Turkey has the best performing stock market in the world this year. In part, this is to do with how it has under-performed in previous years. But, as our duo point out, it's also to do with a country taking advantage of the present multipolar fracture. The classic trade and politics hinge-nation, Erdogan's Turkey is finally in a position to exploit its rich advantages.

What makes an army powerful? Where's the Big Mac Index on military strength? Philip Pilkington has been digging deep into the data on who has what materiel, and what it's actually worth, and his findings will make for uncomfortable reading in the Pentagon.

Is the West hooked on expensive high-tech gadgetry that might have been impressive in a Desert Storm-style campaign, but, as Ukraine shows, doesn't deliver on a brutal WWI-style battlefield?

Finally, the Chinese have been on a charm offensive of both charm and offence - their top diplomat has been wooing Europe, and making special entreaties towards Britain - even as the Chinese foreign ministry has been publishing Mao-style denunciations of the Great American Satan on its website.

Is there method in the madness? Or is this just diplomacy by confusion? Andrew Collingwood tries to piece together the inscrutability.