Post factum, London (2025)

06/12/2025

🇺🇸US Troops Stationed Globally

Infographic from our recent report on the Geopolitics of North Korea.

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05/12/2025

🔥🛢️Refining

Crude oil must be refined before it can be used as fuel or material for plastics, synthetics and other products.

Refining is a complex industrial process that needs expensive infrastructure.

Many oil-producing countries do not refine their oil and instead export it raw, then importing the products made from it.

True self-sufficiency in oil requires enough of both production and refining capacity.

China (which consumes lots of oil without producing much) has a vast refining capacity.

Refining helps China counteract its dependency on exporters of oil with their own demand for refined oil products.

Everything you need to know about the Geopolitics of Oil in our recent report:

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03/12/2025

🔥🛢️Who produces most oil?

The supply depends on oil reserves available for extraction at a reasonable cost.

Largest producers of crude oil are the United States, Saudi Arabia and Russia.

Historically, they have always been the 3 major suppliers of oil.

Can oil reserves run out?

• Currently known reserves are expected to be gone in 47 years, but new ones become available as extraction technology improves and becomes cheaper.

🛢️ Where does the demand for oil come from?

Because oil products are related to economic activity in general, the demand for oil correlates with the size of the country’s economy.

The largest importers of oil are China, the US, the EU, India, South Korea and Japan.

Changes in economic performance of these major buyers have an impact on oil prices.

For example, oil prices grew as China experienced faster-than-expected economic recovery from the pandemic.

7 Term to Understand Oil Geopolitics

In our free and ad-free report:

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02/12/2025

On his first day in office, US President Trump paused all foreign aid given by the country.

The Trump administration started a 90-day review of the aid on (1) effectiveness and (2) if it supports US foreign policy interests.

Total foreign aid was cut from $68B in 2024 to around $30B in 2025.

$18B in foreign aid is planned for 2026.

Budget for Global Health is being cut from $10B in 2025 to $4B in 2026.

The Trump administration promised to keep the funding for all “lifesaving” aid but it is not clear if this is possible given the budget cuts:

We analyse the best available data and information in our member-exclusive report.

It is part of the News Breakdown series focusing on the biggest geopolitical events of the past 12 months.

Try a membership for £1 or save extra on a yearly plan.

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01/12/2025

🇰🇵Why does North Korea have nukes?

• Regime survival: threatening opponents with nuclear strikes to prevent any aggression against North Korea, especially from the US.

• Military power: nuclear weapons compensate for a comparatively weaker and less effective army.

• Propaganda: at home, the arsenal of nuclear weapons is used as a symbol of power.

Read about the geopolitics of North Korea, including its relations with China, Russia and the US, in our recent report.

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29/11/2025

⚡️30% of all energy used by humans comes from oil.

• Fuels for cars, planes and ships are made from crude oil (petroleum).

• Electricity is sometimes generated from burning oil products, and often from burning natural gas, 20% of which is extracted together with oil.

Oil is also used to make plastics, fertilisers, cleaning products and more.

As a result, any economy needs oil to work and grow.

Shipping and transportation is a part of most economic processes.

Cargo ships, airplanes and heavy trucks mostly use fuel made from crude oil, like diesel and kerosene.

Oil is a component of almost any product or service.

Because of this, oil is a component of almost any product or service.

Changes in the price of oil affect prices in the economy in general.

An increase in oil price increases the costs of production, pushing up prices for most goods.

A decrease in oil price does not lower prices in general, as producers increase profit margins instead.

Everything you need to know about the Geopolitics of Oil, in our recent report:

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28/11/2025

🇺🇸US Foreign Aid Cuts, analysed.

This report is part of News Breakdown, our member-exclusive newsletter.

It focuses on the geopolitics of the past 12 months: perfect for professionals and advanced news-readers.

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26/11/2025

🇰🇵🇰🇷 Korea was a single nation when it was taken over by the Japanese Empire in 1910.

After Japan’s defeat in World War II, Korea was divided into occupation zones of the Soviet Union and the US, with plans for an independent state.

Because of Cold War political disagreements, the two zones formed their own governments, claiming to rule the whole of Korea.

1950: North Korea invaded South Korea with equipment and training provided by the Soviet Union.

The Korean War (1950-53):

• The US supported South Korea, eventually sending 1.8 million US soldiers.

• China supported North Korea, with an estimated 3 million troops.

• Both sides were close to conquering the entire Korea at some point.

• Around 2 million civilians were killed in the war, including mass executions.

• The countries’ borders remained similar to pre-war division.
No formal peace deal was signed.

North Korea has been actively developing nuclear weapons since the 1970s.

It has also developed a range of missiles and other delivery systems.

2006: first successful test of a nuclear weapon by North Korea.

Everything you need to know about the Geopolitics of North Korea, in our recent report:

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25/11/2025

💰 Alternatives for GDP

Human Development Index (HDI) includes different metrics on standards of living, incomes, education and health.

• Iceland leads the ranking, followed by Norway, Switzerland, Denmark and Sweden.

The World Happiness Index ranks countries by how their citizens rate their life satisfaction.

It considers income, freedom to make life choices, trust in the government, health and more.

• Since 2018, Finland and Denmark have ranked the happiest.

The Economic Complexity Index (ECI) shows how varied and advanced a country’s exports are.

A higher score means the country has the skills to produce more complex goods.

• Japan, Taiwan, Switzerland, South Korea and Germany are the top 5. The US ranks 10th, and China is 21st.

Read more on

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24/11/2025

☠️ In our recent report, we cover the Weapons of Mass Destruction and banned “conventional” weapons.

Check it out in full, free and ad-free, on postfactum.co.uk.

Below is a section of this report:

Chemical weapons

Did not join the ban: Egypt, Israel, North Korea, South Sudan.

Chemical weapons are toxic substances that kill or harm people.

These are considered especially cruel because of the long-term suffering they cause.

A chemical agent can be delivered with a bomb, a gr***de or even an artillery shell.

• Choking agents: targets breathing, attacking lungs and airways.
• Blistering agents: causes burns and scarring on skin and eyes.
• Nerve agents: attacks the nervous system, causing body failure.

Chemical weapons were widely used during the First World War.

In total, around 100,000 soldiers were killed, with over a million injured.

Around 20,000 people, including civilians, were killed by Iraqi chemical attacks on Iran.

The 1925 Geneva Protocol banned the use of chemical and biological weapons.

However, the production and storage of the weapons were banned in 1997.

All officially declared stockpiles of chemical weapons have been destroyed by 2023.

However, countries continue to develop new, uncontrolled substances, that are not included on the list of chemical weapons.

For example, Russian opposition leader, Alexey Navalny, and other figures were poisoned with a nerve agent weapon developed by Russia.

Over 300 chemical weapons attacks occurred during the civil war in Syria.

In 2013, more than 1,700 civilians were killed in a single attack by the forces of Bashar Assad.

After the attack, the international community pressured Syria to join the Chemical Weapons Convention and destroy its official stockpiles.

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22/11/2025

🇦🇲🇦🇿 In August 2025, Armenia and Azerbaijan formally ended their 37-year conflict over the Nagorno-Karabakh region.

• The deal, brokered by Donald Trump, is signed but awaiting approval from both countries’ parliaments.

The fighting actually ended in 2023, when Azerbaijan fully retook the region in a quick military attack.

• Soviet origins: Nagorno-Karabakh (NK) was a part of the Azerbaijani Republic within the Soviet Union but had an Armenian majority population.

Everything you need to know about the conflict and the peace deal: in our recent Members’ special.

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21/11/2025

💰GDP (Gross Domestic Product) is used to measure the size of economies and their growth.

It counts the value of all the products and services made within a country in a year.

It includes:

• Consumer spending
• Business spending
• Government spending
• Trade: exports minus imports

It can also be measured by adding up all incomes earned within the country.

What is not included in GDP?

• Resold goods, like materials and ingredients for something else
• Unrecorded activity, like black market sales or housework
• Natural resources like oil reserves, or non-material assets like clean environment and health.

GDP includes spending on destructive wars or polluting industries, ignoring any negative side effects (externalities).

To compare countries, GDP is converted into dollars using current exchange rates. This is also called nominal GDP.

The US has the largest nominal GDP with $29 trillion. China is second with $19T, while the EU collectively also has around $19T.

Nominal GDP does not account for the difference in how much $1 can buy in different countries.

• For example, a Big Mac costs $8 in Switzerland, $6 in the US, and $3 in South Africa. Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) takes this into account when measuring GDP.

GDP at PPP measures how much an economy can buy, correcting for international price and currency differences.

China is the largest economy by GDP (PPP) at $33T. The US is second with $26T.

The collective EU measures at $24T, and India follows with $14T.

GDP, explained: everything you need to know in our latest report.

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