By 2030, all five Central Asian states will be further from Russia and closer to Beijing. The variation lies in how close each will be to Beijing and in the mix of China and the West. Cultural perspectives, geography, leadership, and what each country sells will determine the outcome.

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In September 2022, Xi Jinping made his first foreign trip since the start of the pandemic. He flew to Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan, to meet Kazakhstan’s president, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, before going on to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Uzbekistan. In Astana, Xi promised China would “strongly support” Kazakhstan’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. The line was aimed at Putin. Delivering it in Kazakhstan before the summit was also a message to Putin: China is coming.

Kazakhstan is the largest Central Asian nation. It borders Russia from China to the Caspian Sea, roughly half of Russia's southern border. No other country shares a longer border with Russia.

It’s not just Kazakhstan that China is winning. China now buys roughly 90 percent of Turkmenistan’s gas. Chinese state banks lend more to Central Asia than Russian banks do. The Belt and Road projects launched in 2013 have built roads, rail lines, dry ports, and pipelines that route Central Asian trade east toward China rather than north toward Russia.

The deals are bilateral. Beijing negotiates with one government at a time, leader-to-leader. No public conditions on how a country is run, or other meddling in the nation's internal affairs. They operate through personal relationships at the top (particularism). They settle disputes in private and keep public face (face and honor). The cultural perspectives of China and the five states line up.

The European Union arrived late but with money on the table. The first EU-Central Asia summit was held in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, in April 2025. The EU pledged billions of euros under its Global Gateway program: €6.4 billion for water and energy, €10 billion for the trade corridor across the Caspian, €2.5 billion for critical minerals, and €100 million for satellite internet. It signed critical minerals agreements with Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.

The catch is that Brussels’ cultural perspective does not match. The EU attaches conditions; it operates through institutions rather than relationships (universalism) and favors a more equitable, less top-down structure (low power distance). Central Asian leaders take the money where they can and sidestep the political conditions. EU diplomacy applies the same public standards to all members equally. Central Asian politics is built on private deals tailored to each leader. The cultural perspectives clash.

The United States is the inconsistent third party. President Biden hosted the first head-of-state C5+1 meeting in September 2023 in New York. President Trump hosted the second in November 2025 at the White House, where the five governments signed more than $130 billion in commercial deals, including a $100 billion package with Uzbekistan and $17 billion with Kazakhstan. The U.S. lost its air bases at Manas in Kyrgyzstan and Karshi-Khanabad in Uzbekistan more than a decade ago and has not replaced them.

The U.S. approach changes with each president. Under Biden, deals came tied to political conditions: democracy, transparency, and anti-corruption. Under Trump, deals are deal-by-deal, no relationship building, demanding, and one-sided. The five governments know the approach will change again with the next president.

The EU can grow trade with conditions attached. The U.S. positions change and come and go. China’s approach does not change with elections. The cultural fit between China and Central Asia is why Beijing is the clear winner.

Saturday’s Core Brief, for paid subscribers, predicts where each of the five states will be by 2030.

In June 2022, at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, the president of Kazakhstan, Tokayev, shared the stage with Putin. Asked by the moderator about Russia's war in Ukraine, Tokayev said Kazakhstan would not recognize the self-declared Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics. Putin, sitting beside him, did not respond.

That clip was seen across Central Asia. If there was a singular moment that Putin knew he’d lost Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, and was slowly losing the rest of Central Asia, this was it.

Russia had controlled Central Asia for 200 years, beginning in the early 1800s when the Tsars conquered the Khanates. The Soviet Union absorbed them as Soviet republics, and the Russian Federation maintained control through investment, language, and military integration. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine brought that to an end.

Western secondary sanctions made any bank that handled Russian transactions a risk. To eliminate that risk, Kazakh and Uzbek banks stopped working with Russian banks. As the war progressed, Russian firms pulled cash out of the Central Asian nations to cover war costs. Trade did not stop, but the share moving through Russian channels collapsed.

Kazakhstan still ships most of its oil through Russia from western Kazakhstan to a Russian port on the Black Sea, where the oil is loaded onto tankers and sent to Europe. Russia has used this dependence to pressure Kazakhstan, including by shutting down loading points at the Black Sea port and cutting off a second pipeline that carried Kazakh oil to Germany. These actions are only accelerating Kazakhstan’s move away from Russia

Turkmenistan sends most of its gas to China. Uzbekistan signed a critical minerals agreement with the European Union in 2024. The money doesn’t just skip Russian banks; it goes to other nations.

Kazakhstan adopted a 2023 to 2029 language plan that shifts everyday government work into Kazakh and lifts the Kazakh-language broadcast quota to 55 percent. Soviet-era monuments have come down in several cities. Enrollment in Russian-language schools has fallen every year since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. None of the five governments have condemned Russia, nor have any supported it.

The Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), led by Moscow, was supposed to create military unity among Russia and many of the Soviet Union’s former republics. In January 2022, when protests in Kazakhstan turned violent, CSTO troops, mostly Russian, arrived to help President Tokayev hold power. Weeks later, those same Russian units were redeployed to Ukraine. The CSTO has been hollowed out as a guarantee, but the bases remain. Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan now run their own security planning. None has formally left CSTO, but none of them treat it as a real guarantee. Tajikistan now trains alongside Chinese units at the Pamir border.

For thirty years after the fall of the Soviet Union, the ruling class spoke Russian, studied in Russian universities, and treated Moscow as the reference point. That class is retiring. The generation now entering government was born after 1991, was schooled in its national language, and treats Russia as a neighbor, not the controlling influence.

This is the difference between a cyclical change and a structural change. Cyclical change reverses when a leader changes or sanctions lift. Structural changes do not reverse because the structures that produced them are gone. Russia does not have spare troops. It does not have spare cash. It does not have a generation that still defers to it. China, the European Union, and even the United States have moved into the power vacuum left by Russia. Russia won’t get it back.

Friday’s edition examines who is filling the power void: China as the dominant economic player, the European Union as the late but serious entrant, and the United States as the inconsistent third party. The fit between Chinese and Central Asian cultural perspectives explains why Beijing is winning the infrastructure and trade race.

Saturday’s Core Brief, for paid subscribers, predicts where each of the five states will be by 2030.

Russia held the region for two hundred years. Putin lost it in four.

Central Asia is a region of the world that Europeans are less familiar with and that Americans have generally never heard of. It’s an area that has been the concern of Russia, China, and the British Empire, when it was an empire.

Five nations sit south of Russia between China and the Caspian Sea. They hold a great deal of the world's critical minerals and natural gas, and almost nobody outside the region can name them:

• Kazakhstan

• Kyrgyzstan

• Uzbekistan

• Turkmenistan

• Tajikistan

American history books leave them out, and European textbooks include only a few lines because for two hundred years, Central Asia has been the purview of Russia, China, and the British Empire. Before Russia arrived, this region was the connecting artery of Eurasia. The Silk Road ran through Samarkand, Bukhara, and Tashkent. The cities were centers of mathematics, astronomy, medicine, and Islamic scholarship. The people were Turkic, Persian, and Mongol, organized into khanates and emirates.

The land was vast, and the cities were rich because everyone trading between China and Europe had to pass through. Different cultural perspectives, different languages, and different ways of organizing power lived side by side. Russia moved south in the 1800s. By the 1870s, Tsarist forces had taken the khanates one by one. The British, worried about pressure on India, watched and pushed back. The two empires shadowed each other across the mountains and deserts for the next forty years.

Rudyard Kipling called it the Great Game. The British eventually withdrew. Russia kept control. The Soviet Union absorbed the region in the 1920s and turned the region into Soviet states. Borders were drawn deliberately to cross ethnic lines. The intent was to make any future independence difficult to coordinate. Moscow ran the economy, the language, the schools, and the religion.

By 1991, when the Soviet Union dissolved, the five republics became countries overnight. Most kept their Soviet-era leaders, and Russia remained the dominant power. Russian was the working language. Russian banks moved the money. Russian troops trained the soldiers. Russian gas heated the cities. The five states were independent in name but all but Russian in fact. However, Russian influence has been waning since 2022.

The war in Ukraine showed Central Asia that Russia is weaker than it claimed. Russian troops left the region to fight and have not returned. Russian companies pulled cash home. Russian sanctions made Russian partners toxic to Western banks. The five governments did not condemn Moscow, but they stopped depending on it and supporting it. Kazakhstan refused to recognize the annexations of Ukrainian territory. Uzbekistan reopened conversations with Washington and Brussels. All five turned toward Beijing, which had been waiting for them.

China now buys most of the region's gas, builds most of its roads, and lends most of its development money. The European Union held its first Central Asia summit in 2025 and signed critical minerals deals. The United States is making an appearance, albeit inconsistently.

Each of these nations has different cultural perspectives, and that will determine how each reacts to Russia, China, and the West. Ignoring Central Asia is the biggest mistake most outsiders make. Treating it as one place is the second mistake they make.

Wednesday's edition examines how Russia is losing the region and why Moscow is not coming back.

Friday's edition examines what is replacing Russian influence: China, the big player, the European Union's late but serious entry, and where the United States fits, if it fits at all.

Saturday's Core Brief, for paid subscribers, looks at where each of the five states are liekly to be by 2030: deeper into Beijing's orbit, staying close to Moscow, or building working ties with Brussels or even Washington.

The cultural perspectives of each country drive the answer, and the answer is already visible in the policies being made now.

The region the world ignored for two hundred years is back.

Three diplomatic negotiations are active in May 2026: the Iran nuclear talks, the U.S.-China tariff negotiations, and the Russia-Ukraine settlement track. None of them will produce a comprehensive deal.

The reason in each case is the same cultural mismatch that we examined this week. Western dignity culture builds diplomacy on public pressure. To honor and face cultures, that’s what ends cooperation. Until Western diplomacy can negotiate without requiring its counterparts to publicly accept defeat, deals with non-dignity cultures will continue to fail.

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Iran and China are unlikely partners. Yet, they are five years into a 25-year strategic agreement, and this week in Beijing, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi.

Wang Yi called for an immediate end to hostilities and condemned what he called warmongering by the United States and Israel. China continues to buy more than one million barrels of Iranian oil per day. The United States sanctioned a major Chinese refinery in April for processing Iranian crude. The relationship between China and Iran has not weakened. It has deepened.

When Israel and the United States began strikes on Iran in February 2026, most Western analysts predicted China would distance itself from Tehran. The argument was that China had too much to lose: trade with the West, a carefully cultivated reputation, and a history of avoiding direct conflict. None of those predictions have come true.

Western analysts from dignity cultures assume that face and honor cultures have difficulty coordinating because the two appear very different. The opposite is true. Face culture and honor culture fit each other in ways Western dignity culture do not understand.

Monday’s edition introduced the three cultural perspectives. Dignity cultures treat worth as intrinsic. Honor cultures treat worth as something that must be claimed and defended publicly. Face cultures treat worth as positional and maintained privately.

In face cultures, public criticism causes both parties to lose face. The one being criticized loses face because they have been visibly criticized. The one doing the criticizing also loses face because they caused public conflict and disrupted the harmony. Face cultures deal with disagreements through private channels.

China applies this rule consistently. China does not publicly criticize Iran’s nuclear program, its support for proxy groups, or its internal politics. China’s public statements about Iran are cautious, even when Iranian actions run counter to Chinese interests. Western analysts read this as Chinese weakness or appeasement. It is neither. It is normal face of cultural diplomacy.

In honor cultures, public criticism is an attack on reputation that demands an answer. Iran cannot accept public criticism from a more powerful state without responding, because failure to respond is a loss of reputation.

China never puts Iran in this position. Whatever China wants from Iran is communicated in private, in language that allows Iran to comply without public humiliation. Whatever Iran wants from China is communicated privately, and Iran does not publicly pressure China.

In this arrangement, face culture gets the private negotiation it requires. Honor culture gets the public respect it requires.

Western diplomacy is built on public pressure: sanctions announced at press conferences, criticism delivered at the UN, demands published in joint statements. From a dignity perspective, public pressure is normal and effective. From a face perspective, it makes cooperation impossible. From an honor perspective, it demands a response and escalation.

Western attempts to pressure China and Iran at the same time usually produce the opposite of what Western governments want. The pressure that Western diplomacy expects will divide them keeps them together.

In 2006, the UN Security Council voted on sanctions targeting Iran’s nuclear program. China abstained rather than voting against. Public opposition to a U.S.-led resolution would have been a public confrontation. Public support would have damaged China’s reputation.

In 2015, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) succeeded because the framing allowed Iran to accept limits without public submission. The deal was presented as an agreement between Iran and the P5+1, not as a Western imposition on Iran. China supported the deal because the structure preserved everyone’s reputation.

In 2018, the United States withdrew from the JCPOA unilaterally and publicly. From an honor perspective, the withdrawal humiliated Iran, and Iran could not return to the same deal afterward. From a face perspective, China could not be seen forcing Iran back into a deal the United States had just publicly broken.

In 2021, China and Iran signed a 25-year strategic cooperation agreement covering oil, infrastructure, military cooperation, and political alignment. The Western prediction was that it would not hold. It has.

In April 2026, after Israel and the United States attacked Iran, China made a last-minute push on Tehran for a temporary ceasefire. It was a behind-the-scenes mediation.

Honor and face cultures understand the rule: never criticize others in public. They disagree about where respect comes from, but they do know that public criticism ends cooperation. Dignity cultures routinely use public criticism. To honor and face cultures, those moves strain the relations and eventually end the relationship. That is why honor and face cultures work together and why dignity cultures cannot keep stable relationships with either of them.

Saturday’s Core Brief makes three specific predictions for 2026: the Iran nuclear talks, the U.S.-China tariff negotiations, and the Russia-Ukraine settlement track. Each prediction is grounded in a cultural mismatch that readers can name.

In February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine. Within hours, most Western analysts described the invasion as irrational, unprovoked, and a strategic miscalculation. Russia would face sanctions, be isolated, collapse, and lose the war.

Four years later, the war continues. Russia has not collapsed, the sanctions did not break the economy, and the isolation did not end Putin’s rule. Western analysts continue to call the invasion irrational and continue to predict Russia’s imminent collapse.

The Western analysis is consistent and wrong.

The mistake is not that Western analysts misjudged Russian capabilities. It is a framework mistake. Western analysts have been using the wrong cultural perspective to read Russian behavior for decades, and the war is the latest evidence of the mistake. They are reading Russian behavior through a dignity culture perspective. Russia operates through an honor perspective. Until Western analysts understand this, they will keep predicting outcomes that do not happen and missing the outcomes that do.

Monday’s edition introduced the three cultural perspectives. Dignity cultures treat worth as intrinsic. Honor cultures treat worth as something that must be claimed and defended publicly. Face cultures treat worth as positional and maintained privately.

From the dignity culture perspective, NATO expansion is a defensive arrangement. Countries that want to join have asked to join. Their sovereignty gives them the right to choose their own alliances. No one is being attacked or humiliated. The framework assumes that words like “defensive” and “voluntary” mean the same thing to everyone. They do not.

From the honor culture frame, NATO expansion is a public failure for Russia. Each new NATO member is a public provocation that Russia can not stop the encirclement and threat.

From the In honor cultural persepctive, reputation determines what you can do next. A country that cannot stop its neighbors from joining a rival alliance will not be respected in other arenas. Reputation follows you everywhere.

This is why Putin’s speeches repeatedly refer to NATO expansion. From an honor perspective, the issue remains unresolved because Russia’s reputation has not been restored. From a dignity perspective, Putin is fixated on an irrelevant issue.

The dignity culture response to Russian escalation is more sanctions, more support to Ukraine, and more public statements condemning Russia. Each of these is read by Russia as an additional insult and provocation. Each further harming its reputation.

The honor culture response to Western criticism is public defiance, retaliation, and escalation. Each of these is interpreted by the West as confirmation that Putin is irrational and must be stopped.

The cycle has no exit until leaders realize the cultural perspectives and work with them.

At the Munich Security Conference in 2007, Putin gave a speech rejecting a unipolar world order led by the United States. Putin was telling the West, in honor terms, that Russia's standing and reputation were under attack. The speech was dismissed. The dismissal was another insult.

At the Bucharest Summit in 2008, NATO stated that Ukraine and Georgia would become members but offered no timeline. The lack of a timeline was a diplomatic compromise. From an honor perspective, it was a public declaration that the West would expand on when it chose to. Russia invaded Georgia four months later.

On 22 February 2014, the Ukrainian Parliament voted out pro-Russian Yanukovych. Russian forces invaded Crimea five days later. From the honor perspective, the public loss of influence over Ukraine demanded a public response.

In 2022, after years of Russian demands to halt NATO expansion had been ignored, Putin invaded Ukraine.

In 2026, the war has not ended because no settlement has allowed Russia to publicly recover its reputation as a global leader with influence over global affairs. Russia rejects any settlement framed as a Western win. The West rejects any settlement that rewards aggression. The trap is closed.

Friday’s edition examines the China-Iran relationship and why face cultures and honor cultures, despite looking very different, coordinate easily.

Saturday's Core Brief makes three specific predictions for 2026: the Iran nuclear talks, the U.S.-China tariff negotiations, and the Russia-Ukraine settlement track. Each prediction is grounded in a cultural mismatch that readers can name.

A European foreign minister in Brussels publicly and officially criticizes a foreign government for human rights violations. Depending on which government is being addressed and which cultural perspective it comes from, there will be three vastly different reactions.

If the target is Sweden, the response is procedural. The Swedish foreign ministry issues a measured statement. The dispute moves into formal channels. Nothing is personal in the situation. Government institutions and bureaucrats handle the issue.

If the target is Russia, the response is public and immediate. The Russian foreign ministry issues a sharp counterstatement. State media broadcasts the counterstatement, and the original criticism is repeated everywhere alongside the angry response. The substance of the issue is replaced by the question of who insulted whom. An insult left unanswered is an insult accepted.

If the target is China, the public response is muted, almost dismissive. The Chinese foreign ministry issues a brief statement and says nothing more. Behind the scenes here may be subtle, indirect, pushback: channels close, visas slow, and trade conversations stall. The criticism is never discussed publicly. There is a response, but it is not made public.

These three reactions result from three different cultural operating systems.

Angela K.-Y. Leung and Dov Cohen identified three distinct cultural perspectives on how groups define personal and collective worth and respond when that worth is threatened. They published the integrated framework in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology in 2011, building on Richard Nisbett's earlier research on the American South and Joe Vandello's experiments on honor-based responses to insult. It is a well-developed framework in cross-cultural psychology that is increasingly used in research. It is rarely applied to international relations. It should be.

Dignity Cultures

In dignity cultures, a person’s worth is intrinsic. You are worthy because you are a person. Worth is determined by what you think of yourself, not by what other people think of you. Public criticism is uncomfortable but not threatening to core identity. Disputes get resolved through impersonal institutions: courts, contracts, treaties, and regulators. The assumption is that the system, not the individual, will deliver justice over time.

This is the cultural water Western diplomacy swims in. The United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and most of the EU operate on dignity logic. Western diplomats assume their counterparts do too. Most of the world does not.

Honor Cultures

In honor cultures, a person’s worth is in their reputation. You are worthy when others see you as worthy, and that reputation requires constant maintenance. Public criticism is an attack on one's reputation that must be responded to publicly. Disputes get resolved through public exchange: counter-statements, retaliation, and sometimes violence. The assumption is that the individual, not the system, must deliver justice because, once reputation is lost, no court or treaty can restore it.

Parts of Russia, Iran, much of the Middle East, and Latin America operate from an honor cultural perspective. Western diplomats see the public escalation and conclude their counterparts are irrational. They are not. They are following a consistent cultural system that says reputation must be defended publicly.

Face Cultures

In face cultures, a person’s worth comes from their social position and the respect of the group. You are worthy when the group treats you as worthy. Worth is determined by your place in the social order, not by what you say about yourself. Public criticism causes both sides to lose face: the one being criticized and the one doing the criticizing. Disputes are resolved through private channels: closed meetings, indirect messages, reduced cooperation, or withholding access. The assumption is that the relationship, not the public exchange, determines what happens next.

China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, and most of Southeast Asia operate from a face cultural persepctive. Western diplomats wait for a public response that never comes and conclude that their counterparts have nothing to say. They are wrong. The response is happening in private channels that they do not see.

Most of the major diplomatic stalemates today are not strategic disagreements. They are cultural mismatches between these three cultural perspectives. The framework explains why some negotiations fail, no matter how reasonable the proposals look on paper, and why some alliances are more stable than others despite seeming improbable.

Wednesday’s edition examines the dignity-honor mismatch between the United States and Russia. Why NATO expansion triggers Russian honor, why the Western framing of the war reinforces Russian escalation, and why this misreading is locked in place.

Friday’s edition examines the face-honor compatibility between China and Iran. Why their alignment is more stable than any Western alliance with either country, and why face cultures and honor cultures coordinate easily despite seeming so different on the surface.

Saturday’s Core Brief, for paid subscribers, takes the framework forward and makes three specific predictions about diplomatic outcomes in 2026. The Iran nuclear talks. The US-China tariff negotiations. The Russia-Ukraine settlement track.

Diplomacy fails because one culture cannot read another. Once you can name the cultural perspective on both sides of the table, the outcome becomes predictable.

Marco Rubio, the U.S. Secretary of State, met Pope Leo XIV at the Vatican this week. The audience was meant to repair a rift that began in October, was accelerated by Trump in early April, and that Trump has reopened almost weekly since. The rift has cost Trump his strongest ally on the European right.

Pope Leo first drew Trump’s anger over deportations in late 2025. Leo called U.S. deportation tactics 'extremely disrespectful.' He called migrants “messengers of hope”. He accepted Cardinal Timothy Dolan, a friend of Trump’s, mandatory retirement and chose Bishop Ronald Hicks, a public critic of the deportation campaign, as his successor. The Iran war made it worse. Leo called Trump’s threats against the Iranian people “truly unacceptable” and said a “delusion of omnipotence” was driving the U.S. and Israeli campaign.

On April 12, 2026, after a CBS “60 Minutes” segment in which three American cardinals called the Iran war “unjust,” Trump posted on Truth Social, his social media platform, that Leo was “WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy.” He added that Leo would not be pope if Trump were not president. The next day, Leo answered that he had “no fear” of the administration and would not stop speaking about the Gospel. Days later, Trump posted, then deleted, an image generated by artificial intelligence of himself as Jesus. On May 5, on The Hugh Hewitt Show, Trump claimed Leo was “endangering a lot of Catholics” and accused him of being soft on Iran’s nuclear program. Leo had said no such thing.

Criticizing Leo was a mistake. About fifty million Americans are Catholic. A pope born in Chicago who speaks American English is the worst possible critic for a president who won the Catholic vote in 2024 by fifteen points. Trump’s pattern with critics is to discredit them until they go silent. Leo did not go silent.

While in Cameroon in mid-April, Leo denounced the “handful of tyrants” spending billions on war. He held his line on migrants. The Vatican is preparing his first encyclical, an official letter from the pope to the worldwide Catholic Church, on artificial intelligence, international peace, and the crisis of international law. It is expected on May 15, the 135th anniversary of Rerum Novarum.

The reaction to Trump’s attack and Leo’s response has fallen into two groups, and one of them was a surprise.

The expected group spoke first. Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, said: “While some sow the world with wars, Leo XIV sows peace, with bravery and courage.” French President Emmanuel Macron met Leo at the Vatican on April 10 and accused Trump of “fueling instability.” Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, told Brazil’s bishops that “advocates for peace and for the oppressed have been attacked by powerful people who think they are deities to be adored.” Mexico’s Claudia Sheinbaum and Colombia’s Gustavo Petro joined Sánchez and Lula in Barcelona on April 18 at a summit framed openly against Trump.

The unexpected group is the headline. Italy’s prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, was Trump’s strongest ally in Europe and the bridge between MAGA and the European populist right. Italy had already refused to support the Iran war and denied U.S. bombers permission to land at Sigonella, an Italian air base that hosts a major US military presence in Sicily. On April 13, she called Trump’s attack on the pope “unacceptable” and said: “The pope is the head of the Catholic Church, and it is right and normal for him to call for peace and to condemn all forms of war.” Trump told Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera the next day: “I thought she had courage, but I was wrong.” He has not spoken with her since.

In Italy, Catholic identity is integrated with national identity. The two value systems Schwartz calls Conservation (tradition, conformity, security) and Embeddedness (loyalty to one’s group) cluster in Italy around the Church, not the political party. Italy is also a diffuse culture (Trompenaars): a politician’s faith and the office they hold are not as separated as in other Western nations. So when forced to choose between the American president and the bishop of Rome, Meloni’s choice was clear.

Trump’s attacks have produced the opposite of their goal (if they even had a goal). They have not silenced Leo; they have given him a stage and a reason for people to rally around him. They have turned his ally, Meloni, into a critic, hardened opposition from Sánchez, Macron, Lula, Sheinbaum, and many other leaders, and built a larger audience for the encyclical Leo will publish in the next few weeks.

Watch for more leaders to use this to distance themselves from Trump. This is an ideal opening for the right to push back against Trump with little political fallout.

Russia is at stage five of its seven-stage cycle. Putin is 73. He has not named a successor. He is losing the war in Ukraine. Russian forces are taking more casualties each month than the army can recruit replacements. The economy is under heavy strain. The strong hand is weakening.

The historical pattern

The Russian historical cycle has seven stages.

1. Chaos, called the smuta or “time of troubles,” breaks the system.

2. A strong hand, the silnaya ruka, emerges.

3. That leader restores order, often through force.

4. The country expands outward to build buffer territory against outside threats.

5. The strong hand weakens through age, defeat, succession failure, or economic strain.

6. A short reform period either fails or speeds the unraveling.

7. The system collapses back into chaos.

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The U.S. frames China as an authoritarian government. Its citizens compelled through intimidation to obey government officials. An oppressed, freeless people, surviving day to day. It is not true.

Presenting China this way is a function of both propaganda and a gross misreading of cultural perspectives.

Here are five cultural dimensions that help explain why Americans get China wrong.

The group decides, not the individual. Cultural theorist Fons Trompenaars called this communitarianism. Cultures where individuals and the government make decisions based on how their actions affect others, not just themselves. In China, decisions are weighed by how they affect the group: family, company, party, country.

The U.S. sits on the other end. There, individualism rules. Personal choice and personal benefit come first. So when an American sees a Chinese citizen obey a government rule, the American reads it as forced obedience. It is not. The cultural perspective is to join in, just as the American cultural perspective is to do it alone.

Concern for others, not personal achievement. Cultural theorist Shalom H. Schwartz called this benevolence. It’s more than wanting to be part of the group; it’s attending to the well-being of those around you. In China, an official is treated as a steward of the group. Supporting that official is part of supporting the members of the group.

The U.S. sits on Schwartz’s achievement pole. There, personal success is the most important value. Visible individual wins, awards, and titles come first. So when an American sees a Chinese citizen praise an official, the American reads it as fear or coercion. It is not. The cultural perspective is to honor the leaders who care for the group, just as the American cultural perspective is to celebrate the individual who achieves great things alone.

Stability and harmony over liberty. Schwartz also identified a security cultural dimension. Cultures where individuals and the government treat social order, stability, and harmony as core values. In China, people want stability and harmony, and they expect the government to provide it.

The U.S. sits on the other end. There, liberty rules, and they expect the government to provide personal freedom and personal choice. So when an American sees Chinese citizens back the government on a hard policy, the American reads compliance under threat. It is not. The cultural perspective is to value stability and harmony, just as the American cultural perspective is to value liberty.

Decades, not quarters. Cultural theorist Geert Hofstede called this long-term orientation. Cultures where individuals and institutions plan in decades, accepting small sacrifices now for larger gains later. In China, the population understands and accepts an inconvenience today for gains tomorrow.

The U.S. sits on the other end. There, the short term is the focus: the news cycle, next quarter, the next election. So when an American sees Chinese citizens accept a sacrifice, like a lockdown, a tax, or a relocation, the American reads helpless suffering under an oppressive government. It is not. The cultural perspective is to see the long-term picture, just as the American cultural perspective is to focus on the here and now.

Quality of life, not personal accumulation. Hofstede also identified the quality of life dimension. Success is defined as time with family and friends, pursuing hobbies and interests, and having experiences.

The U.S. sits on the other end, where success is defined as Income, assets, and career. So when an American sees a Chinese household with less personal wealth than an American household, the American reads poverty and oppression. It is not. The cultural perspective is success measured by quality of life, just as the American cultural perspective is success measured by money and assets.

Each dimension on its own creates misunderstanding. Together, they create a fundamentally different understanding of how life is lived. Neither system is better or worse, superior or inferior. They are just different. It is up to both sides to understand that.

Singapore and New Zealand signed an agreement on 4 May to keep specific essential goods moving between them during a crisis, and they want others to join them. This is what merchant city-states and small nations have done for millennia.

The Historical Pattern

Venice used this strategy from the 13th through the 15th centuries. The Hanseatic League, an alliance of north German trading cities from the 13th to the 15th century. Malacca on the strait between Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula in the 15th and early 16th century. Each was small and had no resources of its own. Each survived by being needed by powerful nations. So each built networks of trusted partners. They signed agreements among themselves to keep goods moving regardless of who was at war.

The second pattern is more recent. In 2002, three small economies, Chile, New Zealand, and Singapore, launched the Pacific Three, a minor trade pact. Brunei joined in 2004, making it the P4. Larger economies began joining the talks in 2008, and by 2018, that small framework had grown into a trade deal with 11 members, now called the CPTPP, that covers about 14 percent of global GDP. The same four countries that started the P4 wrote the rules that the larger economies later joined.

Cultural Dimensions

Neither Singapore nor New Zealand can control the forces shaping the world: the Middle East war, US tariffs, and the world reforming into multiple power blocs. They are working with the situation as it is, rather than trying to force it into what they want it to be. This is Trompenaars’ externally directed culture, “going with the flow” rather than pushing against it.

Both countries also rely on written rules that apply to anyone who joins this new trade bloc. New Zealand inherits this from the British legal tradition. Singapore built it deliberately under Lee Kuan Yew. The agreement is a written list of essential goods with uniform obligations, designed from the start to be copied, so that any nations that want to join know exactly what it entails and the obligations they are held to. Trompenaars calls this universalism, the belief that the same rule should apply to everyone regardless of the situation or relationship.

The agreement is designed for the long term. It was conceived before Trump attacked Iran. Both nations could see the direction the world was taking, and they took action in anticipation of what the future would bring. This is Hofstede’s long-term orientation, which measures how much a culture values planning, persistence, and adaptation for the future.

Hornby’s Archetypes

Both countries are East Communicator, building a network of trusted partners. Wong, pointing to CPTPP and Luxon framing the deal as a model for partners with similar goals, is a textbook East move: working sideways across peers, growing the group by adding links rather than commanding from the top. East holds groups together by linking equals. Neither country is trying to lead the bloc. Both are trying to connect partners with the same goals.

Other Factors

Singapore and New Zealand are small countries that depend on trade and have no overland alternatives. Their isolation by water turns continuous supply into a survival question, not a commercial one. Distance and logistics push them toward written commitments made in advance, rather than trusting the open market when a crisis hits.

Both are CPTPP members. Wong cited the path from P3 to CPTPP directly: start small, then expand the network. This agreement is an opening move in what its founders openly want to become the next CPTPP.

What It Means

Since the Middle Ages, small trading countries under pressure have built networks of trusted partners, and those networks have continued to grow. The list of countries joining this new bloc will tell you which governments are building their own arrangements now and which are still waiting for the larger powers to put the old system back together.

A Seoul appeals court on April 29 added seven years to former president Yoon Suk Yeol’s sentence. The new charges: resisting arrest and bypassing his Cabinet before declaring martial law in 2024. He is already serving life for rebellion. Every elected president since South Korea became a democracy in 1987 has been investigated, charged, or jailed. Western coverage tends to report this as failed politics, but it is the system following 600 years of Korean political culture.

The Historical patterns

Korea’s Joseon Dynasty (1392–1897) ran on factional politics in which the winning faction treated the losing one as criminals. JaHyun Kim Haboush, in The Confucian Kingship in Korea, and Bruce Cumings, in Korea’s Place in the Sun, trace this pattern straight into modern Korean politics. Each ruling faction treats the last one as a criminal, not as an opponent.

Park Chung-hee’s dictator-era presidency (1961–79) concentrated almost all power in the executive branch and weakened the checks on it, making it possible for the next leader to take revenge. The Korean Prosecutors’ Office was built with a level of autonomy that most democracies do not have. Prosecutors have investigated or charged every elected president since 1987. Political scientist Kang Won-Taek has mapped how Korea's regional split today between the conservative southeast (Yeongnam) and the progressive southwest (Honam) parallels Joseon-era factional politics. The right and the left take turns holding power, and they take turns prosecuting each other. The 600-year pattern of treating the losing party as criminals continues.

The Cultural dimensions

In Korea, the office and the person are inseparable. This is what Trompenaars calls a diffuse culture. The opposite of that is a specific culture where a person is separate from their work or position. In specific cultures, a leader can resign, and the matter ends. In Korea, removal from office is not enough, because the wrongdoing belongs to the person, not just the office.

Korea is also a collectivist culture (Hofstede), in which people see themselves as members of the group rather than as standalone individuals. This correlates closely with shame cultures (Benedict) in which social control comes from outside the person, what others see, say, and judge. In guilt cultures, social control comes from inside the person, conscience, personal sin, the feeling that what you did was wrong, even if no one ever finds out. Shame cultures require the group to punish wrongdoing, so a private settlement leaves the failure unresolved.

Korean civic life also prizes order and tradition, which Schwartz calls Conservation values. They demand that broken rules be enforced where everyone can see them.

The Archetypes

Yoon is a North Power-Seeker; idea-driven, charismatic, ambitious, and bends or breaks rules when it suits the goal. Yoon’s 2024 martial law order is a textbook North move at the extreme. He went around his Cabinet, gave himself the authority, and framed it as saving the country.

Korea’s civic and legal response is the Blue Guardian; rules-based, anchored in tradition, and built to punish rule-breakers. The Korean North archetypes leader pushes the limits, and Blue institutions punish them once they leave office, and the cycle repeats.

Other factors. South Korea's presidents serve a non-renewable five-year term. There is no re-election to restrain the president, and the next leader pays no price for putting them on trial. The right and left have switched power since 1997.

Expect the next South Korean president to face the same risk. Expect the cycle to keep running until the political class agrees to disarm itself, which is rare in any country. The Joseon-era pattern of treating losing factions as criminals, reinforced by Korean culture and archetypes, is still firmly entrenched.

Find an international rule that every country has agreed to. Watch which nations follow it and which do not. The split is the difference between universalist and particularist cultures.

To a lesser extent, the reciprocal is true; when you know which nations are universalist and particularist, you can predict which will follow the rules and which are less likely to follow the rules.

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The United Arab Emirates leaves OPEC on 1 May. The international press has framed this as a sudden break, a reaction to the Iran war, or a present to Donald Trump. But the exit is the predictable end of a decade of pressure that was in place long before the Iran war.

UAE energy minister Suhail Mohamed al-Mazrouei told Reuters the decision was strategic. The country wants to sell 5 million barrels per day by 2027, but OPEC’s quotas cap restricts it from selling that much.

Iran’s attacks on Gulf shipping have nearly closed the Strait of Hormuz, which normally carries one-fifth of the world’s crude. Thus, announcing the exit now won’t have an immediate impact on the market, which is why Mazrouei picked this moment. This was not a reaction; it was a plan.

The Cultural Dimensions

The UAE and Saudi Arabia, OPEC's leader, are divided across several cultural dimensions. The disagreement is not recent; it’s coming to light now because what held them together has failed.

Saudi Arabia leads OPEC because of who it is (Tromenaars’ ascription): the founding member, custodian of the holy sites, and has the largest reserves. The UAE is built on what it has achieved (Tromenaars’ achievement): a financial hub, an AI ministry, foreign capital, and the 2020 Abraham Accords with Israel. The UAE is rejecting the Saudi leadership that rests on the fact that Saudi Arabia is the leader.

Saudi Arabia works with circumstances as they arise (Tromenaars’ external direction). The UAE tries to create circumstances for its benefit (Tromenaars’ internal direction). OPEC's production caps constrain the UAE's efforts, and it’s no longer willing to be held back.

The UAE also tolerates ambiguity (Hofstede’s low uncertainty avoidance). Only a country that handles uncertainty well leaves OPEC during a war.

The Historical Patterns

Mancur Olson, in The Logic of Collective Action (1965), argued that cartels break apart when members gain more from leaving than from staying. The UAE can sell more oil if it leaves OPEC. OPEC has already lost Ecuador, Indonesia, Qatar, and Angola.

Stephen Walt, in The Origins of Alliances (1990), argued that states align against the most threatening neighbour, not the most powerful one. Iran’s attacks since February have made Iran that threat. The 2020 Abraham Accords brought the UAE into a security bloc with the United States and Israel. The UAE is choosing that bloc for protection over OPEC.

Robert Gilpin, in War and Change in World Politics (2008), argued that regional blocs break apart when smaller nations find that staying subordinate costs more than breaking away. The UAE’s strategic value to Washington and its move away from oil dependence raise the price of deferring to Riyadh, so the UAE is breaking away.

The Archetypes

The UAE acts as M.J. Hornby’s North Power-Seeker North: ambition-driven, change-oriented, willing to bend rules to expand. Mazrouei’s calm framing of the exit as the product of careful policy review is characteristic of the West Sage, providing analytical cover for North’s ambition. Saudi Arabia plays the Blue Guardian: preserving the established order. North wants to grow. Blue wants to keep things the same. So North leaves, and the UAE leaves OPEC.

No single factor would have produced the exit, but combined, they made staying in OPEC the harder choice. Once Hormuz reopens, the UAE raises output, and the Gulf has two oil powers, not one.

Spain’s Pedro Sánchez and Brazil’s Lula da Silva hosted about 3,000 left-wing leaders in Barcelona last weekend, including Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa and Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico. The goal was to defend democracy against the far right. That assumes, correctly, that there is a divide between the two, but what actually is the divide?

The Cultural Difference

Cross-cultural psychologist Schwartz developed two value frameworks, one for individuals and one for societies. Both map onto the right-left split.

At the individual level, Schwartz identifies four broad value categories. The right wing draws on Conservation (tradition, conformity, and security) and Self-Enhancement (power and achievement). The left wing draws on Openness to Change (self-direction and expression) and Self-Transcendence (universalism and care for others).

At the societal level, Schwartz identifies three opposing pairs. The right wing leans toward Embeddedness (group identity, tradition, social order), Hierarchy (acceptance of inequality in power and authority), and Mastery (control, ambition, and dominance over others). The left wing leans toward Autonomy (individual expression, curiosity, self-direction), Egalitarianism (equality and concern for all), and Harmony (fitting into the world and protecting it).

These differences can be seen with Donald Trump’s appeal to conservative religious voters, threats against NATO, war with Iran, and mass arrests without due process across America by ICE. On the other hand, Sanchez and Lula da Silva promote cross-border talks, global climate policy, and reforms that extend beyond their own nations and treat outsiders as people whose welfare matters. This is why Sánchez and Lula frame Barcelona as a defense of democracy worldwide, not just in their nations, and Trump frames his goals as “America first.”

Backlash and Brahmins

Since the 1970s, according to Norris and Inglehart, Western societies have shifted away from traditional values and “the way things have always been done” toward new values and new ideas. Older, less-educated, and rural voters have pushed back against younger, educated, urban progressives whom they see as forcing new values on them.

Piketty adds the class layer. Western lefts have become parties of the highly educated, what he calls the "Brahmin Left," referring to the Indian caste system. The wealthy continue to vote right, what he calls the "Merchant Right." Meanwhile, the working class has fractured, with much of it moving to nationalist parties.

Hooghe and Marks argue a new divide has emerged on top of the old class divide: the GAL-TAN axis: Green-Alternative-Libertarian against Traditional-Authoritarian-Nationalist. The 2024 surge of the European far right mapped cleanly onto it.

The Archetype Divide

The same split shows up in psychological archetype. Using Hornby’s map, the Barcelona group leans towards the Green-Caregiver (care, foreign aid) and East-Communicator (flat networks, side-by-side work). Sánchez and Lula are the communicators calling on people to work together for the greater good.

The right-wing cluster is the North Power-Seeker (status, dominance, and power). It is also more Blue-Guardian (tradition, sovereignty, and looking to the past for answers). South-Red, the Labor and Mother, focuses on tangible outcomes, family, and us-versus-them framing.

Where It Leaves Us

What all this makes plain is that the split between left and right in 2026 is not a fight over tax rates or immigration; it is a clash of cultural perspectives, class blocs, and archetypes. It’s unlikely any one of those can be bridged, much less all three. The only answer is what the answer has always been: progress too slow for the left and too fast for the right. But always progress.

Trump pulled his envoys from Islamabad on Sunday and posted on Truth Social that his country holds “all the cards.” Iran answered the same day, refusing to negotiate as long as the US blockade of its ports stayed in place. The “all the cards” claim is dubious because blockades and sanctions almost never force political concessions.

Political scientist Robert Pape reanalyzed the effectiveness of sanctions in 1997 and found a success rate of around 5%. And it goes down under three conditions:

• The target is an authoritarian state whose survival depends on not appearing to back down

• The dispute is about national sovereignty

• The target has alternative trading partners to fall back on.

Iran meets all three conditions.

Geography and money

Iran controls the Strait of Hormuz, which normally moves about a fifth of the world’s oil and gas shipments. The United States controls the open ocean and has closed Iran’s ports. Each side holds a different chokepoint, and breaking the other’s would mean a much larger war. A long war is stongly favors Iran. Closing Hormuz increases oil prices, which drives inflation and weakens Trump at home. The closure starves Iran of export revenue. Both governments suffer, and both are claiming a level of control they may not actually have.

Culture

Culture explains the form of the breakdown, not its cause. Iran is a high-context culture and sends its messages through Pakistan, Oman, and Russia. Officials use face-saving phrasing, such as Foreign Minister Araqchi calling his visit to Pakistan “very fruitful” while nothing concrete was achieved. The United States is low-context and treats direct public pressure as a normal tool. Trump’s Truth Social attacks on Iran’s leaders are interpreted in Iran as humiliations, and they shut down cooperation.

Iran is a diffuse culture, meaning it treats a relationship as one whole. As long as the United States is blocking Iran's ports, it cannot at the same time be negotiating with Iran. The blockade and the relationship in the negotiations can not be separated. The United States is specific and treats the blockade as a means of pressure to drive the negotiations. That is the deadlock. Iran wants the blockade lifted first, then talks. The US wants talks to lift the blockade.

Historical precedent

In 1941, the United States imposed an oil embargo on Japan while Japanese oil reserves were shrinking and the US Pacific buildup was accelerating. Backing down meant the Japanese army losing face after a decade of expansion in China. The embargo did not change Japanese behavior. It changed the timeline. Pearl Harbor followed in December. While Iran’s situation today is vastly different from Japan’s in 1941, the way blockades work is similar.

The Tanker War of 1984 to 1988 is closer to home. Iran used mines, missiles, and fast attack boats against the tankers carrying oil from the Gulf states that were financing Iraq's war effort. The strategy failed. The US Navy intervened directly, and Iran’s own exports suffered as much as the ones it was hitting. Ayatollah Khomeini accepted the ceasefire by calling it “drinking from the poisoned chalice.” The strait reopened, but only after Iran absorbed heavy military losses. Diplomacy alone was not enough.

The 2013 talks in Oman produced the framework that, in 2015, placed limits on Iran's enrichment in exchange for sanctions relief. This is the route forward today. Sultan Qaboos, the former ruler of Oman, hosted secret US-Iran meetings in Muscat. That channel produced the framework that became the 2015 nuclear deal. Oman is playing the same role now. Araqchi, Iran's Foreign Minister and the lead diplomat, flew to Muscat after Islamabad. If progress comes, this is how it will happen.

This means blockades do not bend authoritarian regimes. They either push the target toward escalation, as in 1941, or grind on until both sides accept a private back-channel deal. The Oman route is the only one of the three that ended without major bloodshed.

Archetypes

Hornby’s archetype framework adds a final layer. Trump fits the North archetype, the Power-Seeker, who is dominating, ego-driven, ignores the rules, and will end a process when it no longer benefits him. Canceling the envoys mid-trip and blaming the cost is North behavior.

Iran and Israel are both Blue-North hybrids that defend the core traditions and order domestically while expanding with force. Pakistan and Oman are East archetypes, the Communicator, who relay messages between the parties with no power to enforce a deal.

This leads to a dead end. A North cannot force a Blue-North to back down without going to war, and East mediators do not have the power to finalize a deal. Israel has its own reason to continue the war, and its strikes on Hezbollah during the ceasefire are a North behavior.

What to watch

It all points to the same conclusion: a stalemate. Both sides need an exit, and neither has a winning move it can make on its own. Sanctions and blockades seldom work, and never on the schedule that politicians promise. The most likely outcome is a peace plan brokered through Oman in the coming weeks. Watch what happens in Muscat. When Oman goes silent in the press, that is when something real is happening.

Three questions. Less than a minute. The answers will shape what I write next, and I will listen to what you have to say.

Thank you, Way

Colombians vote for president on May 31, 2026. Three candidates lead: Iván Cepeda Castro runs for the left, Abelardo de la Espriella runs for the hard right, Paloma Valencia runs for the center-right.

No one is near 50 percent. A runoff on June 21 is almost certain. The question now is, who finishes first on May 31?

Polymarket puts Cepeda at 89 percent on thin volume. I think Polymarket is wrong.

The Cultural Dimensions

Colombian culture pulls in two directions, and the pull decides first-round winners.

Trompenaars describes Colombia as Particularist, Communitarian, Ascriptive, and Emotional. Who your family is matters more than rules and laws. Group loyalty is more important than individual merit. Status is inherited. Emotion is expected in public. Schwartz scores Colombia high on Conservatism. Colombians want tradition, security, and conformity. And Hofstede places Colombia high on Power Distance and Uncertainty Avoidance. People defer to hierarchy and want order. Together, this means voters want stability and they want a leader who clearly stands for right and wrong. They trust family and their region more than anyone else.

The complication is that Colombia’s regional identities have never come together into a single national unit. Ibn Khaldun’s asabiyyah (group cohesion) is low among the elites and therefore, coalitions break easily. A candidate who has already consolidated a bloc has the advantage and Cepeda has that. The right has two candidates competing for the same voters.

The Historical Patterns

Five historians describe the forces underlying the race.

Fernand Braudel’s longue durée holds that surface events sit atop long-running forces. In Colombia, those forces are Andean geography, the cocaine economy, and land inequality. Land inequality has favored the left in every post-1991 cycle. Ibn Khaldun’s asabiyyah predicts the right splits because its elites are divided. Giovanni Arrighi’s systemic cycles say US influence in the region is waning, which opened space for Latin America’s left wave, and Cepeda continues it.

Oswald Spengler’s Caesarism says late-stage democracies produce strongmen without parties, ruled by personality and money. De la Espriella is that figure: a media lawyer with no party machine, campaigning on a cult of personality. Carroll Quigley’s Age of Conflict says institutions that worked well in the past get stuck in the past and don’t move forward. Valencia is running the 2002 Uribista security playbook in 2026 for voters whose priorities have changed.

Every first-round winner in Colombia since 2002 has been a candidate from former president Álvaro Uribe's conservative movement or an anti-establishment insurgent. This helps de la Espriella and Valencia. It hurts Cepeda.

The Archetypes

Three of Hornby’s archetypes apply

Cepeda is Blue, the Guardian. Blue protects rules and moral tradition. Cepeda is a human-rights prosecutor who pursued Uribe in the courts for a decade. He is not a visionary. He enforces the rules. His Blue carries the left’s victim-justice tradition.

De la Espriella is North, the Power seeker, in an extreme form. North builds a cult of personality, frames himself as a national savior, and bends rules when convenient. He fits the caudillo slot Colombian culture fills in crisis years, Uribe in 2002, and Petro in 2022.

Valencia is also Blue. She is the best cultural match for Colombia’s Blue layer. The problem is that a Blue and a North on the same side split the vote. Right-wing voters who want Blue’s stability vote for Valencia, those who want North’s charisma vote for Espriella and neither wins.

The Other Factors

Five factors point right. One points left.

Polling: A November 2025 Invamer poll had Cepeda at 31.9 and de la Espriella at 18.2. The April 2026 AtlasIntel poll indicated all three top candidates are now polling in a narrow band, between 26 and 28 percent. The gap between them has closed.

Mobilization: On March 8, about 7 million people voted in the right's primary. Only about 830,000 voted on the left side. That is an 8-to-1 turnout gap.

Security: Senator Miguel Uribe Turbay was assassinated in June 2025. ELN peace collapsed in January 2026. The Catatumbo crisis killed over 100 people and displaced 55,000. Security is the number one voter concern, and that favors the right.

Economy: Petro’s approval sits near 29 percent. Inflation runs 5.5 to 6.3 percent. Colombia’s central bank raised rates. When the economy is bad, voters vote against the current government's candidate, and that’s Cepeda.

The Prediction Markets

Polymarket gives Cepeda an 89 percent chance of winning, but the volume behind that number is thin. Thin markets are less accurate.

The Prediction

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Keir Starmer is in trouble. The crowd gives between a 66 and 70 percent chance of being removed as Prime Minister by the end of the year. But we know there is more to the equation than just the crowd.

The Cultural Dimensions

British culture does not protect failing leaders.

The UK is both a high power distance and an individualistic society. Therefore, the British do not respect leaders simply for holding office, and the British people put themselves first rather than their party. The UK is also universalist and achievement-oriented. The British apply rules the same way to everyone and tie status to what a leader delivers, not to the job title. A Prime Minister who does not deliver gets replaced. The UK is low on uncertainty avoidance; the British don’t like change. They have replaced only five Prime Ministers in the middle of their term in the last 35 years.

Starmer sold himself as the man who follows the rules. He was a barrister, then the UK’s chief prosecutor. He built his brand on the rulebook; very British. Then he hired Peter Mandelson as ambassador, even though Mandelson failed the background check. That move breaks the British universalist cultural norm, and a universalist leader who does so is punished harshly. On April 20, Starmer admitted it in Parliament: “I should not have appointed Peter Mandelson.”

The Historical Patterns

Arnold Toynbee’s challenge-and-response theory says societies fall when their leadership cannot respond creatively to new problems. Starmer’s government has reversed itself on winter fuel payments, welfare, the two-child benefit cap, and income tax. Ibn Khaldun’s asabiyyah, or group cohesion, says groups fall when they lose their sense of shared purpose. Labour’s cohesion is breaking. 47 Labour MPs voted against their own government on welfare. The Chief of Staff quit. The Scottish Labour leader called for the Prime Minister’s removal. Carroll Quigley’s institutional sclerosis says institutions stop working when they cannot adapt. The British government was built for a growing economy and a stable world. It has neither, and Starmer is not adapting.

The Archetypes

Two of Hornby’s archetypes apply. Blue is the Guardian who protects rules and tradition. North is the Power seeker who builds a new vision and pulls people along with it.

Starmer’s authority comes from knowing the rulebook and governing by managing, the Blue Guardian. Under pressure, he repeats the rules rather than changing course. People say he has no vision; the Blue-Guardian is not a visionary.

The UK’s institutions are also Blue. They respect procedure and party discipline. A Blue leader inside Blue institutions is hard to remove. Hornby says Blue leaders only lose power when the rulebook has visibly failed, and a North-Power seeker is ready to step in. The rulebook has failed, but who is the North-Power seeker?

Angela Rayner, Starmer’s deputy, beats him among Labour members by 11 points, but she reads as a populist, not a Power seeker. Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary, is a North type but does not yet have the numbers. Burnham is a North but sits outside Parliament.

Other Factors

Labour’s own rules are what have kept Starmer in his job. Labour has about 403 MPs in the House of Commons. A formal challenge to the leader requires roughly 81 MPs to sign on. An election is not required until 2029, so voters cannot remove Starmer directly.

In the May 7 elections, Labour is projected to lose up to two-thirds of the English council seats it is defending. Labour has run Wales for 26 years and now polls behind the Welsh nationalist party and behind Reform UK. On April 21, a former Downing Street official named Olly Robbins testified under oath that the Prime Minister’s office pushed hard to get Mandelson past the failed background check. 47 Labour MPs have already voted against their own government once. Getting 34 more to sign a challenge is a matter of weeks, not months.

The Prediction Markets

Polymarket puts Starmer out by December 31, 2026, at 70 percent. Kalshi is at roughly 66 percent.

The Prediction

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