An Independent Research Imprint · Victoria, British Columbia
Working Papers on Pacific Sovereignty & Bilateral Architecture
Defensive options for middle powers in a period of dollar-system stress.
The North Pacific Strategy Initiative publishes reference-grade working papers and briefings on the financial, infrastructure, technology, and legal choices available to middle powers — Canada first — seeking to diversify counterparty risk. The Initiative is editorially independent: it accepts no outside funding and no paid engagements, and no government, institution, or commercial entity directs the work. It is written and funded by one person; the editor’s outside interests are declared in full at /disclosure/.
Working papers are placed publicly under version control to enable transparent review by allied policy and academic communities. Named commentary is welcomed and may be incorporated into subsequent versions with attribution.
Current Working Paper
No. 11 · Technical Series · v1.0.1 · 28 July 2026 · For Discussion
Rated AAA by the Issuer
What “open source” in artificial intelligence has in common with a credit rating, and what the base rates say happens next.
There is no enforced definition of “open source” in artificial intelligence — and in that vacuum, the company that builds a model is the party that declares it open. The labeller is the labelled. Markets have run that arrangement before, and there is a documented record of how it ends; the closest precedent is not open-source software but the credit rating. The paper corrects its predecessor in a published correction notice, establishes that the July 2026 policy fight is not about banning open-weight models but about who defines “sufficiently capable,” and applies the base rates from four other markets that ran unenforced quality labels — organic, Energy Star, “natural,” credit ratings — to forecast, with probabilities, how this one resolves. Supersedes Working Paper No. 10, which remains available unaltered. Released 28 July 2026.
An energy-for-memory swap, signed under Canadian law.
The Pacific Ledger
№ 02 · October 2026 · NPSI-20261001-A · Serial pending
The Pacific Ledger — №02
An account of the Canada–Korea relationship. Pledged, Contingent, Operating: sorting Korea’s Canada investment after the submarine decision.
After Ottawa named TKMS preferred supplier on 6 July, the Korean bid’s headline of more than C$70 billion in trade and investment went into the press as a loss. The second issue sorts thirteen Korean commitments by the condition each was made on: five contingent on a Hanwha Ocean award, which have lapsed, been suspended, been shelved or sit under review; five bid-linked with no stated condition, which continue as research, trade and stated intent; and three independent of the bid — NextStar in Windsor, Ultium CAM in Bécancour and KOGAS’s stake in LNG Canada — the only ones with capital in the ground. Every entry sourced, both sides recorded. Issue closed 1 October 2026; published 14 October 2026 with pre-publication corrections applied.
Every working paper, by publication date, with its abstract and files, is at Working Papers. Numbering is the author’s; the number register lists every serial ever assigned.
Reference-grade working papers on Pacific sovereignty and bilateral financial architecture. Each paper is editorially controlled, version-numbered, and cites its sources.
How we work
Working papers are maintained as public version-controlled documents on GitHub. Substantive comment, technical critique, and named response are welcomed, reviewed against editorial standards, and may be incorporated into subsequent versions with attribution.
What we are not
Not an advocacy organisation. Not a consultancy — no NPSI document has been commissioned or paid for. Not a government affiliate. Written and funded by one person, with every outside interest, including the editor's paid external writing, declared. Published when material is ready, on no cadence in either direction.
The framing discipline
The Initiative's working papers frame middle-power options as counterparty-risk diversification — additive to existing global financial infrastructure, defensive rather than provocative, rule-of-law compliant in every jurisdiction they touch.
To submit named commentary on a working paper — attributed responses of 500 to 1500 words suitable for publication — write to editor@npsi.ca. To file factual corrections, technical critiques, or proposed edits, open an Issue or Pull Request on the imprint’s GitHub repository. Full contribution standards are described on the Engage page.