Palantir Kinetics, TSMC Chokepoints, and Covert Cartel Violence

Silicon Valley defense contractors like Palantir and Anduril, alongside European rearmament efforts, are accelerating the kinetic militarization of AI, while TSMC's hardware monopoly positions Taiwan as the decisive geopolitical leverage point in the US-China tech war. Simultaneously, opaque state violence—evidenced by alleged CIA assassination campaigns in Mexico and the erosion of regulatory standards based on weak evidence—reveals a broader pattern where algorithmic governance and covert operations bypass democratic accountability. This convergence of physical chokepoints, autonomous weaponry, and epistemic decay underscores a shift toward a polycrisis where technological infrastructure directly dictates the capacity for both war and social control.