Indian Ocean

The Seychelles, that perfumed comma of granite and coral flung across the western Indian Ocean, has long served as a convenient metaphor for whatever geopolitical itch the world needs scratched. Once a dependable postcard of honeymoon clichés—turquoise water, coco-de-mer nuts shaped like anatomically improbable buttocks—it now doubles as the planet’s most improbably strategic speck. At…