South Pacific

Daily Memo: Kazakhstan Unrest Spreads, North Korea Tests a Missile

Kazakhstan on fire. With the internet in Kazakhstan shut down, reliable news is hard to come by, but here’s what we know. Unrest that started a few days ago in the oil-rich western regions of the country has spread, most notably to the country’s largest city, Almaty. Approximately 500 people have been injured, more than […]

Globalization After the Pandemic

We enter 2022 with the same hope that we had as we entered 2021: that the pandemic will end soon. This time, we will...

2021 Year-End Review

(click to enlarge) Scale: Hit, Partial Hit, Inconclusive, Partial Miss, Miss Global The defining feature of 2021 will be insularity. Countries will simply be too consumed with...

Daily Memo: Bad Economic Signals From Germany, Mercenaries Moving in Africa

German downturn. Germany’s closely watched Ifo business confidence index fell in December for the sixth consecutive month amid COVID-19 uncertainty, supply chain bottlenecks and...

Daily Memo: European Powder Kegs, North American Trade Disputes

Appeal for calm. Foreign ministers from the leading industrial nations of the G-7 called on Russia to de-escalate military tensions on the border with...

The World Ocean Versus the Continent

For centuries, the power that controls the seas – the “World Ocean” – has successfully stymied continental rivals and dictated the rules of world trade. The...

Japan’s Indispensable Role in Southeast Asia

One of the funnier moments of the past few years in geopolitics took place in 2017 in Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte's bedroom. Duterte had...

Fertilizers and Food Insecurity

Next week is Thanksgiving, a U.S. holiday that celebrates, and is celebrated with, food. This year, however, Americans are reckoning with rising food prices....

Daily Memo: Taiwan Rumors and Visits, US-Russian Spy Meeting

China and Taiwan. China has reportedly been cracking down on a surge of online speculation about a possible cross-strait conflict with Taiwan. Like many...

Explanations for the Labor Shortage

The current breakdown of the global supply chain threatens to change the future of the world. If this worsens, the fabric of the global...

Daily Memo: China Finds Some Support for TPP Bid, AUKUS Fallout

Two down, nine to go. China's longshot bid to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership has at least some backing within...

Why Australia Spurned France

The decision by the Australian government to join a U.S.-British consortium to help construct a nuclear submarine capability enraged France, whose previous efforts to...

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