From global think tanks
The analyses published here do not necessarily reflect the strategic thinking of The Global Eye
Today’s about : Australia, Australia-Japan-South Korea, Bangladesh-Pakistan, Europe, Fiji, India, India-Indonesia, Middle East, Myanmar, Norway, Russia-China, Southeast Asia, Syria-Türkiye, US-Pakistan
Australia
(Justin Bassi – ASPI The Strategist)
They say silence breeds contempt but the reticence of the Australian government about national security threats is more akin to the quote attributed to Dietrich Bonhoeffer when resisting Nazi Germany: that ‘silence in the face of evil is itself evil’. The government is not responsible for individual violent incidents across our cities, but it is responsible for informing, reassuring and protecting the public. Yet the current malaise of leadership is feeding anxiety and infecting the social cohesion that has stood Australia apart from much of the world despite decades of global terrorism and conflict. – Silence from Canberra on threat to national security | The Strategist
(Chris Taylor, James Corera – ASPI The Strategist)
The road to hell is apparently paved with good intentions. But often, it’s tarmac laid with thoughtlessness and passivity. Two years ago the Albanese government described Australia’s immigration policy as broken, owing to unplanned, temporary migration flows since 2005. It claimed this ‘happened without any real policy debate or discussion. It happened not through thoughtful planning and strategy, but by negligence and continental drift.’. Today, a similar drift threatens to break a model of intelligence review, strategic direction and public engagement that has served Australia well for more than two decades. – Drifting into danger: will we ever see the independent intelligence review? | The Strategist
Australia – Japan – South Korea
(Melissa Conley Tyler – Australian Institute of International Affairs) It’s an idea touted at least as long ago as 2014 during the US rebalance to Asia when Hayley Channer suggested building security webs with these two other key US allies as an effective way to protect Australia’s interests. Since then, we have seen the rise and endurance of minilaterals in the Indo-Pacific. As Sarah Teo explains it, minilateralism has emerged due to the shortcomings of large-scale multilateralism and the deepening of major power rivalry. Such groupings often have China as their shared concern, whether implicitly or explicitly. For example, joint statements from the 2023 US-Japan-South Korea summit and 2024 US-Japan-Philippines summit both called out Chinese behaviour. – A Possible Australia-Japan-Korea Trilateral is Gathering Momentum – Australian Institute of International Affairs
Bangladesh – Pakistan
(Saqlain Rizve – Lowy The Interpreter)
With the ouster of Bangladesh’s Sheikh Hasina and her Awami League government in August after 15 years of rule, the country’s political landscape and diplomacy have taken a new turn. Hasina was closely allied with India, where she remains in exile, and her removal has led to a cooling of this relationship. At the same time, Bangladesh’s previously strained relationship with Pakistan, which had worsened over the past 15 years, has started to improve. – The revival of Bangladesh-Pakistan ties | Lowy Institute
Europe
(Crisis Group)
What happens with the war in Ukraine matters beyond its borders, as events there will shape the larger standoff between Russia and the West. The U.S. and European powers can manage the risks of a changing security order with a mix of diplomacy and deterrence. – Ukraine and Beyond: Shaping Europe’s Security Future | Crisis Group
(Raquel Jorge Ricart – Elcano Royal Institute)
Lessons from the last European Commission’s mandate (2019-2024) show that the international engagement of the European Union institutions in technology policy with third partners has largely increased. The institutionalization of dialogues with other countries has been translated into structured platforms for trust and information exchange and, in some cases, for joint decisions on implementation roadmaps. This is the case of the EU-US Trade and Technology Council, the EU-India Trade and Technology Council, the Digital Partnership Agreements with many Indo-Pacific countries -Japan, Republic of Korea, and Singapore-, the launch of the EU-LAC Digital Alliance, or the strengthening of the Digital Agenda for Western Balkans. – Priorities for the international agenda of EU’s digital policy in the 2024-2029 mandate – Elcano Royal Institute
Fiji
(Mosmi Bhim – Lowy The Interpreter)
Strong leaders that bend rules received higher approval ratings in the inaugural Fiji post-election survey on voter behaviour and democracy. These findings reflect the tendency of Fijians to vote in favour of past coup leaders. Sitiveni Rabuka, for example, who led Fiji’s first coup of 1987, became prime minister after the 1992, 1994 and 2022 elections, and the 2006 coup leader Voreqe Bainimarama, became prime minister after the 2014 and 2018 elections. But despite favouring a “strong leader”, Fijians are committed to democracy. Almost three-quarters (74%) of survey respondents gave preference to democracy over any other kind of government. Only 6% did not prefer democracy, while 15% were neutral. – Strong leader preferred – Fiji’s coup legacy | Lowy Institute
India
(Gopalika Arora – Observer Research Foundation)
on the priorities of the previous year, the Budget announced on 1 February 2025, continues to place energy security and energy transition at its core. With significant investments in renewable energy, electric vehicle infrastructure, and pivotal policy reforms aimed at nuclear energy and green hydrogen, the budget unveils a multi-faceted approach to transforming India’s energy landscape. But as the government pushes forward with these transformative initiatives, the real question lies in how these plans will unfold in practice and whether they can address the challenges that remain. – Budget 2025: Powering India’s green energy future
(Ramanath Jha – Observer Research Foundation)
The National Budget 2025-26 presented on 01 February 2025 by India’s Finance Minister (FM) was preceded by the budget revealed on 23 July 2024. The FM referred to the July 24 budget several times in her 25 Feb budget speech, probably because the earlier one had laid out the government’s principal financial and policy decisions as well as outlays. This budget, therefore, was a continuum. This article focuses on the Budget proposals having relevance to urban settlements and critically analyses those proposals and their impact on cities. – National Budget 2025-26 and urban reforms
(Sharon Sarah Thawaney – Observer Research Foundation)
As India steps into the fiscal year 2025-2026, it also celebrates two decades of gender budgeting. In her Budget address, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman laid out a vision that places women at the heart of India’s growth story. With a clear focus on empowering youth, farmers, and women, this year’s Budget aligns with the broader goal of a Viksit Bharat by 2047, with ‘women-led development’ as a cornerstone of this transformation. One of the most ambitious targets set in this Budget is the integration of 70 percent of women into the workforce. But how well does the 2025-26 gender budget live up to these lofty goals? This piece dives deep into the budget’s allocations, exploring how they align with and advance the vision of women-led development, with a sharp focus on key areas like employment, education, health and well-being, and safety and security. – Budget 2025-26 and women’s empowerment: Is India meeting its gender goals?
India – Indonesia
(Chietigj Bajpaee, Ben Bland – Chatham House)
New Delhi and Jakarta share many development challenges and foreign policy objectives. But despite last week’s summit, there remain several challenges to realizing the full potential of the bilateral relationship. – Warming India–Indonesia rhetoric belies challenges of Global South leadership | Chatham House – International Affairs Think Tank
Middle East
(Michael Harris – RUSI)
Ceasefires and hostage releases are hugely welcome, but they do not address the underlying motivations of conflict in the Middle East. The Gaza ceasefire is only a precondition to any hope of moving the needle on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, which has been the foundation of generations of tension in the region. President Donald Trump’s goalpost moving talk of relocating 1.5 million Palestinians from Gaza to neighbouring countries is more punishment than peace, and anathema to Palestinians. But the alternative of a path to a two-state solution outlined most recently by departing Secretary of State Antony Blinken is in the present environment a non-starter for most Israelis. Still, Gaza’s destruction and Trump’s muscular opening gambit make it clear that there is an opportunity for game-changing diplomacy in the Middle East, which could even legitimately allow Trump to lay claim to the title of ‘peacemaker’. No-one is more important to this opportunity than Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS). With a Saudi normalisation with Israel high on the US wish list, and Saudi’s capacity to fund Gazan reconstruction, Saudi Arabia has what Trump craves in any deal – leverage. – How Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Can Move the Needle on Middle Eastern Peace | Royal United Services Institute
(Soufan Center)
Governments in Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon are trying to strengthen the power of the state by reining in non-state actors backed by outside powers. Leaders of the three countries want to prevent non-state militia forces from further embroiling their countries in unwanted conflict with neighboring and other outside powers. Non-state actors in the three countries have deep roots in segments of society who see the militias as protectors, complicating state efforts to disarm and marginalize them. The outside backers of the region’s non-state actors oppose disarmament of the militias they sponsor because the armed groups are advancing their strategic agendas. – Regional Governments in the Middle East Seek to Rein in Non-State Actors – The Soufan Center
Myanmar
(Htet Hlaing Win – FULCRUM)
On 8 July 2024, a 16-year-old boy was found dead with multiple wounds near a cemetery in central Myanmar, an area dominated by resistance forces. He was a member of the All-Burma Federation of Students’ Union’s (ABFSU) local branch. A few weeks before the murder, this branch had clashed with a local resistance group over an issue. ABFSU petitioned immediately for the arrest of suspects, allegedly members of the resistance group. Although the National Unity Government (NUG) responded by condemning the murder and detaining four suspected members, the damage had already been done. Moreover, it was one among many instances where the members of resistance forces under the nominal control of the NUG had committed extrajudicial killings, unlawful arrests, torture, human rights violations and war crimes. The NUG’s reputation and claims to legitimacy hang in the balance as a result. – Rebel Violence in Myanmar and NUG’s Crisis of Legitimacy | FULCRUM
Norway
(Havard Halland, Knut Anton Mork – ASPI The Strategist)
Norway’s government has effectively become a war profiteer, we argued in a commentary in December. It is an opinion shared by a number of European politicians and by European and Norwegian media. But rather than paying attention, Norway’s government is getting defensive. The basic facts are not up for debate. After the outbreak of the Ukraine war caused natural gas prices to rise sharply in Europe, Norway reaped windfall profits totalling some €108 billion, according to Norway’s Ministry of Finance. That is more than the value of all military and civilian support Ukraine has received from the United States and Germany combined from when the war started through October 2024. It is roughly one-third of the value of the Russian central-bank assets that are currently frozen in the West (and which Western governments have extensively debated channelling to Ukraine for defence and reconstruction). – Norway should cede its war windfall to Ukraine | The Strategist
Russia – China
(Rajoli Siddharth Jayaprakash – Observer Research Foundation)
The Russia-China partnership has grown steadily in the past decade, driven by Moscow’s widening rift with the European Union. As Western markets closed to Russia in 2014, Beijing emerged as an economic partner, importing Russian energy, defence goods, metals and minerals, timber, and other natural resources and exporting manufactured goods, technology, and dual-use goods. The partnership reached new heights following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, with bilateral trade surging from US$147 billion in 2021 to US$240 billion in 2023. This development has fuelled speculation about a potential Russia-China alliance to counter the West. However, this paper argues that the structural asymmetry and conflicting interests within the Russia-China economic partnership hinder its potential for long-term cooperation. – A Decadal Review of Russia-China Economic Relations
Southeast Asia
(East Asia Forum)
With rising tensions due to the international implications of the Chinese economy’s imbalances and the re-escalation of the US-China trade war, ASEAN nations are recognising the need for unity to ensure their interests are considered by larger global powers. Supporting institutional structures like the Multi-Party Interim Appeal Arbitration Agreement, a substitute for the WTO dispute settlement process, can help safeguard against protectionism. ASEAN needs a coordinated policy strategy to defend the benefits from free and open trade, while also preparing for the possibility of punitive US tariffs due to the region’s persistent trade surplus with the US. – Southeast Asia in the crossfire of the US–China trade war | East Asia Forum
Syria – Türkiye
(Murat Guneylioglu – RUSI)
Turkey’s influence in Syria is more complex than commonly portrayed. While it has played a role in shaping events, its long-term dominance remains uncertain amid shifting power dynamics. – Reconsidering Turkey’s Influence on the Syrian Conflict | Royal United Services Institute
US – Pakistan
(Emirates Policy Center)
Although Washington has shifted its strategy of cooperation with Pakistan from “high-politics” to “low-politics,” both countries have shown substantial pragmatism in their relations, focusing on issue-based cooperation. Political factions in Pakistan remain divided over US-Pakistan relations, with some viewing US influence as a threat to Pakistan’s sovereignty. While Pakistan is not a central player in the US-China competition, its strong ties with Beijing provide a strategic counterbalance to India. The bilateral relationship between Pakistan and the US is expected to remain largely unchanged, with no significant improvement or deterioration anticipated under a second Trump administration. Until Pakistan regains strategic importance for Washington, Islamabad is likely to maintain its “minimalist approach” – engaging in limited cooperation with the US on issues of lower strategic priority. – Emirates Policy Center | Future of Pakistan-US Relations Under Trump Administration 2.0: Maintaining a Minimalist Approach
