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

What We’re Reading: Remembering le Carre

Editor’s Note: David John Moore Cornwell, better known by his pen name, John le Carre, died on Dec. 12 at the age of 89. Though he’s the most celebrated spy novelist of all time, thanks in part to his service with British intelligence, it’d be a mistake to describe him merely as a genre writer. […]

China Stares Down a Financial Reckoning

One has to wonder what Jack Ma was thinking when, in a speech in Shanghai in late October, the Alibaba and Ant Group founder ripped into overzealous Chinese regulators,...

What We’re Reading: American and Soviet Pathologies

Why Obama Fears for Our Democracy An interview by Jeffrey Goldberg, The Atlantic I’ve read approximately 9 million of the 468 million presidential election post-mortems, which means that not only have...

For the US and China, There’s No Going Back

For months leading up to the U.S. election, there was no shortage of speculation over who Beijing would prefer to have in the White House in January. In several...

Will US Troops Return to Taiwan?

For the past several years, China has been going to exaggerated lengths to isolate Taiwan – diplomatically, militarily, even epidemiologically. But Taipei and Washington have been finding some subtle...

What We’re Reading: Superpowers and Scary Stories

Superpower Showdown: How the Battle Between Trump and Xi Threatens a New Cold War By Bob Davis and Lingling Wei “Superpower Showdown” provides a broad overview of the history of U.S.-Chinese...

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