Today’s briefing:
— This dictator is making a comeback
— Why Trump hid in a catering cart
— This AI wants you to get ripped!
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Your Insider’s briefing:
— This dictator is making a comeback
— Why Trump hid in a catering cart
— This AI wants you to get ripped!
Good morning {{first_name | Intriguer}}. Last time we wrote about one of the world’s most forgotten yet brutal wars in Myanmar, I mentioned my surprise that an impressive ol’ contact with whom I once hugged a koala (long story) has now ended up a member of the ruling junta’s cabinet!
Anyway, I sent that cabinet minister a message via gmail (yes dictators and their teams use gmail) and I can hereby officially reveal to you that… I haven’t heard back.
But while I wait — crouched, cat-like — for that sweet sweet response, let’s get you the latest on a surprising Myanmar pic that’s gripped the world. Onwards.
 | Managing Editor Jeremy Dicker |
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Number of the day
10%
That’s how much of Cuba’s US-embargoed energy supply now comes from China-built solar parks, up from just 3% as recently as January.
Dick-tators.
A month ago, The Economist asked a simple question: “Is Aung San Suu Kyi dead?” Myanmar’s democratically-elected leader hadn’t been seen or heard since 2022, when the generals jailed her for 33 years after re-seizing power.
Now fast forward, and Myanmar’s junta suddenly publishes pics of Suu Kyi. With all the subtlety of a brick, one (above) features her cutting a pink birthday cake emblazoned with ‘Happy Birthday Aunty Suu’, plus June 19 2026 clearly visible. It all gives major Proof of Life energy, if that 2000-era hit were produced by Hallmark.
But how did we get to a point where juntas are leaking world leader pics with the glee of 90s celeb paparazzi? And where is this wild story headed?
First, how we got here: after decades of post-independence veering between democracy and military rule, the generals started tentatively relinquishing control up until the 2015 elections that finally brought the Nobel laureate Suu Kyi to power.
With successive landslide wins under her belt, she then tried to chip away at the military-drafted constitution that gave the generals a quarter of parliament, plus cabinet posts and veto powers. But seeing the writing on the wall, those generals returned in a coup immortalised in the background of a fitness instructor video.
This was the spark that ignited a bloody civil war between the military and forces loyal to the ousted government, fighting alongside several ascendant ethnic militias:
By 2024, the junta was controlling barely a fifth (!) of the country, and
There were rumours the new dictator (Min Aung Hlaing) was in deep trouble.
So how did the junta wriggle its way out of this jam?
First, it’s now swelled its ranks with a conscription drive adding 60,000 troops.
Second, it’s leaned into its air superiority, ruthlessly bombing rebel-held villages.
Third, it’s done that with help from friends like Russia and China, who’ve variously sent jets, drones, jammers, and intel, neutering an initial drone advantage first pioneered by the opposition.
And fourth, Beijing has also weighed in with diplomatic support, whether blocking UN resolutions, urging Southeast Asia to re-engage, or strong-arming Myanmar’s various border region militias into ceasefires with the junta.
Oh, and state outlets also amusingly described the 2021 coup as a mere “cabinet reshuffle”, before China’s communist rulers — famously not a fan of elections back home — publicly endorsed the junta’s latest sham ballot over in Myanmar.
But… why would China back the junta?
There are some standard reasons, like keeping that 2,100km shared border stable, avoiding violent spill-over, or tackling the cross-border scam compounds that’ve defrauded vast numbers of citizens back home.
But there are also some more nakedly transactional drivers, like protecting the billion-dollar Belt & Road projects (including oil and gas pipelines) that give China direct Indian Ocean access and dilute its dependence on the Malacca bottleneck.
Or there’s securing the 90%+ of China’s heavy rare earth element imports from Myanmar’s border region — these are things like dysprosium and terbium that China needs for high-performance magnets in EVs, wind turbines, and defence tech.
Or there’s just the broader interest in keeping a dependent, predictable military regime rather than risk a fragmented and potentially more pro-Western alternative.
Anyway, the result of this six-year civil war has now been 100,000+ dead, while the junta regains and stabilises its control over maybe a third of Myanmar’s territory.
And that’s where the fighting now seems to have reached an uneasy equilibrium, which actually suits the dictator (Min Aung Hlaing) just fine — it’s freed him up to fight another battle he could actually win: polishing his junta’s image abroad.
If you can’t control the map, try controlling the narrative instead?
Intrigue’s Take
It’s worth stepping back and reflecting on exactly how this new kind of PR strategy is supposed to work. And we don’t want to bring down your Tuesday vibes while a Nobel laureate is blowing her birthday candles out, but it looks like this…
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Intrigue’s Take
It’s worth stepping back and reflecting on exactly how this new kind of PR strategy is supposed to work. And we don’t want to bring down your Tuesday vibes while a Nobel laureate is blowing her birthday candles out, but it looks like this:
First, whether it’s those photo ops, Red Cross visits, or the dictator’s own recent trips to Beijing, Delhi, and now Bangkok, they all have the same target audience: fence-sitters. The idea is to project this regime — notwithstanding its atrocities and flaccid actual control — as the only game in town, and therefore inevitable. That’s called normalisation. And once you get that, it’s time for…
Second, the practical rewards: sanctions start to loosen, border controls start to ease, and diplomatic isolation starts to thaw. And while diplomats might cheer that alone as mission accomplished, it’s still all just a means to an end: refilling the junta’s coffers, rebuilding its arsenal, and re-financing that next conscription wave. And once you get those practical rewards flowing again, it’s time for…
Third, the junta then returns to what it does best: systematic village-clearing, airstrikes, and scorched-earth campaigns until Myanmar’s forgotten ethnic groups like the Kachin and Chin surrender or disappear. Then the generals can get back to the good ol’ days of awarding themselves some of the world’s most lucrative natural resource monopolies.
And meanwhile, Putin and Xi get to pose as guardians of order, intervening not to end the suffering, but to lock in the outcomes that serve their own interests best.
Sound even smarter:
Myanmar remains one of the world’s most fragmented conflicts, with more than 1,200 armed groups now active on the ground.
The conflict has displaced ~4 million folks internally, and sent another ~1.6 million fleeing abroad.
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Meanwhile, elsewhere…
🇨🇴 COLOMBIA — 7.4 quake hits hard.
Monday’s 7.4-magnitude earthquake in western Colombia has left at least 160 dead, thousands missing, and dozens of buildings collapsed, prompting a disaster declaration from the newly-elected ‘El Tigre’ de la Espriella. (Guardian)
Comment: Barely days after taking office on promises to restore order, Mother Nature is already forcing the new president to prove he can first deliver on the basics: a rapid, competent, and visible disaster response. Reiterating its explicit backing for The Tiger, the US has already pledged $15M. While we’re on the grim topic of natural disasters, China has now evacuated a million residents as Typhoon Dolphin pummels the country’s east, while Canada’s British Columbia has declared a provincial emergency after a fast-moving wildfire nearly doubled in size overnight.
🇺🇸 UNITED STATES — Secret flight from Turkey?
The Washington Post has revealed President Trump left last month’s NATO summit in Turkey under an elaborate ruse that featured him boarding Air Force One, then secretly exiting via a catering cart to instead board a military jet! All amid a credible Iranian assassination threat. (WaPo $)
Comment: Because nothing declares victory over Iran like a US president having to hide in a catering cart. Journalists who thought the president was with them on Air Force One are now marvelling at the sophistication of the decoy, seemingly not yet outraged that *they* were the decoy.
🇮🇳 INDIA — Monitoring the situation.
Delhi has said it’s “closely following” the bipartisan sanctions bill the US House has now introduced, days after it cleared the Senate. Named after — and inspired by — the late Lindsey Graham, it’d impose 100% tariffs on the biggest buyers of Russian energy (particularly India and China). (The Hill)
Comment: Pending a vote some time this Fall, it’s a continuation of the same game of chicken: the US threatening secondary tariffs to squeeze Putin’s war machine, while Delhi keeps buying those discounted barrels under the mantra of sovereignty and energy security. In the meantime, it’s all fuelling a fierce and nerdy DC debate between those who want to end Putin’s war, versus those worried this particular measure will just push India closer to China. But lest you need a reminder of why that latter fear still feels distant, consider this…
🇨🇳 CHINA — Map wars.
Beijing has declared India’s decision to standardise the names of 27 places in Arunachal Pradesh “illegal, null and void”, insisting the border area (which Beijing calls Zangnan, or Southern Tibet) actually belongs to China. India controls all 27 locations, and was responding to China’s own periodic renaming of the area since 2017. (New Indian Express)
Comment: With the actual border now frozen, the conflict moves to narrative control. And it’s hard to be optimistic about a genuine thaw when every thaw seems to be accompanied by a fresh batch of new maps reasserting their same irreconcilable positions. Speaking of which, China has finally confirmed that two of its coastguard sailors died in last year’s China-on-China collision while chasing a Philippine vessel at Scarborough Shoal.
🇿🇲 ZAMBIA— Democracy under pressure?
Polls suggest (high-wire way to start a sentence these days btw) President Hichilema might win a second term in Thursday’s high-stakes elections. (France24)
Comment: Hichilema built his international reputation on resisting authoritarian habits, but now faces accusations of tilting the playing field in a country that’s rapidly become a theatre for East-West competition: we recently explored whether he might’ve done a solid for Beijing by quietly scrapping a Taiwan-friendly conference. China is Zambia’s single largest creditor, and a key player in its copper sector, the economy’s backbone.
🇦🇺 AUSTRALIA — Cutting ties.
Two critical subsea cables off Australia’s west coast suffered faults in quick succession over the weekend, with the owner now calling on federal police to investigate amid claims of “very suspicious activity” from a nearby vessel. (ABC)
Comment: Accidental anchor damage is common. Two separate cables failing in the same protected zone, with a vessel acting suspiciously nearby? After years of suspected hybrid cable attacks around Europe and Taiwan, often attributed to Russia and China? A little less quotidian.
🇱🇾 LIBYA — Central bank boss walks.
Libya’s central bank governor (Issa) has resigned without explanation, barely a year or so after a UN-backed deal installed him to end a bitter east-west factional standoff over the country’s oil revenues. (Libya Herald)
Comment: Libya’s two rival governments (and their foreign backers) still treat the central bank like a prize to be captured rather than an institution to be protected. Meanwhile, the parallel-market dinar has immediately weakened, underlining just how tightly Libya’s currency and liquidity remain tied to whoever controls the central bank.
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Crossroads of the day
That’s Andrew, flexing the very same ‘ceps that inadvertently just triggered Australia’s first AI jailbreak. Pic courtesy of ABC’s Billy Draper.
While humanity is still locked in a fierce and nerdy debate over whether AI will deliver utopia, extinction, or just freedom from middle management, two different AI products just went ahead and painted us a neat lil’ picture of our options.
The first came out of Australia, which just recorded its first AI ‘jail-break’: a guy tasked his personal AI assistant with booking him a spot in a perpetually sold-out fitness class. But rather than waiting politely in line, his AI went full Assange, hacked the gym, booted someone else off the waitlist, and thereby immediately snagged that sweet sweet 6am Pilates class or whatever for the AI’s waiting master (Andrew above).
The second came out of the US, where Anthropic’s researchers just reported they kept prodding an unreleased AI product to tackle a notoriously impossible, 167-year-old math problem — the Riemann hypothesis (concerning the distribution of prime numbers). After a legit bit of Tony Robbins human encouragement (“just believe in yourself!”), the AI made our world’s biggest Riemann advance in 37 years!
So, cheerfully break the rules and screw innocents to get us into yoga, or unleash staggering brainpower to help us rewrite the frontiers of pure mathematics. We’re mostly techno-optimists here at Intrigue, but still… let’s choose wisely?
Today’s poll
How do you think the free world should respond to Myanmar's civil war?
Thursday’s poll: Why do you think the UAE seems happy to host shady individuals?
💸 Money (68%)
🤝 Influence (24%)
🖋️ Politics (5%)
✍️ Other (write in!) (2%)
Your two cents:
✍️ L.K: “All of it. Getting an image as a safe haven for dodgy people brings in powerful people, their money, their politician friends, and qualifies you as a neutral destination (for summits, deals, etc.). Switzerland on steroids, basically.”
🤝 M.B: “UAE has plenty of money. Now it wants to join the political scene. That requires Influence.”
*Disclaimers
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