This month, we examine EU engagement with the Taliban, where Chris Fitzgerald argues that efforts to curb irregular migration risk undermining the bloc's longstanding commitment to human rights and international law. As Europe weighs strategic pragmatism against its normative identity, Fitzgerald asks what is sacrificed when geopolitical priorities take precedence over democratic values.
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Read MoreWritten by Hunter Marston
The recent Russia-ASEAN Summit is only the latest example of a more diffuse and loosely organised world order, in which Washington plays a less central role, and its rivals are calling the shots. While this emerging multipolar order is currently fuelling regional anxieties of instability and conflict in Southeast Asia, it is likely to be the new normal.
Read MoreThis month’s brief examines Taiwan–Lithuania relations, where shared experiences of external pressure have driven closer political and tech cooperation. Five years on from Vilnius hosting Taiwan’s Representative Office, the relationship remains strongest politically, while delivering more limited economic outcomes — highlighting the challenge of turning strategic alignment into tangible shared success. Alongside this, our regional review explores an Indo-Pacific defined by fragmentation and adaptation.
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Read MoreMay highlights a defining trend across the Indo-Pacific: economic pressure and strategic competition are increasingly intertwined, as heatwaves, energy shocks, and supply-chain strain drive states to hedge more actively in a fragmented global order. This month’s feature examines Europe’s growing “strategic self-containment” in its China policy, reflecting a wider pattern of anticipatory restraint as states recalibrate under geopolitical pressure.
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Read MoreThis month’s brief examines a system under increased strain: as conflict in the Middle East drives energy shocks and exposes fragile supply chains, Indo-Pacific states are navigating growing constraints — hedging across partners, absorbing economic pressure, and exploring alternative routes such as the Arctic’s emerging “Polar Silk Road” to preserve access, resilience, and strategic flexibility.
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Read MoreThis month we examine a world under pressure: as conflict in the Middle East disrupts energy flows, Indo-Pacific states confront constrained choices, balancing neutrality, domestic stability, and external dependencies. From political resets in Nepal and Bangladesh to energy rationing in Sri Lanka and heightened strategic signalling across East and Southeast Asia, March highlights how governments are adapting in real time to a more interconnected and volatile global order.
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Read MoreWritten by Viktor Buzna
Just as steel, petrochemicals, and semiconductors once underpinned national resilience, computing power and AI ecosystems define economic and strategic autonomy today.
Read MoreThis month’s brief examines a hardening strategic landscape: as grey-zone drone incursions test Europe’s resolve, Indo-Pacific states grapple with contested political transitions and mounting internal pressures that complicate deterrence, resilience, and regional stability.
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Read MoreThis month’s briefs examine an international order in rupture: across the Indo-Pacific, middle powers are hedging through overlapping, issue-based partnerships, even as Myanmar’s sham election exposes the limits of values-based realism in an increasingly pragmatic global landscape.
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Read MoreThis month’s briefs examine an Indo-Pacific shaped by hybrid insecurity: as the United States retreats from development leadership, middle powers step in to fill the void, while escalating climate disasters are redefining resilience, influence, and regional power.
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Read MoreWritten by Federica Cidale
While she broke a significant glass ceiling, her policy positions, from historical revisionism and expanded national security powers to restrictive immigration policies, reinforce existing conservative structures.
Read MoreWritten by Emanuele Ballestracci
Italy cannot rival the hard-power presence of France or the UK, nor does it aspire to. Instead, it has constructed a pathway based on economic cooperation, private-sector activism, and steady institutional ties, which over time create the trust needed to expand into political and security spheres.
Read MoreThis month’s features explore twin fragmentations reshaping the Indo-Pacific: the quiet construction of a north–south undersea security arc as South Korea joins Australia on the path to nuclear-powered submarines, and the near-collapse of COP30, which exposed a deepening crisis of trust at the heart of global climate governance.
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Read MoreThis month, we explore how Australia and Papua New Guinea’s Pukpuk Treaty is redefining defence cooperation through identity-based integration, while the IMF–World Bank meetings in Washington reveal how financial governance continues to constrain Global South autonomy.
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Read MoreWritten by Geo Dzakwan Arshali
Jakarta has never been aimless in its approach to the Koreas — it seeks to de-escalate tensions on the peninsula by keeping dialogue alive, even with an isolated Pyongyang, while simultaneously deepening cooperation with a democratic Seoul and its Western allies.
Read MoreThis month, we spotlight the mounting pressures reshaping the Indo-Pacific: Beijing’s use of Martyrs’ Day as both a tool of domestic loyalty and an international signal of resolve highlights how nations are navigating turbulence on two fronts. Across the region, domestic instability — from popular protests to fragile governments — is constraining states’ ability to adapt to intensifying great power rivalry.
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Read MoreThis month, we spotlight India’s partnership with the Philippines, demonstrating sovereignty-sensitive maritime cooperation, while New Zealand’s expanding role in space highlights how smaller states assert strategic influence in high-tech domains.
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Read MoreWritten by Yun Kyung Kim
Korea and Japan now have an opportunity to redefine their roles — not as competing spokes but as co-architects of a trilateral framework that can anchor stability in the Indo-Pacific. For Washington, embracing this shift means sharing agenda-setting space with allies to maximise American interests and maintain primacy.
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