Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital, is sinking at an alarming rate. Faced with overpopulation and failing infrastructure, it now holds the title of the world’s fastest-sinking city. In response, the Indonesian government announced in 2019 the construction of a new capital, Nusantara, in eastern Borneo. Could relocating its capital transform Indonesia’s role in Southeast Asia and beyond? With over 17,500 islands, Indonesia is the world’s largest archipelago and the fourth most popul

The “Silicon Shield” theory suggests that Taiwan’s role in the global semiconductor supply chain acts as a deterrent against China’s aggression. The other side of the coin is the deep interdependence of all parties within the supply chain. The idea is simple: If Taiwan’s chip production were disrupted, the global economy would face catastrophic consequences. Such a disruption would force international powers, particularly the United States, to intervene to protect this vital

For much of the past twenty years, Europe’s commercial ties with China have been straightforward: European machine tools, industrial software and high-end components found ready buyers in China’s vast manufacturing sector, while luxury goods makers enjoyed a fast-growing consumer base. Concerns about labour rights or geopolitics rarely slowed the flow of trade. That picture is now changing. A combination of export controls on “dual-use” technologies, which are products that c

Throughout the Western Hemisphere, states have experimented with many types of security policies; however, one stands out for its political popularity and the frequency with which it is employed - mano dura. Mano dura is defined by experts Lucía Dammert et al. as the stringent, hardline policies implemented by several Latin American governments to combat rampant gang violence and criminal activity. These strategies typically involve ramping up police and military presence, em

Abstract This article would like to explore the relationship between violence, power, and symbolism in Central America, looking from pre-Columbian rituals of blood and death to the contemporary dynamics of criminality and state politics. Building on the centrality of sacrifice in Mesoamerican traditions, it examines how Gangs & Cartels ritualize violence through history and aesthetics of death. In the last part, particular attention is given to El Salvador under President Nay

The classic literature distinguishes between two fundamental approaches to deterrence. Deterrence by denial strategies seek to deter an action by making it infeasible or unlikely to succeed, thus denying a potential aggressor confidence in attaining its objectives—deploying sufficient local military forces to defeat an invasion, for example. At their extreme, these strategies can confront a potential aggressor with the risk of catastrophic loss. Deterrence by denial represent

Introduction: Why the United States Is Competing with China Recent disruptions to critical undersea communication lines such as the 2025 cable cuts in the Red Sea, damage to Baltic Sea networks, and interference near Taiwan, have highlighted the fragility of the world’s data arteries. These incidents underscore how undersea fiber-optic cables, which transmit over 95 percent of global data traffic, are increasingly contested assets in a broader geopolitical struggle. Once view

In this connective logic, taking public action or contributing to a common good becomes an act of personal expression and recognition or self-validation achieved by sharing ideas and actions in trusted relationships. Sometimes the people in these exchanges may be on opposite ends of the world, but they do not require a club, a party or a shared ideological frame to make the connection. [...] The linchpins of connective action are the formative elements of sharing and co-produ

In September 2025, Nepal was rocked by a wave of protests sparked by the government’s sudden decision to ban social media platforms across the country. The frustration quickly spilled into the streets, with thousands of young people, many from Generation Z, demanding not only the restoration of online freedoms but also an end to corruption, political stagnation, and unemployment. This attempt to restrict the digital sphere reflected more than just domestic control: it highlig

State sovereignty and the moral need to protect citizens are at odds at a time of growing transnational crises including war, humanitarian catastrophes, state collapse, and mass displacement. Concepts like the Responsibility to Protect (R2P), human security, and human-centric ideas of duty of care are challenging traditional ideas of sovereignty (complete territorial control, non-interference). This essay adopts a comparative normative approach, drawing on UN and NGO case stu

The term “fire sale” has been around since the nineteenth century to describe firms selling smoke-damaged merchandise at cut-rate prices in the aftermath of a fire. But what are fire sales in broad financial markets with hundreds of participants? How can fire sales matter for generic goods, such as airplanes or financial securities? In modern financial research, the term “fire sale” has acquired a different meaning. [...] a fire sale is essentially a forced sale of an asset a

Introduction Power today no longer moves only through armies or alliances. It moves through capital. In a fragmented world where energy, technology, and supply chains have become battlefields, sovereign wealth has turned from a financial instrument into a strategic one. What was once passive accumulation is now deliberate direction. Across the United States, Europe, the Gulf, and Asia, states are rediscovering their role as investors of last resort, and first movers of power.

Weaponized interdependence (WI) is defined as a condition under which an actor can exploit its position in an embedded network to gain a bargaining advantage over others in a contained system. In their 2019 International Security paper, Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman argue that WI challenges long-standing ways that international relations experts think about globalization. States with political authority over central economic nodes “can weaponize networks to gather informat

The American National Style in 2025: How can Europe respond? Tariffs, shattered alliances, and one crisis ‘solved’ each month: Donald Trump’s second term is American foreign policy in its rawest form. To help us understand this moment in history, few can help us as much as Stanley Hoffmann, who theorized that American foreign policy is guided by a clear National Style. President Trump’s second term magnifies enduring features of the National Style but has thus far applied the

The youth bulge is a common phenomenon in many developing countries, and in particular, in the least developed countries. It is often due to a stage of development where a country achieves success in reducing infant mortality but mothers still have a high fertility rate. The result is that a large share of the population is comprised of children and young adults, and today’s children are tomorrow’s young adults. In a country with a youth bulge, as the young adults enter the

Every empire and order has believed that power rests in weapons, wealth, or will.  Yet history's longest and quietest force has invariably been demographic.  The rise and fall of civilizations -- Rome, the Ottoman Empire, or the Soviet Union -- has been determined as much by age structures and fertility rates, as by military or ideological vigor.  Today, as great-power competition intensifies and the liberal international order is increasingly subject to revision, demography

In public discourse and commentary, terms such as entrapment, entanglement, roping in, and chain-ganging are often used interchangeably....

Part 2: A Country-Level Analysis: Impacts and Responses Along the Schengen-Eastern Frontier As outlined in the first part of this...

Economic diversification denotes a shift from a dependence on traditional sectors, such as agriculture and extractives (oil and mining),...

In December 1971, just before Bangladesh declared independence, U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Ural Alexis Johnson...