In 2023, Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso agreed to form the Alliance of the Sahel States (AES). Originally a military alliance, the AES made plans for economic and political integration. However, serious challenges are hampering this project. All three countries face the same problems: an endangered sovereignty, economic stagnation, and socio-political uncertainty. In the face of these challenges, which the AES struggles to address, popular discontent has become louder. For the

For more than four decades, U.S. policy toward Taiwan, like other states, has relied on strategic ambiguity. Disseminating deliberate uncertainty over whether the United States would intervene militarily if China invaded Taiwan. The policy was designed to deter conflict from both sides: discouraging Beijing from using force while preventing Taipei from declaring formal independence under the assumption of guaranteed U.S. protection. Washington still insists this policy remain

Four years after Myanmar’s military coup, ethnic armed groups, resistance forces, and the junta are all competing for control of territory, resources, and political influence. Amid this ongoing instability, which has prompted the European Union and the United States to impose restrictive sanctions, Myanmar has become a focal point of China’s strategic interests. From brokering localized ceasefires to pressuring the junta over cross-border fraud centers targeting Chinese citiz

Introduction Esports has shifted from a niche subculture into a global mass phenomenon where competition intersects with technology, entertainment, and national identity. Nowhere is this intersection more pronounced than in China, where competitive gaming has become a platform for expressing pride, cultural confidence, and geopolitical aspirations. In 2025, the Chinese esports market reached a revenue of ¥29.33 billion (approximately $4.02 billion), supported by an audience o

IV. The JCPOA and Global Data Connectivity Iran’s 5G infrastructure development, like many other things Iranian, has been entangled in global geopolitics. After JCPOA (the Iranian Nuclear Deal) was signed in 2015, Iran was allowed to officially do business with the (Western) world again. To develop its 5G network, Iran developed a policy of relying on both the West and China. MTN Irancell, the second largest mobile operator in Iran, and Ericsson signed an agreement to develop

I. Iran, China, and the Global Data Network My goal in this essay is to investigate the role of Iran in China’s ‘Digital Silk Road’, which is the digital version of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The story of Sino-Iranian tech cooperation must be investigated in the larger context of the geopolitical and geoeconomic roles that the two countries are playing or claiming to play. This is especially crucial since those roles are primarily geared to challenge the global a

On 8 August 2025, Armenia and Azerbaijan signed the Joint Declaration on Future Relations with the mediation of the United States of America. This has opened a new opportunity for normalisation, opening the door for regional development. The rebuilding of interstate relations may be the driver for growth in the region thanks to the project seeming to be a large transit hub. All this, at crossroads connecting Europe, the Middle East and Asia. However, to achieve this, there is

Senegal’s maritime frontier stands as a pivotal site for reimagining fisheries governance, especially as globalization, market integration, and ecological pressures converge within the nation’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). This essay explores the evolution of Senegal’s approach to fisheries sovereignty, shifting from a strictly legal framework to a nuanced model of geo-economic statecraft. Drawing on key developments from 2024, including the release of vessel lists, Europea

N.B. This article was written on 16 January, before the conclusion of the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between the EU and India on 27 January. The current global landscape is characterised by unprecedented fragmentation, a transactional approach to international politics and rising geopolitical uncertainty. Yet, in this moment of fracture, India and Europe have found a generational opportunity to forge a strategic partnership. The EU’s increased focus on India stems not only fr

Shortly before Christmas last year, the Trump administration announced US$11.1 billion arms sales to Taiwan—the largest-ever deal between Washington and the self-ruled island, which includes eight separate purchases, ranging from HIMARS rocket systems and anti-tank missiles to loitering suicide drones. Mandated by the Taiwan Relations Act, the sales aim to bolster Taiwan’s self-defence capabilities and build a credible deterrent against a potential invasion by China, which cl

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

Introduction: Digitalization is fundamentally reshaping interactions among state, market, and society along the corridor The Nigeria–Cameroon frontier, spanning diverse terrains from Bakassi’s marshlands to Borno’s plains and the forests of Taraba and Cameroon’s Far North, has historically exemplified governance through intermittent state presence. In particular, administrative continuity has been lacking, resulting in a reliance on crisis interventions and militarized respon

The 20 th  of June 2025 could be a pivotal date for the European Union (EU): for the first time, the European Investment Bank (EIB) – the principal EU tool for developmental projects in and out of the Union – approved a 450-million euro loan for the installation of a military campus in Rūdninkai, Lithuania. The involvement of the EIB in such a project, aimed at strengthening NATO’s Eastern flank, is a significant shift in EIB’s casual projects, and therefore a shift in EU pri

Canada is entering a critical phase in the expansion of its liquefied natural gas (LNG) export capacity. The inauguration of the LNG Canada facility in Kitimat, British Columbia, marks a significant shift for a country whose energy exports have long been defined by near-exclusive reliance on the United States. By opening direct access to overseas markets, this project represents a structural departure from Canada’s traditional dependence on its southern neighbour. The launch