The Topology of Connected Conflicts A CivisLux Special Chronicle — March 5, 2026 As of this writing, active military operations, mobilizations, or armed destabilizations are underway across twenty-three countries on four continents. The belligerents, declared and undeclared, include the majority of the world's nuclear powers and the preponderance of
Days 53–59 — February 22–28, 2026 The Gate The United States and Israel struck Iran on the twenty-eighth of February. Operation Epic Fury began shortly before ten in the morning, Tehran time. The United States launched cruise missiles from two carrier strike groups and air-launched munitions from jets in
Days 46–52 — February 15–21, 2026 The Gate The Supreme Court struck down the president's tariffs. On the twentieth of February, six justices ruled that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act does not authorize the imposition of tariffs. Chief Justice Roberts wrote the opinion. The power to
Days 39–45 — February 8–14, 2026 The Gate Five European nations concluded that Russia killed Alexei Navalny with poison derived from a dart frog. The United Kingdom, France, Germany, Sweden, and the Netherlands issued a joint statement on the fourteenth. They named the toxin: epibatidine, found in the skin
Days 32–38 — February 1–7, 2026 The Gate On the fifth of February, the last binding limit on nuclear weapons between the United States and Russia expired. New START had stood since 2010. It capped deployed strategic warheads at fifteen hundred fifty per side. It required inspections, notifications, transparency.
Days 25–31 — January 25–31, 2026 The Gate The Department of Justice opened a federal civil rights investigation into the killing of Alex Pretti. The announcement came on the thirtieth, six days after Border Patrol agents shot the nurse four times in the back as he stood on a
Days 18–24 — January 18–24, 2026 The Gate On the morning of the twenty-fourth, federal agents shot and killed Alex Pretti in Minneapolis. Pretti was thirty-seven years old. He worked as an intensive care nurse at the VA hospital, caring for American veterans. He had no criminal record. He
Days 11–17 — January 11–17, 2026 The Gate The mass killing began on the eighth and ninth. By the eleventh, the death toll had passed five hundred. By week's end, estimates ranged from three thousand to thirty thousand dead—the true number unknown, buried under blackout. The
Days 4-10 -- January 4-10, 2026 The Gate Sudan marked one thousand days of war on the ninth of January. More than thirteen million displaced. Twenty-one million facing acute hunger. The world's worst humanitarian crisis, and the world largely did not notice. In El Fasher, the Rapid Support
Days 1–3 — January 1–3, 2026 The Gate Before dawn in Caracas, the sky lit with strikes—explosions, aircraft, smoke, and outages—then the announcement: the United States says it took the sitting head of state of a sovereign nation into custody and removed him from the country. Trump
A Chronicle I. The Gate The year opened with violence. On the first day of January, a man drove a rented truck into crowds on Bourbon Street in New Orleans. Fourteen dead. He claimed allegiance to the Islamic State. On the seventh, fire came to Los Angeles. The Santa Ana
A Saga The year opened in fire and blood. A man drove into the crowds in New Orleans on the first day; fourteen died. Fire took Los Angeles for a month; thirty died, sixteen thousand structures burned. On the twentieth day of January, Trump returned to power—the second president