Today’s briefing:
— Did we just lose a uranium convoy?!
— The new US natsec strategy just dropped
— Don’t miss this global event today
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Good morning {{first_name | Intriguer}}. Sometimes international relations imitate art. That’s certainly the case in our top story today on the mysterious case of the “disappearing” uranium in Niger.
Obvious Mad Max references aside, this story is one you want to strap in for because it contains all the elements that make Intriguers tick, including global supply chain challenges, legal battles, and opaque new buyers. Let’s tuck in!
P.S. — Any intriguers in Sydney? Hit reply if you’d be keen for a holiday gathering!
Intrigue Insight: The US 2025 National Security Strategy
The White House just quietly posted its delayed National Security Strategy, featuring…
Critique of past US overextension abroad, eroding US strength at home
Correcting course by prioritising core interests like border security, economic dominance, military superiority, energy independence, and cultural revitalization
Clarifying US goals abroad, including a stable Western Hemisphere, an open Indo-Pacific, a secure Europe, a balanced Middle East, and US tech leadership, and
Guiding principles like America First, peace through strength, non-intervention, flexible realism, national sovereignty, and fairness in alliances.
Intrigue’s initial take: It’s an attempt to capture Trump’s worldview, so by design it shouldn’t be too surprising in direction, though it still contains surprises in a) style: eg, the strategy devotes three pages to what it describes as Europe’s decline and risk of “civilizational erasure”; and ii) its massive emphasis on the Americas.
But interestingly, neither that emphasis on the home front, nor the rumours of Treasury Secretary Bessent pushing for softer text on China (given his current trade talks), seem to have significantly changed Trump’s approach to China. The text still says he wants to:
a) win the economic future, while avoiding military confrontation
b) deter a conflict over Taiwan, ideally by preserving military overmatch, and
c) maintain the US policy of not supporting any unilateral change to the status quo (ie, no Chinese invasion, no Taiwanese declaration of independence).
So if anything, this document might calm some of the region’s fears that Trump could include Taiwan in some kind of a deal with China.
Mad Max irl
A scorpion LOOMS into view then freezes in the blood-red dust, as a rumble grows to a —
ROAR, as a 40-truck war-rig convoy races past under a merciless sun, flanked by 100 escort gunners anxiously scanning the haze as we CUT to reveal —
Masked figures watch silently as this world-ending cargo snakes through the desert land.
🎬 Aaaand scene 🎬
That’s not the cold opening to the next Mad Max, but an actual (ok, dramatized) scene now playing out. But before we tell you where, an obligatory expositional flashback…
Ask any diplomat their worst nightmare, and it’s either a) a promotion freeze, b) a family friend hustling for visa help, or c) a uranium shipment going missing.
Both a) and b) are truly horrific, but we’ll focus on c) because you only need ten pounds (4.5kg) of yellowcake for a dirty bomb that’d turn lower Manhattan into a hazmat zone.
And all that by way of throat-clearing to explain why nuclear watchers were a tad rattled when a coup hit one of the world’s top uranium producers (Niger) in 2023.
Local uranium miner Somaïr, majority-owned by the French government’s own Orano nuclear fuel multinational, projected calm amid the post-coup chaos, but it was always going to be a sore spot for colonial rulers to control such a sensitive and lucrative sector.
So fast-forward to June this year and the inevitable happened, with Niger’s junta seizing Somaïr on claims the French hadn’t paid their dues and had caused too much pollution.
Paris then countered via a World Bank tribunal ruling in September, both a) barring Niger from selling or transferring the mine’s $250M uranium stockpile, and b) urging Niger’s junta to release the Orano exec it’s held for months. Case closed…?
Orano then issued a startling statement last week confirming rumours of a mysterious uranium shipment leaving its Niger mine, and warning it had “no official information on the quantity of uranium transported, its final destination, or the conditions under which this transport was undertaken in terms of safety and security.” Gulp.
And so that brings us back to our cold opening above:
Orano would ordinarily ship its uranium out of landlocked Niger to France via Benin. But the Benin border has been closed since Niger’s coup, forcing this convoy (whoever’s driving it) to take a route that’s not only longer, but passes near two jihadi strongholds.
Online sleuths have managed to track the convoy as far as Burkina Faso, but we don’t know for sure whether it’s reached its presumed end port in Togo.
Niger’s junta will only say it’s exercising its sovereign rights to sell what appears to be almost the entire Orano stockpile out on the open market. And while we don’t know for sure, the buyer could be Russia which, hustling to fill the West’s void, has…
pushed for its Rosatom nuclear giant to take Orano’s assets since 2024
signed a nuclear energy MOU with Niger just this July, and
signed a naval access deal with Togo (the convoy’s presumed port) just last month!
So when we say we don’t fully believe Russia’s public denials, it’s not because we’re Russo-phobic. It’s because we’re not idiots. Rumours have also mentioned Iran and even Turkey.
Anyway, our best guess is this convoy already reached Togo’s Lomé port this time around. But if there’s one thing we know about Mad Max, it’s that there’s always another sequel.
Intrigue’s Take
Forgive us the drama above, but this is a big deal: first, a state just openly defied a World Bank ruling to move a strategic, dangerous commodity through a conflict zone. And second, the end buyer could be UNSC member Russia, who doesn’t need uranium (it’s got plenty), but wants the big signal here: we’ll fill the West’s vacuum, no questions asked.
So sure, the Mad Max framing is maybe the most fun and dramatic, but you could also view this convoy as a rolling middle-finger to the world’s entire non-proliferation architecture of safeguards, export controls, and investor-state arbitration.
It’s also a reminder of exactly what’s now converging across Africa’s Sahel region: juntas, jihadis, radioactive material, and a zero-sum race between world powers seemingly willing to abandon all pretence of standards if it means getting one sweet sweet step ahead.
Today’s newsletter is sponsored by Face Off
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Meanwhile, elsewhere…
🇷🇺 RUSSIA - US softens some sanctions.
The US has suspended sanctions against Lukoil gas stations outside Russia, though the US still blocks Lukoil’s repatriation of profits. The move comes amid continued US efforts to get some kind of Russia-Ukraine deal across the line. (France24)
Comment: We already knew the US approach was rattling European allies given the possibility of an appeased Russia just expanding its appetite. But it’s still remarkable to see just how rattled: a leaked transcript of a call among European leaders suggests the continent’s two biggest players (France’s Macron and Germany’s Merz) warned Trump could betray Ukraine by forcing it to cede turf without security guarantees.
🇺🇸 UNITED STATES - Another win for Nvidia?
Reports are emerging that today’s annual US defence bill will exclude a proposal forcing US chipmakers like Nvidia to prioritise US buyers. Congressional hawks are still working on other bills that’d codify existing limits on AI chip sales to China, and protect whistle-blowers who report chip smuggling. (Bloomberg $)
🇨🇭 SWITZERLAND - More billionaires than ever.
The world has apparently welcomed 196 new billionaires this year, helping push the combined wealth of that ‘three comma club’ to a record $15.8T thanks partly to soaring tech valuations. (UBS)
🇫🇴 FAROE ISLANDS - Those islands.
Russia is threatening to sanction the… you guessed it, Faroe Islands, after the self-governing Danish archipelago moved to ban Russian firms fishing in its waters, given reports of alleged spy ships. (Independent)
🇧🇪 BELGIUM - Guarantees.
European leaders are starting to fret as Belgium continues to block efforts to use frozen Russian assets held by its Euroclear depository to support Ukraine’s self-defence. The Belgians say they fear retaliation from Moscow, though others say Putin is (again) bluffing. (Politico)
🇦🇺 AUSTRALIA - At long last.
After months of speculation, the Pentagon has now (re)endorsed the Australia-UK-US AUKUS pact to supply the Aussies with nuclear-powered subs. (Rep Courtney)
Comment: Shameless plug, but we’ll drop an AUKUS special edition over the break.
🇺🇸 UNITED STATES - Trade no more?
Top trade official Jamieson Greer has ruffled some feathers, flagging President Trump could feasibly withdraw from the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement or split it and try negotiating separately with Mexico City and Ottawa. (CBC)
Comment: Trump would presumably hope the asymmetry in any one-on-one negotiation might extract some kind of better deal for the US. And both Carney and Sheinbaum presumably know this, which is why they’ve spent the year signalling their own quiet alignment towards the US without giving the impression of ganging up.
🇹🇷 TURKEY - Nuclear but small.
Turkey’s energy minister has told journalists the country’s flagship drone-maker (Baykar) is now entering the nuclear reactor business, with a small modular reactor (SMR) prototype now in the works. (Middle East Eye)
Extra Intrigue
Intrigue’s weekend reccs include…
Read: Call us Stubb groupies but when Finland’s crisply-dressed, sharply-quaffed leader writes, we read. He’s just dropped an essay on The West’s Last Chance.
Listen: This episode of The Next Five podcast explores the human factor in this new industrial revolution.
Report of the day
Credits: AFSA
Know a US foreign service officer? Any politics aside, maybe give ‘em a call. Their union, the American Foreign Service Association (AFSA), just put out its annual survey and it makes for sobering reading, with one in four Foreign Service members resigning, retiring, or being removed since January, in what the AFSA is calling “decimation from within”.
Friday Quiz
Yesterday was International Day of… Banks? Bankers needed a day?