Op-ed

Dr. Pierre Thévenin Key Takeaways US-Iran Deal May Undermine Freedom of Navigation — The Islamabad Memorandum’s wording (especially Paragraph 5) could allow Iran to impose tolls or restrictions on shipping through the Strait of Hormuz after the 60-day period, violating the non-suspendable innocent passage regime under international law. Broader …

Collins Chong Yew Keat Key Takeaways Strategic Deepening of Ties — The Nikkei Forum and related engagements underscore Malaysia’s growing role as a key partner for Japan in semiconductors, energy (LNG), AI, critical minerals, and supply-chain resilience. This moves the relationship beyond the traditional “Look East Policy” toward high-value …

Dr. Ju Hyung Kim The United Arab Emirates’ move to revive the acquisition and local production of South Korea’s K9 self-propelled howitzer is more than a conventional arms deal. This reflects a broader shift in Gulf security thinking amid the ongoing Iranian war. For years, military modernization in …

Hadi Elis For nearly eight decades, the conflict in Balochistan has been portrayed by Islamabad as a separatist insurgency threatening Pakistan’s territorial integrity. Yet for many Baloch nationalists, the struggle is not about separation from Pakistan—it is about liberation from what they regard as a historical occupation. Their …

“The Russia–Ukraine War has now exceeded the duration of the First World War, yet Russia is short of achieving its original political objectives, and Ukraine, supported by NATO, hasn’t given up.” This prolonged contest of wills has morphed into a grinding, industrial-age war of attrition fought with twenty-first-century …

Until not so long ago Latin America had been considered a quiet region, located far from the world’s superpower main strategic confrontations, with sporadic but crucial moments that helped to shape the international order as we know it today. The Cuban Missile Crisis is the clearest example: it …

Marta Rehnman After decades of a rule-based international order built on the principle ofnational sovereignty and territorial integrity and equal interactions based on  multilateralism, which emerged after two world wars driven by nationalist expansionism and imperial rivalries, a new era of geopolitics ruled by great powers who are …

Dr. Nessrine Mesto-Assaad With the emergence of the importance of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the efforts of global capital and recently major countries to build hyperscale data centers around the world, natural gas has become a key fuel for powering data centers and enabling AI servers to process …

Vance’s role as the Republican National Committee’s chief fundraiser has helped him get in front of another key constituency – donors – and made him the face of midterm campaigning. But Rubio has run for president once before, has a longer track record with donors and has more …