-là confidentielles dévoilent la face cachée de l’opération Colère de Dieu, la campagne d’assassinats du Mossad qui a suivi la prise d'otages des Jeux olympiques de Munich en 1972.…

Today, the brilliant Sebastian Seibt has written a news story about #OperationWrathofGod for France24. An excellent summary and I am very glad to see that research for my book reaches a French-speaking audience: www.france24.com/fr/europe/20...

If you want to know why Pete Hegseth is confident he'll face no consequences for blatant war crimes, just look at the list of people who attended Dick Cheney's funeral.

Seems to be a recurrent pattern of human bureacracies--it's definitely true in the private sector!

California and New York all the way.

Emmanuel Macron au Gabon, première visite depuis l'arrivée au pouvoir de Brice Oligui Nguema Le président français Emmanuel Macron a entamé dimanche 23 novembre une visite d'État au Gabon visant à « renforcer et renouveler » le partenariat bilatéral, deux ans après la fin de l'ère Bongo. C'es...

Looks like Macron is on one of his dictator tours again. Next stop Washington?
rfi.my/CCzK

The coup kids are in charge now Across the continent’s new coup belt, young officers are stepping into power, casting themselves as guardians against corrupt civilian elites.

The colleagues at @africasacountry.bsky.social have republished my article on the rise of the military class now steering politics in several African countries — with Madagascar the latest example — and what is driving this problem.

africasacountry.com/2025/11/the-...

Oh yeah one of the best.

I joined Alex Thurston and @natkpowell.bsky.social for a conversation about how the end of the Cold War played out across the Sahel and Horn of Africa regions.

We also looked at the characters from that era and the legacies of their rule today. Check it out 👇

Podcast Episode: The End of the Cold War from the Sahel to the Horn of Africa I talk with Faisal Ali and Nathaniel Powell about a pivotal period in African history.

@faisalahali.bsky.social, Alex Thurston, and I have done a podcast episode on the end of the Cold War in West and East Africa. The discussion is wide-ranging, covering a variety of experiences of the late 1980s/early 1990s, and their legacies. Have a listen! alexthurston.substack.com/cp/179131463

This is going to go down as the dumbest war in the Western Hemisphere since Napoleon III decided that only a Habsburg princeling could save Mexico

Not sure who in the US political spectum qualifies as that kind of left demagogue.