Djibouti, one of Africa’s smallest countries, has become China’s “strategic partner.” The Chinese have built a military base and a port, and is currently constructing a free trade zone, fast establishing it as Beijing’s gateway to the continent. Read Here – Der Spiegel
China is engaging in a nearly trillion dollar play for the future of Afro-Eurasia—called the Belt and Road Initiative—and has so far caught the United States flat-footed. Unless the United States works with key allies and partners to craft a forward-leaning response, it risks replicating the strategic failure that occurred in the South China Sea. The result […]
Southern Asia’s evolving geopolitics are leading to the intensification of the China-Pakistan nexus, a development that has been greeted in Pakistan with exuberance. Although the China-Pakistan “all-weather” friendship goes back decades, there appears to be in recent years a greater willingness in Islamabad to air frustrations with the United States while embracing China as the “cornerstone” of […]
There is no doubt that as the United States winds down the Afghan war — the longest in American history, and one that has cost half a trillion dollars and more than 150,000 lives on all sides — regional adversaries are muscling in. Saudi Arabia and Pakistan remain the dominant players. But Iran is also making […]
It is the business of the counterfactual historian to yearn for the former Ottoman Empire when reflecting on the recent incessant regional instability. However, the fact that the empire was in free fall from 1798 onward makes a mockery of this view. Nevertheless, from Libya to Yemen, and Syria to Iraq, conflict typifies the ruptures […]
Vladimir Putin has been such a dominant figure in international relations since coming to power in 1999 that it’s hard to imagine a world without him. Moreover, Russia is so large — spanning 11 time zones — and so diverse in ethnic and socioeconomic terms, that’s it’s equally difficult to foresee Russian reaction to […]
In the US, China’s pan-Eurasian infrastructure initiative is more or less invisible outside of news reports from domestic media that mostly frame it as Beijing’s grand plan for geopolitical domination Read Here – South China Morning Post
India is accelerating work on strategic roads to be able to move troops and supplies to the border faster and deploy sophisticated weapons if armed conflict breaks out. China already has extensive infrastructure on its side. Read Here – Wall Street Journal
Pakistani strategic culture stems from pathological geopolitics infused with a Salafi jihadist ideology, suffused by paranoia and neurosis. The principal but not exclusive reason that Afghanistan has seen discernibly improved quality and quantity in its forces as well as fighting capacity, yet continues to face a strategic stalemate, is the Pakistani security elites’ malign strategic […]
Saudi Arabia is seeking to secure oil trade routes to east Asia through a multi-billion dollar investment in a Maldives atoll, foreign policy experts and the Maldives’ former president have told Climate Home. The move could prefigure a Chinese military expansion into the heart of the Indian Ocean, one observer said. Read Here – Climate Home
looking beyond borders 