alina
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ramshackle78.bsky.social
alina
@ramshackle78.bsky.social
EM doc. Politics nerd 🇷🇴🇬🇧🇫🇷
European at core
Into military stuff nowadays, out of necessity
Newly reinvigorated North Korea is also ramping up re-armament.
February 16, 2026 at 6:25 AM
SciencePo did a survey in 🇫🇷 🇩🇪 🇮🇹 🇬🇧 and Meloni's total dominance of Politics in Italy is very clear. Objectively there's not that much more that she's achieved vs her counterparts but she's more in sync I guess with where population is

@dralbertazziuk.bsky.social

www.sciencespo.fr/cevipof/site...
February 16, 2026 at 2:51 AM
Reposted by alina
Propaganda during WWI and WWII in fact
February 15, 2026 at 4:23 PM
Seeing as it's got only a few crumbs of hard power left
The UK is particularly poorly placed to trade soft power levers for hard power though.
February 16, 2026 at 1:33 AM
Lindsey Graham contribution to the discourse
February 16, 2026 at 1:29 AM
February 15, 2026 at 11:49 PM
Reposted by alina
France correctly approaching the exposure of an international pedophile ring as a prosecutorial problem; not taking the American route of doing damage control for the elite.
February 15, 2026 at 4:51 AM
No doubt Kelly, the astronaut, reminds the mediocre Hegseth or all the superiors that didn't give him the time of day
February 15, 2026 at 2:00 PM
Reposted by alina
It is true Reform’s first 15% who backed them in 2024 are more true believers, v high support for Farage, more ideologically motivated. But their second 15% the group who have got them to 30% contain more Kylies and Eves who are just as rational in their analysis as other groups of voters.
February 15, 2026 at 1:53 PM
Instead of fighting stupidly for primacy with Dassault in FCAS/SCAF (where it's not the specialist), Airbus should focus instead on fielding a European strategic lift aircraft.

Strategic lift capability is one of those enablers that keeps us needing the Americans
February 15, 2026 at 1:19 PM
Reposted by alina
I was very pleased to sign this letter, alongside an extremely impressive range of vastly more distinguished people
📮 Full text of the letter calling on the Government to engage with the growing risks First Past the Post now presents

✍️ Signatories include leading academics, political scientists and constitutional experts - including a former Chief Executive of the UK Electoral Commission

👇 Read it in full
February 15, 2026 at 12:36 PM
Niche, but could be very useful in certain situations

www.opex360.com/2026/02/15/l...
February 15, 2026 at 12:23 PM
In anticipation of Macron's speech on the 27th on the nuclear deterrent, worth reading three recent papers

@nukestrat.bsky.social of the Nuclear Notebook

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
February 15, 2026 at 11:42 AM
This will be very good for all three of Romania, Moldova's supply chain security and Ukraine reconstruction

The port also has petroleum terminal, two grain terminals, general cargo capacity and a business park

www.ebrd.com/home/news-an...
EBRD to exit Giurgiulesti International Free Port (GIFP)
Romania’s Port of Constanta to become new owner
www.ebrd.com
February 15, 2026 at 10:30 AM
The bar can be very low
Best guess: Rubio got applauded mainly for not being J.D. Vance, much like when Obama got the Nobel Peace Prize for not being George W. Bush 🤷‍♀️
Rubio’s message: the EU is a deep-state monster, a misreading of history that has no place in a Europe of resurgent nation states, which by the way are Christian, white, stripped of welfare states & hate speech safeguards. Our bar is very low if we see this as reassuring.

www.ft.com/content/9463...
February 15, 2026 at 10:18 AM
Reposted by alina
📍French Guiana | Ongoing commitment of the French Forces against illegal gold mining ⚔️

In support of the internal security forces, the #HARPIE operation aims are:
👉 Fight against illegal gold mining
👉 Protection of the environment, our territory and our resources
February 15, 2026 at 10:11 AM
It's even worse because there's plenty of use of the feedback section in evaluations for airing grievances, beefs, etc that they didn't the courage or the decency to say to people in person.

Yes, you can also get surprises the other way
and emotions. Ruminating over negative feedback, sometimes untrue & without context. Worth remembering that those words can be remembered for a lifetime. We should be mindful of what we write especially words that are permanently recorded. Feedback process should be better
February 15, 2026 at 10:16 AM
Reposted by alina
Words written anonymously in MSFs, MTRs and other feedback mechanisms especially to resident doctors can cause months, sometimes years of harm. I've provided pastoral support to many literally wounded by harsh negative words without comeback. Resident doctors (and others) are humans with feelings...
February 15, 2026 at 9:00 AM
💯 This due to the some of the same things that caused Brexit: lingering beliefs from Empire days (so assuming that others are dying to have you back and uncondintionally), still not properly understanding how EU works, still not engaging with what it means to be part of Europe amongst others
One question barely discussed in the UK is how to build the EU constituencies to support the UK to rejoin - if it came to that

The Brits tend to think of EU membership as a pure function of domestic politics.

Closer ties sure but most member-states aren’t dying to have a flaky family member back.
Backing Rejoin would turn the next election into the second Brexit referendum Sir Keir always wanted. It’s the logical step that might give him his best chance of winning.
February 15, 2026 at 9:50 AM
About time govt properly used Douglas Alexander who is a talented politician and a far more grown-up operator than Anas Sarwar. Palace intrigue does not bring prosperity to either Scotland or UK, this sort of stuff that he's embarking on is the thing that's needed
The UK Government has announced that Scottish Secretary Douglas Alexander will travel to Australia, New Zealand and Singapore on a week-long trade and defence mission.
ukdefencejournal.org.uk/scottish-sec...
February 15, 2026 at 7:17 AM
Quantum 🇩🇪 got the €150mil from European Investment Bank (EIB), Commerzbank, Deutsche Bank, and KfW. IOW, great progress on public+private finance and on making defence financing ESG compatible
February 15, 2026 at 7:04 AM
FWIW, having 'listened' to Rubio again by reading the transcript I still think it was a non-event & strategically that's as good as it gets.

Rubio had 3 audiences: Europeans in the room, audiences at home & the other inhabitants of the snake pit/viper's nest that is current regime.

🧵
February 15, 2026 at 6:36 AM