Headlines

Myanmar’s resource curse fueling its forever war

Myanmar’s war is often described as a clash of ideologies, ethnic identities and competing visions of the state. That is true, but incomplete. At its core, Myanmar’s crisis is also a resource-driven conflict, intensified by geography. The generals did not cling to power for the

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Trump-Xi summit reset cause for concern in Indonesia

The Trump-Xi summit in Beijing was supposed to signal a new phase of calmer US-China relations. Instead, it exposed a deeper reality that should concern Indonesia and much of Southeast Asia, as stability between great powers can sometimes come at the expense of middle powers.

Asia •

Why Iran has already won the war

There is a moment in every great geopolitical confrontation when the outcome becomes structurally inevitable — long before anyone is willing to announce it. Rome understood this when Germanic tribes stopped retreating. Britain understood it in 1947, standing in Delhi with empty

Asia •

Like Suez for the Brits, Hormuz spells doom for US empire

Empires rise and fall. They do not last forever. Imperial declines follow a gradual shifting of the economic tides, but are also punctuated and defined by critical tipping points. There are many differences between the Suez Crisis in 1956 and the US war on Iran today, but

Asia •

America’s Taiwan gap utterly exposed at Trump-Xi summit

The most revealing line of last week’s Trump-Xi summit was not delivered at the Great Hall of the People. It came afterward, aboard Air Force One, when the American president was asked by Fox News what he thought of the island that had dominated his two days of talks with Xi

Asia •

From indemnity to indispensability: China’s 125-year reversal

When eight foreign flags flew over Beijing in August 1900, no one in the Forbidden City could have imagined that the city would, 125 years later, host the president of the United States as a guest of honor and the president of Russia just days afterward. The contrast is almost

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