Phillip Orchard

Phillip Orchard is an analyst at Geopolitical Futures. Prior to joining the company, Mr. Orchard spent nearly six years at Stratfor, working as an editor and writing about East Asian geopolitics. He’s spent more than six years abroad, primarily in Southeast Asia and Latin America, where he’s had formative, immersive experiences with the problems arising from mass political upheaval, civil conflict and human migration. Mr. Orchard holds a master’s degree in Security, Law and Diplomacy from the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, where he focused on energy and national security, Chinese foreign policy, intelligence analysis, and institutional pathologies. He also earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Texas. He speaks Spanish and some Thai and Lao.

Latest From Author

China’s Financial Brinksmanship

It’s becoming something of a semi-annual tradition in China: A major bank or company misses an earnings report or bond repayment, or finds some other way to hint that it may be in dire need of a bailout. Regulators remain conspicuously silent as panic ripples through the Chinese financial system, so much of which runs […]

India’s Trump Card Against China

Despite its enormous potential, India is by no means an inevitable counterweight to Chinese ambitions in the Indian Ocean. The country's immense domestic needs and its preoccupation with land-based...

The US’ Big Plans for the Indo-Pacific

Over the past month, the U.S. has been rolling out a comprehensive theory of strategic competition against China, with all sorts of grand plans for how to enact it....

What We’re Reading: Vastness and Madness

The Works of John McPhee Since the beginning of the pandemic, I’ve been reading just about everything ever written by John McPhee. I don’t know why this is, exactly. But...

China’s Waning Rare Earths Advantage

In 1992, during a visit to Inner Mongolia, Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping quipped: “The Middle East has oil, China has rare earths,” referring to 17 elements on the southern...

What We’re Reading: On Bullets and Bastards

Glock: The Rise of America’s Gun By Paul Barrett Late last fall, on my annual hunting trip with some fellow idiots, a well-to-do friend of mine rolled up in his trailer...

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