• Sat-11-2024
Tajikistan’s Afghan Conundrum (November 25, 2024, Foreign Policy Research Institute)

Tajikistan’s policies toward neighboring Taliban-ruled Afghanistan are reaching a pivotal moment. Tajik President Emomali Rahmon and his government have always viewed the Taliban as a threat, and that position has not changed since the Taliban returned to power in August 2021. However, there is a bigger threat to Tajikistan growing in Afghanistan, and it might take cooperation with the Taliban to neutralize it.

  • Sat-11-2024
Turkey, Greece, and Trump (November 20, 2024, War on the Rocks)

Deliberation and debate across the world continue apace on the question of what Donald Trump’s victory means for global security. In Europe, discussions appear to have already attained a frenetic pitch. Leaders in Brussels and other capitals visibly fret over the possibility that the United States may withdraw its support for Ukraine or perhaps leave NATO altogether.

  • Sat-11-2024
Conspiracy Theories and Their Believers in Contemporary Japan (November 11, 2024, Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung (bpb))

Japan is no stranger to conspiracy theories, which are often featured in its popular media. Beyond popular culture, however, the context of conspiracy theories and the characteristics of their believers in Japan remain largely unknown to the international community. This article gives a brief overview of the most widespread conspiracy narratives.

  • Sat-11-2024
Muhammad Yunus on the Race to Build Bangladesh 2.0 (November 21, 2024, Time)

Dhaka looks reborn after a fresh lick of paint. Though this is not your typical municipal spruce-up. The sprawling Bangladeshi capital has been festooned with garish political murals celebrating August’s student-led ouster of reviled Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wazed. Mile upon mile of concrete balustrades are daubed with caricatures of the deposed autocrat with fangs and devil horns, slogans extolling “Gen-Z, the real heroes,” and vows to “flush sh-ts from our society.”

  • Sat-11-2024
How dangerous is North Korea's war rhetoric? (November 19, 2024, Deutsche Welle)

North Korea has ramped up its rhetoric but stopped short of provoking a fight. Pyongyang, buoyed by ties with Russia, remains wary of its military inferiority to South Korea, the United States and Japan.

  • Sat-11-2024
A Yemen in Their Own Image (September 26, 2024, Carnegie Endowment)

Through a campaign of arrests, the Houthis are moving forward in introducing a program of “radical change” in the country. The Houthis’ campaign of arrests has been accompanied by an absence of due process or formal indictments, with the main accusation being that those detained were involved in “espionage” for an “American-Israeli spying network.”

  • Sat-11-2024
China is off the fence in Myanmar (November 22, 2024, War on the Rocks)

China’s dual approach to Myanmar’s ongoing civil war has now veered sharply in the military junta’s favor. Since the summer, top Chinese officials have ramped up visits to Myanmar to bestow more legitimacy on the junta and its planned 2025 “elections,” as well as pressured key ethnic armed groups to cease fighting the military, known as the Tatmadaw.

  • Sat-11-2024
Building Frenzy In The South China Sea—Who Is Fortifying Islands? (November 14, 2024, Forbes) (Subscription required)

The conflict around the South China Sea is centuries old but has recently been receiving lots of attention in connection with China-Taiwan relations. However, the idea that China could start a potential invasion of Taiwan by attacking its two outposts in the area is just a small part of a much bigger, multilateral conflict.

  • Sat-11-2024
One China versus many Chinas: Time to bust the myth to deal effectively with the Dragon (November 21, 2024, First Post)

Communist China is an artificial construct. It’s a state with predominant colonial features. In fact, China has gone a step ahead than the archetypal colonial state of the yore: unlike the one the 19th century, China doesn’t necessarily need a faraway territory to be ravaged and looted upon. It exploits its own peripheral territories to satiate the ever-increasing appetite for resources.

  • Sat-11-2024
The Modi-Xi fence-mending is a sign of the times (October 25, 2024, Atlantic Council)

There is no danger in making too much of this week’s efforts by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese leader Xi Jinping to mend fences in their first meeting in five years. The danger would be to underestimate what that meeting says about the world that the next US president will inherit after the November elections. It is one where adversaries are likely to test a new president, allies will hedge, and a rising power like India will go its own way.