Global - Diplomacy & Politics

Alliance by Coercion, Racket by Design

The Trump administration’s approach to alliance management has a consistent logic: pay up or we withdraw. NATO members are being billed. Trade partners are being tariffed. The message is transactional and deliberate. What it is not is an alliance. It is a protection racket.

By Sunny Peter

/ 28 Apr 2026

The Dignity Deficit: When Leaders Stopped Being Serious

There was a time when the men and women who led nations understood the office demanded something of them. That seriousness — imperfect, sometimes hypocritical, but real — has largely gone. What replaced it is performance. The world is run by people who confuse visibility with leadership.

By Sunny Peter

/ 21 Mar 2026

The Dignity Deficit: When Leaders Stopped Being Serious

Platforms, Power, and the Politics of Control: A Conversation with John P. Wihbey

John P. Wihbey has spent years studying how digital platforms reshape public discourse and political power. In this conversation, he addresses the governance gap at the heart of the information age — and why the solutions being proposed are not yet equal to the problem.

By Sunny Peter

/ 20 Mar 2026

Platforms, Power, and the Politics of Control: A Conversation with John P. Wihbey

The Ungoverned Commons: Can Democracy Tame Social Media?

John Wihbey’s Governing Babel confronts the central problem of the digital age: social media platforms have become the public square, and nobody elected them. Essential reading for anyone who wants to understand why content moderation is a political problem, not a technical one.

By Sunny Peter

/ 20 Mar 2026

The Ungoverned Commons: Can Democracy Tame Social Media?

The Great Rebalancing: How Multipolarity Is Transforming International Relations in 2025

The liberal international order is not collapsing — it is being renegotiated. The Global South is asserting agency. China and Russia are offering alternatives. The United States is retracting. What emerges will be less Western, less institutionalised and harder to predict.

By Sunny Peter

/ 8 Nov 2025

The Great Rebalancing: How Multipolarity Is Transforming International Relations in 2025

When Algorithms Go to War: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of International Conflict

Autonomous weapons systems are not coming. They are here. AI is already embedded in targeting, surveillance and cyber operations. The question is no longer whether algorithms will make decisions in war — but who is accountable when they get it wrong. Nobody has a good answer.

By Sunny Peter

/ 18 Oct 2025

When Algorithms Go to War: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of International Conflict

They Predicted AI Would Rationalize Diplomacy. It Made Everything Worse

The promise was that AI would make diplomacy more precise — faster analysis, better decision support, reduced miscalculation. What happened instead is that it accelerated information overload, amplified disinformation and gave every actor more tools to confuse the picture.

By Sunny Peter

/ 11 Oct 2025

They Predicted AI Would Rationalize Diplomacy. It Made Everything Worse

New Cold War in the Arctic: Military Buildup, Territorial Claims, and the Fight for the North

Russia has been militarising the Arctic for a decade. China has declared itself a near-Arctic state. NATO is scrambling to respond. The far north — once a strategic afterthought — is the next contested frontier of great power competition. The ice is melting. The tensions are not.

By Sunny Peter

/ 30 Sep 2025

New Cold War in the Arctic: Military Buildup, Territorial Claims, and the Fight for the North

AI and Diplomacy: 3 Must Read Books for Understanding Artificial Intelligence's Impact on International Relations

Artificial intelligence is reshaping statecraft faster than most diplomatic institutions can track. These three books offer the clearest frameworks for understanding what AI means for war, governance and the balance of power — written for the analyst who cannot afford to waste time.

By Sunny Peter

/ 26 Sep 2025

AI and Diplomacy: 3 Must Read Books for Understanding Artificial Intelligence's Impact on International Relations

A Beginner's Guide to Political Realism for the 21st Century Reader

Political realism is the most influential tradition in international relations — and the most misunderstood. It is not cynicism. It is not the belief that might makes right. It is the attempt to understand state behaviour as it is, rather than as we might wish it to be.

By Sunny Peter

/ 26 Sep 2025

A Beginner's Guide to Political Realism for the 21st Century Reader

Myth of Perpetual Dominance: What 500 Years Teaches About Multipolarity

No power has held global dominance forever. The Spanish empire, the British empire, the American unipolar moment — each peaked, overreached and declined. Five hundred years of history teach one consistent lesson: dominance is always temporary. The question is what comes after.

By Sunny Peter

/ 23 Sep 2025

Myth of Perpetual Dominance: What 500 Years Teaches About Multipolarity

15 Timeless Books That Define International Relations and Geopolitics

Some books define a field. Others define how practitioners think about power long after they were written. This list identifies 15 works — from Thucydides to Mearsheimer — that remain essential for anyone seeking to understand why states behave as they do.

By Sunny Peter

/ 18 Sep 2025

15 Timeless Books That Define International Relations and Geopolitics