A dependency cascade model with an interactive viewer. Every edge weight
is labelled measured or analyst assigned, every judgement references an
assumption carrying a recorded falsifier, and sensitivity analysis
identifies which assumption a given conclusion actually rests on.
Measuring three edges against IMF PortWatch and UN Comtrade did not
confirm the earlier finding. It promoted the weakest assumption in the
register to load-bearing, and the evidence needed to test it was already
logged as an intelligence gap.
A forty page open source study mapping Chinese state-linked ownership
across eleven Mediterranean container terminals and assessing each position
against NATO logistical exposure. Confidence is graded separately for
commercial influence, military utility and evidence of operational use,
because the evidence behind each is qualitatively different.
The finding that carries: dependence operates at the level of the
corporate network, not the individual port. When the Red Sea closed in 2024
and Piraeus throughput fell, the traffic reappeared at Valencia and
Zeebrugge, and never left the COSCO perimeter.
Two positions where beneficial ownership could not be established from
open sources are recorded as intelligence gaps rather than inferred.
Short investigations written so the method can be followed and checked
step by step, rather than presented as a finished conclusion. Published on
Substack, June 2026.
Mapped the sanctions gap across the Shvidler, Abramovich and Davidovich
network using Companies House filings, the ICIJ Offshore Leaks Database, the
UK Supreme Court judgment in [2025] UKSC 30 and the OFAC SDN list. The gap
is structural rather than an oversight: a designation in one jurisdiction
does not travel to another.
Identified MSC Euribia at Zayed Port from a single photograph. A
Bellingcat Discord challenge, solved by correcting an anchoring bias: the
initial read was an airport, revised to a cruise terminal, with the vessel
then resolved from visible hull livery. Written up with the wrong turning
left in.
Resolved the aircraft from the electrochromic window tint visible in one
aerial photograph, with alternative explanations tested and calibrated
confidence stated on the variant rather than the type.
AviationImagery verification
How I work
Confidence, stated per claim
A judgement graded low next to one graded high is more
use than a document with a single confidence line at the top. Grading
claim by claim also forces the weak ones into the open, where they can be
argued with.
Gaps recorded, not filled
Where the open record does not answer a question, the
question is written down along with where it was looked for. Substituting
a plausible figure destroys the distinction between what is known and what
is assumed, which is the only thing making the rest of the work
checkable.