Marcel Dirsus
@marceldirsus.com
7.7K followers 350 following 580 posts
Political scientist and author of How Tyrants Fall: And How Nations Survive. Writing The Hundred, a politics newsletter. www.marceldirsus.com
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marceldirsus.com
That looks great but do the French have a paternoster lift?
marceldirsus.com
Yes no way this goes wrong
marceldirsus.com
As battery prices have fallen, capacity has shot up
marceldirsus.com
So the entire stock market is basically just AI now?
marceldirsus.com
"The US has for months been helping Ukraine mount long-range strikes on Russian energy facilities, in what officials say is a co-ordinated effort to weaken Vladimir Putin’s economy and force him to the negotiating table."

www.ft.com/content/f9f4...
US intel guided Ukraine’s strikes on Russian energy sites
Trump administration has supported Kyiv’s operations since summer in co-ordinated push to weaken Moscow
www.ft.com
Reposted by Marcel Dirsus
politico.eu
Latvia has ordered 841 Russian citizens to leave the country by Oct. 13 after they failed to prove their Latvian language proficiency and to undergo mandatory security checks.
Latvia orders more than 800 Russian citizens to leave by mid-October
Russian citizens who failed to comply with Riga’s new immigration rules must leave by Oct. 13 or risk deportation.
www.politico.eu
marceldirsus.com
All in all, not a great day for Nicolás Maduro
marceldirsus.com
No world leader is easier to manipulate than Donald Trump
marceldirsus.com
Assassinations used to be incredibly risky because you had to be close to politicians to stab or shoot them. As drones become more common, we're almost inevitably going to see more assassination attempts because they decrease the chance of capture and death
marceldirsus.com
Maduro seems to think he's in serious danger

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/10/w...
marceldirsus.com
Those are a little difficult. We're trying to go through a publisher in Taiwan to get it into Mandarin
marceldirsus.com
Political power ultimately rests with those who control the men (and women) with guns. It's not about judges, journalists or civil servants. When push comes to shove, everything depends on soldiers, policemen and spies. Going forward, Democrats should keep that in mind
marceldirsus.com
I'm incredibly honoured to say that my book has been translated into Ukrainian. Being translated is always going to be extraordinary, but this one feels especially meaningful. It really is an honour
marceldirsus.com
"At least 24 people were killed and 47 wounded while protesting against Myanmar's military government after an army motorised paraglider dropped two bombs on the crowd, a spokesperson for the government-in-exile told BBC Burmese."

www.bbc.com/news/article...
Myanmar: At least 24 killed as army paraglider bombs Buddhist festival
Locals tell the BBC the carnage has made it hard to identify victims of the military attack.
www.bbc.com
marceldirsus.com
I am once again begging people in Berlin to just decide things. You're in charge of the 3rd largest economy on earth, you can do stuff
marceldirsus.com
A year after the German government launched a €1 billion critical raw materials fund, not a single project has been approved

www.gmfus.org/news/watchin...
Watching China in Europe—October 2025
www.gmfus.org
marceldirsus.com
A year after the German government launched a €1 billion critical raw materials fund, not a single project has been approved

www.gmfus.org/news/watchin...
Watching China in Europe—October 2025
www.gmfus.org
marceldirsus.com
"But many observers suspect Trump’s counter-narcotics crusade is really a pretext to depose Maduro, either by sparking an internal rebellion against Hugo Chávez’s authoritarian heir or perhaps through direct military intervention within Venezuela itself."

www.theguardian.com/world/2025/o...
Venezuela on edge over Trump regime change whispers: ‘If it does happen we are ready’
Allies of President Nicolás Maduro vow to resist any military intervention but experts suspect Venezuela’s leaders were rattled by Trump’s decision to bomb Iran
www.theguardian.com
Reposted by Marcel Dirsus
Nobody looks great, true. But nobody but Merkel defends her failed policies so nonchalantly
marceldirsus.com
Merkel was Chancellor and that means she's ultimately responsible for this historic failure of German foreign policy
marceldirsus.com
The failure isn't just Merkel's, of course, because they were largely consensus positions in Germany. Christian Democrats got it wrong, Social Democrats got it wrong. The Greens were right on Russian gas but wrong on the importance of military power. Nobody looks great here
marceldirsus.com
It makes absolutely no sense. If Merkel had seen things this way, rearmament should've been a priority. It never was. German dependence on Russian energy increased, giving Moscow yet more power over Berlin. Construction of NS2 began after (!) Russia's invasion of Ukraine
marceldirsus.com
If you think that's true and there's risk of a massive war in Europe, why on earth would you let Germany's armed forces fall into disrepair? It's always easy to blame Social Democrats but Merkel invested essentially no political capital into strengthening the Bundeswehr
marceldirsus.com
If you think there's a serious chance of a full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, why would you not provide military support to Kyiv? Okay, she might argue that this would've been provocative and cause Putin to attack earlier. Let's assume that's true for a moment