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Access the complete body of work from The Source, featuring in-depth analysis, expert perspectives, and strategic commentary at the intersection of geopolitics, finance, and technology. Our archive is fully searchable and organized by topic, making it easy to find the insights most relevant to your interests.
Discover also our Word of the Day series — concise explorations of key terms and concepts that illuminate the evolving language of global strategy, policy, and markets.
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From Interdependence to Vulnerability: Technology, Supply Chain, and Japan’s Economic Security
Digital infrastructure becomes national security What happens when a nation’s technological infrastructure, such as data centers or semiconductor supply chains, is heavily reliant on a single country? The concept of national security has fundamentally changed. In the past, military capabilities such as tanks and missiles largely defined national security; today, it increasingly centers on data centers, cloud networks, and AI algorithms. Japan’s Economic Security Promotion Ac
Yeoun Ki
4 hours ago7 min read
The Arctic Passages: Taking Control of Future Trade Routes
Recent declarations by President Trump regarding the possibility of Greenland joining the United States have renewed interest in the strategic importance of this semi-autonomous territory. The combination of Greenland’s complex legal framework, comprising autonomous legislation, the Danish Constitution, and additional legal layers, together with its strategic geographic location, renders it particularly vulnerable. These factors make Greenland a focal point for competing inte
The Source
4 hours ago3 min read
Bond Vigilantes
"The term “bond vigilantes” refers to investors who discipline excessive government spending by demanding higher sovereign debt yields. Since the 1980s, when strategist Ed Yardeni coined the term, episodes of fiscal excess regularly give rise to questions about when these vigilantes might turn up." Source: https://www.pimco.com/eu/en/insights/thoughts-from-the-bond-vigilantes
The Source
1 day ago1 min read
The Middle Corridor Without the Romance: Real Bottlenecks from the Caspian to theBlack Sea
The Trans-Caspian International Transport Route, or the Middle Corridor (MC), connects China to the European Union through Central Asia, the Caspian Sea, and the South Caucasus. Although not the sole option to for moving goods between Asia and Europe, this multimodal transport route received growing attention following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. As international sanctions reshaped trade alignments and disrupted global supply chains, countries began seeki
Nini Pataridze
2 days ago6 min read
Middle Power
" Scholars generally define middle powers as countries that are not superpowers but still exert meaningful influence beyond their borders, often through diplomacy, coalition-building, and norm-setting (Cooper et al., 1993). Unlike major powers that rely on hard power — military or economic coercion — middle powers tend to rely on soft power and multilateralism. Their influence comes not from commanding others, but from persuading, mediating, and sometimes inspiring." Source:.
The Source
3 days ago1 min read
Hezbollah: A Socio‑Geoeconomic Anatomy of Power in Contemporary Lebanon
Introduction Hezbollah occupies a unique position in contemporary Lebanon. It is simultaneously a political party, an armed movement, a welfare provider, and a regional actor embedded within the strategic architecture of the Middle East. Much commentary reduces Lebanon to a collapsed state and Hezbollah to a destabilising militia. Such narratives obscure the structural dynamics that have shaped the organisation’s evolution and the social relations that sustain its legitimacy.
Benedek Várszegi
Jan 227 min read
Soft Balancing
"[Soft balancing] occurs when states generally develop ententes or limited security understandings with one another to balance a potentially threatening state or a rising power. Soft balancing is often based on a limited arms build-up, ad hoc cooperative exercises, or collaboration in regional or international institutions; these policies may be converted to open, hard-balancing strategies if and when security competition becomes intense and the powerful state becomes threate
The Source
Jan 211 min read
The European Union as a Swing Power in Great-PowerCompetition
As rivalry between the United States and China increasingly shapes the international system, much of the analytical focus has centered on military capabilities, alliance structures, and ideological competition. Yet one of the most consequential actors in this evolving landscape is neither Washington nor Beijing, but Brussels. The European Union is not a traditional great power, nor does it seek to become one. Instead, it is emerging as a global swing state which will be refer
Paula Thornton
Jan 215 min read
Friendshoring
"Essentially friendshoring refers to the rerouting of supply chains to countries perceived as politically and economically safe or low-risk, to avoid disruption to the flow of business. The practice has stoked concern within the international community about the possibility of further geo-political fragmentation and deglobalization of the world’s economy – the decline of interdependence between nations, global institutions and enterprises. The US government, for example, has
The Source
Jan 201 min read
Europe and the future of Advanced Semiconductor Packaging
Europe faces geopolitical fragility when it comes to the semiconductor industry. Europe’s heavy reliance on Taiwan for front-end semiconductor manufacturing and wafer supply is a strategic vulnerability, one that pandemic-era disruptions made impossible to ignore. As a result, Europe’s semiconductor policy has been primarily focused on fabs by prioritising new investment and expanding domestic wafer supply. However, it still lacks the essential advanced packaging that binds c
James Hammersley
Jan 154 min read
Pan-Africanism
"Pan-Africanism can be broadly defined as the intellectual foundation of a desire for unity of Africans in the diaspora, a regional push for African unity, a global movement intended to unite Africa and its people against European hegemony, and the general liberation of the people of Africa and those of African descent. Pan-Africanism aims to achieve four primary objectives. The first is the political unity of Africa that aims to bring the states of Africa under a unified pol
The Source
Jan 141 min read
Has Russia failed in protecting Sahel juntas from terrorism?
Following military coups in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger between 2020 and 2023, most analysts agreed that a new era had begun for the Sahel, one in which cooperation with Russia would be a fundamental pillar. Russia offered the newly installed juntas’ military support through the Wagner Group, a formally independent mercenary group, while positioning itself as an economic and diplomatic partner for the region, drawing on its claimed “historical aversion to Western colonialis
Elia Calderazzi
Jan 138 min read
Restoration
" (...) Is a process in which the political regime, that previously was democratic but went through a change to an authoritarian or semi-authoritarian one, returns to democracy." Source: https://www.igi-global.com/dictionary/chile-under-the-government-of-sebastin-piera/41258
The Source
Jan 121 min read
The GIUK Gap's Second Life: From ASW Gate to Strategic Seabed Bottleneck
During the Cold War, the Greenland-Iceland-United Kingdom (GIUK) Gap mattered because its geography channeled submarines. It was the acoustically and geographically constrained set of exits Soviet vessels would need to use to reach the North Atlantic, thereby making the Gap a natural place for NATO to concentrate fixed sensors and deploy both maritime patrol aircraft and anti-submarine warfare (ASW) forces. The strategic problem at that time was relatively clear: detect, t
Lawrence Kaiser
Jan 76 min read
Petrodollar
" The term petrodollar refers to the US Dollars earned by oil-exporting countries through the sale of their petroleum products in the global market. These dollars circulate internationally and are used for various economic and financial transactions such as imports, investments, and more. The concept became prominent in the 1970s when many oil-producing nations agreed to price their oil in Dollars, leading to a significant impact on global currency markets and trade. Through
The Source
Jan 71 min read
Quiet Frontliners: Kuwait and Jordan at the Edges of a Region in Turmoil
Mainstream analysis of the Middle East has a recurring pattern of orbiting strictly around states with outsized military or economic power. The likes of Saudi Arabia, Iran, Israel, Egypt, and more recently, the UAE and Qatar. Meanwhile, the role of Kuwait and Jordan, two states that play crucial stabilising roles, rarely dominate international headlines, while they navigate a region rife with geopolitical fragmentation. Their quiet contributions are underscored by a soft-po
Sia Jyoti
Jan 66 min read
Brinkmanship
"The art of getting to the brink of war without precipitating one. It is associated with the American Secretary of State during much of the 1950s, John Foster Dulles (1888–1959). The most serious case of twentieth-century brinkmanship was the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, in which the parties came eyeball-to-eyeball." Source: https://kamudiplomasisi.org/pdf/kitaplar/___adictionaryofdiplomacy.pdf
The Source
Jan 51 min read
Dirigisme
"Term derived from French word diriger (to direct) referring to the control of economic activity by the state. Intervention may take the form of legal requirements, financial incentives and penalties, nationalization, or comprehensive economic planning, though with an underlying commitment to private ownership." Source: https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/acref/9780199670840.001.0001/acref-9780199670840-e-361
The Source
Dec 24, 20251 min read
Frozen Assets, Frozen Will: Europe’s Missed Geopolitical Opportunity
In our last insight, we discussed the attempts made by the United States to reassert its role as the eminent military and imperialistic superpower. As one of the blocs poised to rise in the global hegemonic rankings, the European Union has all the necessary tools for success. However, its lack of progress is exemplified by its indecision on two key issues: what to do with the approximately €210 billion in frozen Russian assets held in Brussels and the negotiations for the EU
The Source
Dec 23, 20253 min read
Minilateralism
Minilateralism has become the popular modus operandi of 21st-century international relations among states. As a concept, minilateralism is quite fluid. It indicates a grouping of a small number of like-minded states pursuing mutual goals. It is considered a nimble and more targeted approach than multilateralism where “the smallest possible number of countries needed to have the largest possible impact on solving a particular problem.” In contrast to the traditional multilater
The Source
Dec 22, 20251 min read
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