Written by Luca Salvemini
No. 178 - August 23, 2026
Strategic Atlas 006: The Philippines. Next Sunday, August 30.
After Turkey, the alliance question moves to the Pacific.
Turkey showed an ally drifting outward. The Philippines show the opposite pull: a treaty partner drawing closer to Washington as the South China Sea turns into the most contested water in the world.
Manila’s confrontation with Beijing, the deepening of the American alliance, and the Marcos-Duterte rupture at home make it the series’ first Indo-Pacific dossier.
For paid subscribers, out Sunday, August 30.
In the summer of 2025, at a resort in a remote corner of western Serbia, a group of Moldovans spent three or four days among barbecues, beach-volleyball matches and a wellness spa billed as “Relax and Have Fun”.
It had the trappings of a summer camp. It was nothing of the sort.
Between one activity and the next, the guests pulled on flak jackets, learned to handle assault rifles, and drilled at breaking through police cordons and setting buildings alight.
They were paid four hundred dollars apiece — an enormous sum by Moldovan standards.
Their instructors, according to intelligence officials from three Western countries, were tied to the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence service.
The purpose was to assemble a small army of shock troops trained to interfere in an election.
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