As the COVID-19 crisis has progressed, US-China relations have begun to acquire a logic of comprehensive, zero-sum confrontation. Even in the event that a lengthy pandemic reaffirms the need for international cooperation, the processes that have now been initiated will be difficult to undo. Mutual suspicion has become rife and talk of a “new Cold...Read More

In recent years, the internal challenges to Western liberal democracy and the early effects of climate change have both intensified drastically. In early 2020, the impact of the coronavirus outbreak added a harsh reminder of the capacity of epidemic diseases not only to kill human beings but to cause massive economic, social and political disruption....Read More

A microscopic bug, commonly referred to as Covid-19, has brought human civilisation to its knees. For the first time in mankind’s history, city streets the world over are near empty as widespread paranoia and insecurity have become as endemic as the virus.  In the early stages of this global crisis, national governments all too often...Read More

The latest Munich Security Conference hosted a great deal of talk about Europe as a greater strategic player. But for now, as it embarks on a new decade, most of this remains just talk. At the recently concluded Munich Security Conference, French President Emmanuel Macron reiterated his demands for a renewed discussion regarding a possible ‘reset’ in...Read More

The large influx of Rohingya refugees into Bangladesh from neighbouring Myanmar in the wake of the August 2017 ‘clearance operation’ conducted by the Myanmar security forces against the Rohingya in northern Rakhine state is only the most recent chapter in the long story of oppression faced by the Rohingya minority. Over the past four decades,...Read More

The focus of this article is to explore ongoing developments in European perceptions of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), and how BRI has been gradually influencing Europe in thinking more strategically about its own continental scale and common interests across Eurasia. The New Silk Roads are neither a formal policy nor a clearly defined...Read More

Before we turn to our 12 things to watch in the global economy in 2020, let us briefly review 2019. The deterioration in the global economic and geopolitical environments continued unabated last year. In a tumultuous year that has now drawn to a close, the global economy experienced its slowest growth rates in a decade,...Read More

At a lively conference on relations between the EU and Russia in London on 17th September a number of speakers took as their starting-point the fact that the new Commission was reviewing the state of these relations. It was uncertain what the outcome of this review would be. Two contrasting analyses were offered by the panel....Read More

In moves that signify their strong desire to strengthen bilateral cooperation, the European Union and Vietnam have reached milestone agreements in recent months. On 30 June 2019, they signed a free trade agreement (FTA) and an investment protection agreement (IPA). Over a month later, on August 5, they inked a new defence agreement. In many...Read More

This year’s G7 annual gathering of developed economies in Biarritz, France, yielded very little in the way of solutions for a sagging and troubled global economy, and the various social and environmental challenges facing globalisation. The ineffectiveness of this select group in influencing the course of world development is doubtless due to a variety of...Read More