Today’s briefing:
— New shortcuts just dropped
— Is this government collapsing?
— How diplomats drive to work
Your Insider’s briefing:
— Intriguing new shortcuts just dropped
— Is this government collapsing?
— How diplomats drive to work
Good morning {{first_name | Intriguer}}. We humans have always been suckers for a good shortcut. The ancient Greeks literally dragged entire ships on rollers rather than schlep around the Peloponnese.
Or there’s Rosie Ruiz, who won the 1980 Boston Marathon until everyone realised she’d actually caught the subway then jogged the last mile.
Prefer a road version? Hard to beat the Natchez Trace, which is technically now a long-cut, but was originally an old frontier trail that flatboatmen would use to trek the 500 miles back up to Nashville after floating down the Mississippi to sell everything in NOLA.
Anyway, it’s with a quiet confidence that I hereby declare I think you’ll really love today’s briefing on four intriguing new shortcuts being built around the world.
 | Managing Editor Jeremy Dicker |
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Number of the day
12 months
That’s how much time Elon Musk’s SpaceX will have to wait before entry to the S&P500 index. Other indices like Nasdaq and the FTSE Russell have opted to fast-track the firm for what’s expected to be a blockbuster IPO.
Bridge too far?
Thailand, Chile, Australia, and the Gibraltar Strait
Who doesn't love a good shortcut. Consider these fun, all-age examples...
Gen X: remember Homer's secret underground Stonecutters tunnel to skip traffic?
Gen Y: love the Marauder's Map from Harry Potter?
Gen Z: surely Tate McRae and Sabrina Carpenter like shortcuts too?
Well here are four intriguing new shortcuts you didn't know, starting with...
🇹🇭 Thailand Southern Land Bridge
This is a proposed new ~90km, $30B corridor linking Thailand's west and east coasts via a four-lane highway, double-track railway, and maybe also oil and gas pipelines. Oh, and the idea is to build new deep-sea ports at each end.
Why? Fans argue it could cut four-to-six days and ~15% off some shipping routes compared to going around Malacca.
And as wild as that sounds, it's a cheaper version of the centuries-old dream of digging a Kra Canal across the isthmus. Thailand's cabinet is due to endorse the land-bridge idea any day now, before pushing legislation and bidding towards a theoretical 2039 opening.
Foreign firms are already sniffing around given Bangkok is hinting at a lucrative PPP Net Cost model (50-year concession), though there are other reasons, too: one early sniffer is the China Harbour Engineering Company, reflecting Beijing’s interest in anything that solves the Malacca Dilemma (its fear of a US naval blockade in the event of a war).
And that Beijing interest is driving curiosity among others like India, Japan, and Singapore, each wary of ceding their own influence. The result is convenient for Thailand, which wants a diversified consortium so it can boost its own leverage but still stay non-aligned.
🇨🇱 Chile's Ruta Austral
When your country looks like it got stretched on a medieval rack (4,300km long but skinny enough to see both the Andes and Pacific in parts), you'll need some big roads.
That's why Chile's new president (Kast) announced this $900M, 1,200km project in April, paving and bridging the remaining path down to Chile's southern Aysén region.
Why? It cuts the Santiago-Aysén freight time from 14 days down to seven, strengthens Santiago's hold on a resource-rich but remote region, and ends Chile’s long-running reliance on neighbouring Argentina to reliably reach distant parts of… Chile! Kast has already awarded contracts and hopes to have it all done by the time his term ends in 2030.
🇦🇺 Australia's Outback Way
You'd think the Aussies have now made enough Mad Max sequels to understand the risks of outback driving, but they're doubling down via this 2,720km diagonal route across Australia's interior, marketed as "Australia's Longest Shortcut".
The route already exists but half of it is still gravel — once fully sealed (by 2032), it'll be only Australia's third fully-sealed east-west road!
But why? Charm. Adds a bit of charm (niche gag for our Aussie Intriguers). It'll also cut east-west freight time in half (from ~40 hours to ~20), reduce pressure on Australia's longer, busier, and more vulnerable coastal highways, and open new opportunities across that vast center: think tourism, mining, remote indigenous connectivity, and just a bit of ol’ fashioned nation-building for a continent-sized country.
🇪🇸-🇲🇦 Strait of Gibraltar Tunnel
This proposed new ~60km tunnel (half underwater) would link Europe to Africa via a passenger and freight service between Spain's Punta Paloma and Morocco's Malabata.
If that sounds like a big deal, it's because it is, both in terms of engineering (Germans just wrapped the study), price-tag (~$20B), and as history’s first fixed Europe-Africa link.
But why? Morocco clearly likes the idea of new access into one of the world's largest economic blocs, while getting to position itself as Europe's gateway back to Africa.
As for Spain? It de-risks supply chains across agriculture, phosphates (fertiliser), and energy by cutting reliance on its slower, costlier, and more weather-dependent sea links.
Plus 30-minute crossings would unleash vetted, visa-holding visitors into Spain's tourism-dependent south, while offering leverage to keep Rabat cooperative on migration control.
This one is still in the early stages, and has plenty of critics over concerns like migration, but Madrid just approved another $2M for further studies. And even if Spain's shockingly handsome leader manages to push approval through next year, you'd be looking at an opening well into the 2040s.
Anyway, all this to say... Intriguers? The age of the shortcut is officially underway.
Intrigue’s Take
Humanity might finally be waking up to a harsh truth: perhaps asking nicely for safe passage through crowded chokepoints isn't the kind of strategy you can rely on anymore. So call it asphalt diplomacy, but this shortcut era reflects three big angles worth tracking…
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Intrigue’s Take
Humanity might finally be waking up to a harsh truth: perhaps asking nicely for safe passage through crowded chokepoints isn't the kind of strategy you can rely on anymore. So call it asphalt diplomacy, but this shortcut era reflects three big angles worth tracking.
First, there’s the evolving competition between a classic land power (China) versus a classic sea power (the US), which partly explains Beijing's relentless push for overland corridors out across its western flank in Eurasia. The more it can revive that land connectivity, the more it potentially chips away at the centuries-old dominance of maritime powers, and accelerates some kind of shift to a more Eurasia-centric world order we haven't seen since the Mongol and post-Mongol empires.
But second, we're not arguing land routes might kill the strategic value of the sea. To the contrary, overland routes still tend to be more expensive per tonne and have lower capacity than pure maritime trade. Rather, this is more about creating redundancy and curbing your strategic vulnerability, though the result might still be dilution in the power of traditional maritime gatekeepers like Egypt, Iran, Singapore, and the US Navy.
The third is timing: most of the above shortcuts have long been pipedreams, but now they're suddenly happening, or at least shifting from pipe-dream to PowerPoint: delusional, but with nicer slides? Sass aside, the harshest wake-up call sparking this shift has been the way Iran's mullahs just closed Hormuz, but we've charted others over the years: the Houthis in the Red Sea, pirates off Somalia and Malacca, droughts hitting Panama’s canal, and simmering stand-offs around the South China Sea. Our emerging multipolar reality suggests there are likely only more wake-up calls ahead.
So all in all, dear Intriguer? Maybe we're hurtling towards a future in which the ultimate flex is less about controlling a chokepoint, and more about not needing one in the first place.
Sound even smarter:
The Gibraltar Tunnel idea goes back decades, but was revived the same year FIFA picked Spain and Morocco (with Portugal) to host the 2030 World Cup.
We’ve barely scratched the surface above, amid the many other intriguing shortcuts at varying stages, like Norway’s Stad Ship Tunnel, Iraq’s Development Road, plans to close the Panama-Colombia Darien Gap, and a handful of competing east-west links across Africa.
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Meanwhile, elsewhere…
🇷🇺 RUSSIA — Your place or mine.
The Kremlin has dismissed responded to the Ukrainian president’s open letter proposing direct leader-level peace talks on neutral turf, instead noting Zelensky “can come to Moscow any time.” Meanwhile, the US is reportedly halting Patriot sales to Germany out of concern it could be seen as “escalatory” by Moscow. (Politico)
Comment: Even as major outlets catch up to the notion Putin is cooked, that standard maximalist “dare you to come to Moscow” response suggests he’s still just getting told what he wants to hear. And he’ll be pleased to hear of halted Patriot sales, because it confirms he can still huff and puff then let major free-world powers dance in response.
🇧🇷 BRAZIL — A Brazilian reasons.
According to government and Petrobras projections reported this week, Brazil plans to increase its oil output 30% by 2032, which would theoretically push it into the world’s top five producers. (Nikkei $)
Comment: Asian buyers (particularly China, India, and Japan) are already shifting towards Brazilian crude as an alternative to Iranian supply, and President Lula is now throwing his weight behind further expansion, including in the Equatorial Margin.
🇰🇵 NORTH KOREA — What’s the (nuclear) matter?
Dictator Kim Jong Un has used his tour of a new weapons-grade nuclear material facility to pledge he’ll expand the country’s nuclear forces “at an exponential rate”. He’s already got ~50 nukes, with enough enriched uranium for another ~40. (CNN)
Comment: As always, Kim’s sabre-rattling has three audiences in mind: domestic (regime strength), US/South Korea (deterrence), and China (leverage reminder). On that last one, Kim’s regime has finally confirmed something we foreshadowed last month: China’s Xi is indeed paying a visit to Pyongyang this Monday and Tuesday. Meanwhile in Seoul, the won has weakened sharply towards 16-year lows while 10-year bonds have spiked amid fears the chipmaking boom could stoke inflation.
🇪🇺 EUROPEAN UNION — Okay let’s talk.
All members of the European Union have finally agreed to kick off Ukraine and Moldova’s accession talks later this month. (RFE/RL)
Comment: Why so long? Hungary’s Putin-friendly ex-leader had long vetoed talks, but the new guy (Magyar) has now agreed after clinching a deal on the treatment of Ukraine’s ethnic Hungarians. Meanwhile, the US House has just passed a bill to send more security support to Ukraine, though it now faces an uncertain fate in the Senate.
🇮🇩 INDONESIA — No free lunch.
President Prabowo’s flagship free-school-meals program, which promised to feed 80 million kids every day, is turning sour amid poisonings, corruption allegations, and now a criminal ‘causing state losses’ probe into the program’s boss. It’s all contributing (with oil prices) to the rupiah’s continued slide, with Finance Minister Purbaya now having to deny rumours he might resign. (Independent)
🇧🇴 BOLIVIA — Ministers resign.
The Bolivian defence and education ministers both resigned earlier this week, in a further sign of pressure on new-ish President Paz after weeks of anti-government protests. (Reuters)
Comment: We wrote about the chaos engulfing Bolivia — and the broader implications for the region — right here.
🇿🇦 SOUTH AFRICA — Anti-immigrant violence.
Authorities are investigating the killings of Mozambicans amid what the broader region now condemns as a surge in xenophobic attacks. Various governments, including Nigeria, Ghana, Malawi, and Mozambique, have already started organising repatriation flights for their citizens to leave South Africa. (Guardian)
Comment: It’s becoming a crisis on several fronts for South Africa: the drivers seem to include unemployment, inequality, and service delivery failures, leading not only to the scapegoating of African migrants, but also now a collapse in South Africa’s regional standing plus even the risk of retaliatory measures ahead. That’s why Ramaphosa is now sending envoys across the continent in hopes to calm the storm.
Extra Intrigue
On this day, June 5…
In 1849, Denmark abolished the absolute monarchy, opting instead for a constitutional version it still retains today.
In 1967, the Six-Day War began between Israel and a coalition of Arab states.
And in 1949, Welsh writer Ken Follett was born in Cardiff, going on to sell a cool ~200 million copies of his books worldwide.
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