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Conflict, Security & Defence
Wars, insurgencies, armed forces, arms and the security policies behind them.
- Geopolitics & International Relations14
- Foreign Policy & Strategy10
- Political Economy & Global Economics23
- Conflict, Security & Defence24
- Trade, Finance & Sanctions18
- Energy & Natural Resources17
- Technology & AI3
- Maritime Affairs11
- Climate, Food & Resources5
- Politics & Society2
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Analysis · South Asia
Afghanistan After NATO: When the Balloon Economy Lost Its Air
From the pre-9/11 battlefield to two decades of foreign-funded state-building — and now a search for economic survival
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Analysis · Middle East & North Africa
The Sandals Gatekeepers: How a Houthi–Horn Axis Could Redraw Red Sea Power
In September the Houthis stopped being an insurgency and became a landlord. With al Shabaab on the opposite shore, the Red Sea faces a dual chokepoint squeeze.
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Analysis · Middle East & North Africa
The Middle East’s New Firestorm: The Houthis, Saudi Arabia and the First Test of the Makkah Pact
The pact's most important test may not be whether Pakistan and Türkiye enter the Yemen war, but whether the three countries can strengthen Saudi Arabia's defence while preventing the conflict from widening.
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Analysis · South Asia
The Cost of Partition: What the Subcontinent Lost in 1947
What was the economic, political and social price of dividing an integrated subcontinent?
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Commentary · Middle East & North Africa
The Conflict That Conscripts Its Spectators
Why Israel and Palestine turn distant observers into participants in a war over legitimacy
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Commentary · Americas
Trump Storms the UN Stage
Trump's speech to the United Nations put the contours of 'civilizationism' into greater relief. The real test case is not Iran but Cuba — and the ideology shaping both Trump's and Rubio's approach to the western hemisphere.
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Analysis · Africa
Nigeria's Rating Upgrade Is Partly a War Dividend
Nigeria's sovereign credit rating upgrade is being presented as proof that three years of painful reform have finally paid off. Some of it has. But part of the improvement traces back to an oil price spike tied to a war Nigeria did not start.
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Analysis · Americas
Why China Will Get What It Wants From Trump
Xi arrives in Washington with rare earths, cheap energy, and leverage. Trump arrives with $6 diesel and a war he can't afford.
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Analysis · South Asia
Grid, Factory, and the Shared Sovereignty Problem: India-Israel Convergence in Electrical, Automation, and Robotics Technology
India's manufacturing scale without design-and-verification depth, and Israel's design-and-verification depth without manufacturing scale, are mirror-image versions of the same incomplete sovereignty position. Converging them is not merely good industrial policy.
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Analysis · Russia & Eurasia
Washington Is Now Defending Russia's Oil Refineries
American diesel passed $6 a gallon on Friday. On Sunday the President asked Ukraine to stop destroying the refineries of the country he is sanctioning. The two facts are the same fact.
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Analysis · Middle East & North Africa
The Last Way Around Hormuz Is Closed
Drones launched from Iraq shut the pipeline that carried five million barrels a day past the strait. Brent is above $107, the ten-year Treasury is at 4.97%, and the Federal Reserve meets on Wednesday.
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Analysis · Russia & Eurasia
Does Russia Alienate Russians It Later Claims It Must Protect?
Russia's war has driven Russians into neighbouring countries, potentially creating the very diaspora populations Moscow could someday invoke to justify political pressure or intervention.
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Analysis · Middle East & North Africa
Why Trump Can't End the Iran War After the Midterms
The Vice President says by January 2029. The theory of how wars end says neither of them controls the date.
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Analysis · Europe
Europe Is Becoming a Chinese Colony
How Europe’s trade imbalance with China is becoming a vulnerability for jobs, manufacturing, and security.
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Analysis · Indo-Pacific
China Won’t Invade Taiwan. It Will Quarantine It.
A blockade is an act of war. A quarantine is paperwork
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Analysis · Americas
Trump Doesn’t Want Money From His Allies. He Wants Their Soldiers.
South Korea pay the price of the US security guaranty
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Analysis · Russia & Eurasia
Russia Is Frustrated. Europe will be targeted next.
Britain crosses Moscow’s red lines, and NATO’s defences run dangerously low.
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Analysis · Russia & Eurasia
The World Is Moving Toward a Food Crisis. Russia Could Be the Last Resort.
War, fertiliser shortages, export restrictions and El Niño are breaking the global food chain
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Analysis · Europe
How Far Can Europe Go for Ukraine?
Europe has become Ukraine’s biggest financial backer. The real question is whether Europe’s own economy can survive the cost.
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Analysis · Americas
Why Greenland Is Not Worth It for Trump
Natural resources, power politics, and the high price of coercion
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Analysis · Russia & Eurasia
Russia’s War Economy Is Finally Breaking Apart
The Illusion of Strength Is Fading
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Analysis · South Asia
India-Pakistan: The Next Major War?
5 ways India can respond to the terrorist attack by Pakistan
