Transatlantic Brief | Analysis of European and US Politics

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Straightforward analysis of the forces shaping Europe, the United States, and the space between them

Pragmatic

Practical, not ideological. We discuss transatlantic policies in the real world, warts and all.

Accessible

We get straight to the point and explain things in plain language without watering anything down.

Analytical

No drifting into speculation for effect or reaching for convenient narratives.

Latest Article

Hungary's New Era

Trump went all in on Orbán and came up short. Opposition leader Peter Magyar was swept into office on a landslide big enough to give him a blank check to undo eveything Orban built on a 78% turnout. You can't rig that, now matter how hard you've tried after 16 years of democratic backsliding.

2 days ago6 min read

About us.

Political coverage follows the same pattern: something happens, publications react, and move on to the next crisis. Rarely is there any explanation of why something happened or what the ramifications of any specific policy actually are.

Transatlantic Brief breaks down the headlines. From Europe: elections and governance, NATO, Brexit's lingering institutional effects. From the US: how American institutions work and the strains modern politics puts on them.

We're living through unprecedented times, and the goal is to explain not only what happened, but why.

The analysis is pragmatic, grounded in what actually happened rather than what should have. Accessible, because complexity is not an excuse for obscurity. Analytical, because the argument always comes before the conclusion.

Recent Articles

Hungary's New Era

Trump went all in on Orbán and came up short. Opposition leader Peter Magyar was swept into office on a landslide big enough to give him a blank check to undo eveything Orban built on a 78% turnout. You can't rig that, now matter how hard you've tried after 16 years of democratic backsliding.

6 min read

Budapest is the Test

Recently, several European states have gone to the polls, and each has an interesting nugget of political science to digest. Across France, Denmark, and Italy, right-wing and far-right forces ran hard and largely fell short. Hungary, where the definitive test comes on April 12, may be the most consequential data point of all.

7 min read

Iceland Thaws to EU

Iceland's vote in August is genuinely uncertain. The fishing question will dominate the campaign, but the deeper issue is whether Iceland’s 400,000 citizens want to trade some degree of sovereignty for security in a moment when the traditional guarantor of that security is making territorial threats against their neighbor.

6 min read

Pardon Our French

France's nuclear expansion marks a turning point in European security. As Trump's NATO skepticism leaves Europe without a credible American guarantee, Emmanuel Macron is deploying French nuclear assets across eight allied nations and building the institutional framework for a European defense architecture independent of Washington. This is what strategic autonomy looks like in practice.

5 min read

Upon a Falling Starmer

British Prime Minister, Kier Starmer As I sit here wallowing in round two of whatever 5-alarm man-cold I have, I’ve been wondering, “Who’s been having a worse few weeks?” Trump’s certainly on the list, with his attack on Senator Kelly getting rejected, failing to indict Senators Kelly and Slotkin over their comments on following unlawful orders, winding down operations in Minneapolis, the House’s rebuke on tariffs on Canadian goods, or his favorite pollster finding that peopl

5 min read

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