Geopolitics Daily
Posts
📰 Trump ally killed in Utah

📰 Trump ally killed in Utah

and Russian drones violate Polish airspace

Billy Robinson & Ross Crabtree
September 11, 2025

Hello and welcome back.

Norway’s Labour ekes out a bare majority for a second term; Al-Sharaa tightens his grip as Syria touts a global revival; and Qatar says Israel’s Doha strikes sabotaged hopes for a hostage deal.

In today’s lead story, Washington rejects the UN’s ‘peaceful coexistence’ paradigm amid a post-SDG reckoning.

Top 5 Stories

1️⃣ 🇷🇺 🇵🇱 Russian drones breach Polish airspace, Warsaw invokes NATO Article 4: Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk warned that Poland is “closer to war than at any time since the second world war” after Russian drones repeatedly violated its airspace, including 19 incursions overnight, some from Belarus. NATO forces, including Dutch F-35s, joined Poland in downing at least three drones, prompting Warsaw to invoke NATO’s Article 4 for emergency consultations. Airports in Warsaw and Rzeszów were shut as air defences scrambled. Warsaw said allies have offered to bolster its air security, with the UK considering deploying Typhoon jets. While Moscow denied deliberate targeting, officials in Warsaw dismissed claims of accident. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged NATO to respond decisively, warning that Russia is “testing limits” of escalation.

2️⃣ 🇳🇵 Protests escalate in Nepal as security forces kill 19 demonstrators: Nepal has plunged into crisis after security forces opened fire on youth-led protests in Kathmandu, killing at least 19 and injuring hundreds. Demonstrators, part of a self-styled Gen-Z movement, had rallied against corruption, inequality, and last week’s ban on 26 social media platforms. Violence erupted when protesters attempted to breach parliament, prompting security forces to use live rounds, rubber bullets, and tear gas. The crackdown forced Home Minister Ramesh Lekhak and Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli to resign, but protesters now demand parliament’s dissolution, new elections, and accountability for the killings. The UN and Amnesty International have condemned the violence, while anger continues to mount in Nepal’s streets. Protest leaders vow to sustain the movement until their demands are met, calling Monday’s deaths a turning point.

3️⃣ 🇪🇹 🇪🇬 Ethiopia inaugurates Grand Renaissance Dam as Egypt warns of water security threat: Ethiopia has inaugurated the Grand Renaissance Dam (GERD), Africa’s largest hydropower project, hailed by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed as the end of his nation’s “geopolitical insignificance.” With a planned capacity of 6,000 megawatts, the dam could double Ethiopia’s electricity output and generate $1bn annually, though much of the current surplus powers cryptocurrency mining while millions remain off-grid. For Ethiopia, GERD represents sovereignty and economic transformation; for Egypt, it is an existential danger. Dependent on the Nile for 97% of its water, Cairo fears droughts could expose its vulnerability, while Sudan eyes potential irrigation gains. Negotiations collapsed in 2023, and Egypt is reportedly backing Ethiopian rebels and strengthening ties with Eritrea. The dam’s opening, rather than resolving disputes, risks fuelling new conflict in the Horn of Africa.

4️⃣ 🇸🇸 🇸🇩 Kiir’s succession gamble plunges South Sudan into crisis: South Sudan faces renewed instability as President Salva Kiir dismantles the 2018 peace accord and elevates businessman-turned-politician Benjamin Bol Mel, fuelling speculation he could be groomed as successor. Kiir’s moves—including sidelining First Vice-President Riek Machar, who is now under house arrest—have fractured the ruling elite and reignited violence in Equatoria and Upper Nile. The country’s dire economic collapse, worsened by lost oil revenues from Sudan’s war, compounds the risk of fresh conflict. Bol Mel’s meteoric rise has unsettled powerful factions, raising fears of another civil war if Kiir exits without broad consensus. Regional and international actors, including the AU and IGAD, must urgently push for restraint, dialogue, and civilian protection. Without coordinated diplomacy, South Sudan’s fragile political order could unravel once more.

5️⃣ 🇺🇸 Trump ally and conservative activist Charlie Kirk shot dead at Utah Valley University event: Charlie Kirk, a Trump ally and leader of Turning Point USA, was shot dead while speaking at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah. A single round fired from a nearby building struck him about 20 minutes into his presentation, sparking panic among students. Donald Trump mourned Kirk as “legendary,” while Joe Biden, Barack Obama, and other senior figures across the political spectrum condemned the attack. Government spokespeople have described the killing as a political assassination, underscoring fears that rising extremism is fuelling a surge in political violence in the United States. Kirk’s death has cast a stark spotlight on the nation’s deepening divisions and the growing sense that political disputes are increasingly spilling into deadly confrontation.

Major Story

🇺🇳 🇺🇸 WASHINGTON REJECTS UN ‘PEACEFUL COEXISTENCE’ PARADIGM AMID POST-SDG RECKONING

In a surreal UN moment, the United States stood alone against resolutions creating an International Day of Hope and a Day of Peaceful Coexistence. Washington’s explainer letter went further: it disavowed the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) entirely and recast “peaceful coexistence” and “dialogue among civilisations” as camouflaged endorsements of Chinese doctrine. The message: America first—and beware CCP ideology.

The End of Technocratic Universalism

Outrage at MAGA theatrics obscures a harder truth: the SDG paradigm was already faltering. Built on glossy infographics and 169 targets, it promised to transcend politics with metrics and blended finance alchemy—public money “de-risking” trillions in private capital. The results disappointed. Private funds rarely arrived at scale, and the gap between aspiration and delivery widened. The conceit that development could be spreadsheeted into being has collapsed.

Development is Power, not Charity

When development works, it reorders geopolitics. China’s poverty reduction—driven by domestic mobilisation and state investment—did not yield a cosier rules-based order; it produced a peer competitor to the United States. Russia’s recovery underpinned strategic autonomy. Even modest capability shifts—Rwanda’s state capacity, the Houthis’ missile reach—show that development confers agency. A more developed world is, by definition, more multipolar and less controllable, as far as the United States is concerned. The dream of a politically neutral, universally endorsed agenda was always fragile.

Beyond Nihilism: a Pragmatic Agenda

Junking the SDGs without replacement is not realism but drift. A credible post-SDG program should, according to Foreign Policy’s Adam Tooze,

Separate lifesaving relief from long-horizon development. Fund refugee support and health emergencies first; they save lives now.
Pick capable partners and commit for the long haul. Small, scattered projects yield small results; serious gains require sustained backing for states that can mobilize domestic resources, tax fairly, and absorb aid without dependency.
Fix the debt playbook. Speed restructurings, force private creditors to take losses, curb legal arbitrage in rich-world courts, and choke capital-flight loopholes.

The Choice Ahead

The 2015 universalist high tide has ebbed. What remains is politics: prioritisation, trade-offs, and power. If the United States and its partners want influence in this more plural world, they must replace denunciation and utopia alike with a practical offer that saves lives now and builds capabilities over time.

Other News

1️⃣ 🇶🇦 🇮🇱 🇵🇸 Qatar accuses Israel of killing hostage deal hopes after Doha strike: Qatar’s Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani accused Benjamin Netanyahu of “state terrorism” after Israeli airstrikes in Doha killed six people, including Hamas negotiators, during US-brokered ceasefire talks. Al-Thani said the attack “killed any hope” for remaining hostages in Gaza and warned that Qatar would reconsider its mediation role. Netanyahu, defiant in the face of global condemnation, insisted Qatar harboured terrorists and vowed Israel would strike “any nation” sheltering them. By his own admission, the objective of the Qatar strike was retaliatory, not to prevent an ongoing or imminent attack. The White House criticised the “unilateral bombing,” while the UK, Russia, China and regional leaders denounced the strike as a violation of Qatari sovereignty.

2️⃣ 🇳🇴 Labour secures narrow majority to win second term in Norway elections: Norway’s Labour-led government secured a second term after this week’s election, with Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere’s party and four left-leaning allies winning 87 seats, just over the threshold for a majority. Stoere, however, will face difficult negotiations with smaller coalition partners over tax policy, oil exploration, and whether Norway’s $2 trillion sovereign wealth fund should divest further from Israeli companies. The populist Progress Party, led by Sylvi Listhaug, scored its best-ever result with 48 seats, more than doubling its previous tally on promises of tax cuts and reduced spending on aid and green subsidies. The outcome highlights a rightward shift among voters even as Stoere celebrated Labour’s win as proof that “social democracy can prevail despite a right-wing wave.”

3️⃣ 🇸🇾 Al-Sharaa consolidates rule as Syria projects global revival: Syria’s new leadership has rapidly reopened diplomatic and economic channels since the fall of Bashar al-Assad, with U.S. sanctions lifted and foreign delegations returning. Yet beneath this veneer of normalisation, interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa is centralising authority and integrating HTS’ Islamist modus operandi into state structures. Formerly a militant, al-Sharaa now holds sweeping powers—executive, military, and legislative—while presenting himself as both head of state and custodian of religious morality. His government enforces conservative codes through restructured security forces, often clashing with urban populations, while sidelining elections and transitional justice. Abroad, Syria courts investment and technocratic credibility; at home, it veers toward authoritarian theocracy. This dual strategy may yield short-term stability but risks entrenching repression and sectarian divisions, recreating the very conditions that fueled Syria’s war.