Global

International institutions, great power competition, international law and the forces shaping world order. Pieces here cover the United Nations, the international courts, multilateral diplomacy and the systemic pressures on the rules-based order — stories that belong to no single geography but implicate all of them.

Moral Courage of Limits: How Hans Morgenthau's Political Realism Reveals the Deepest Ethics of Power

Morgenthau is read as the theorist who stripped ethics from foreign policy. He is better understood as the thinker who insisted that power without moral limits destroys itself. His realism is not amorality — it is a different, harder ethics that the current moment demands.

By Sunny Peter

/ 31 Aug 2025

Moral Courage of Limits: How Hans Morgenthau's Political Realism Reveals the Deepest Ethics of Power

Cultural Diplomacy's Quiet Revolution: How Identity Politics Are Reshaping International Relations

Culture was always a tool of statecraft. What has changed is its weaponisation — by states promoting nationalist narratives abroad, by movements using identity as political mobilisation and by platforms that amplify grievance faster than diplomacy can respond.

By Sunny Peter

/ 19 Aug 2025

Cultural Diplomacy's Quiet Revolution: How Identity Politics Are Reshaping International Relations

AI as Power: Can Diplomacy Keep Up With the Technology Race?

Artificial intelligence is developing faster than the diplomatic frameworks designed to govern it. Autonomous weapons, AI-enabled surveillance and algorithmic decision-making are already deployed. The institutions meant to regulate them are still in committee.

By Sunny Peter

/ 19 Aug 2025

AI as Power: Can Diplomacy Keep Up With the Technology Race?

What is Environmental Geopolitics? A Guide to the 21st Century’s Most Critical Foreign Policy Challenge

Environmental geopolitics studies how ecological change — resource scarcity, climate disruption, biodiversity collapse — reshapes state behaviour. It is not a niche field. It is the lens through which the most consequential foreign policy decisions of this century will be made.

By Sunny Peter

/ 19 Aug 2025

What is Environmental Geopolitics? A Guide to the 21st Century’s Most Critical Foreign Policy Challenge

Death of Privacy: How Digital Surveillance Is Reshaping International Relations and State Power

States have always kept their citizens under surveillance. What is new is the scale, the precision and the export of the technology. China’s surveillance infrastructure is being adopted across the Global South. Authoritarian governance is going global, one camera at a time.

By Sunny Peter

/ 19 Aug 2025

Death of Privacy: How Digital Surveillance Is Reshaping International Relations and State Power

Scramble for Critical Minerals: How Lithium, Cobalt, and Rare Earths Are Fueling New Conflicts

The green energy transition runs on lithium, cobalt and rare earth elements — and most are concentrated in a handful of countries. The scramble to secure them is reshaping alliances, fuelling conflict in Africa and intensifying the US-China economic rivalry.

By Sunny Peter

/ 19 Aug 2025

Scramble for Critical Minerals: How Lithium, Cobalt, and Rare Earths Are Fueling New Conflicts

Terrorism's Evolution: From Al-Qaeda's Hierarchy to Digital Lone Wolves

Al-Qaeda built a hierarchy. ISIS built a brand. Their successors need neither. The decentralisation of terrorism — driven by encrypted communications and online radicalisation — has made it harder to detect, harder to disrupt and harder to attribute.

By Sunny Peter

/ 19 Aug 2025

Terrorism's Evolution: From Al-Qaeda's Hierarchy to Digital Lone Wolves

Hybrid Warfare 2.0: How Disinformation, Cyberattacks, and Proxy Conflicts Define Modern War

Modern conflict rarely begins with a declaration of war. It begins with a cyberattack on infrastructure, a disinformation campaign and a proxy force operating under deniable cover. Hybrid warfare is the new normal — and most states are not prepared for it.

By Sunny Peter

/ 19 Aug 2025

Hybrid Warfare 2.0: How Disinformation, Cyberattacks, and Proxy Conflicts Define Modern War

Rise of Middle Powers: How India, Turkey, and Brazil Are Reshaping Global Order

Middle powers are the states too large to be ignored and too independent to be controlled. India, Turkey and Brazil are each pursuing strategic autonomy — aligning with multiple partners, refusing bloc discipline and extracting leverage from their ambiguity.

By Sunny Peter

/ 19 Aug 2025

Rise of Middle Powers: How India, Turkey, and Brazil Are Reshaping Global Order

Return of Great Power Competition: How the U.S., China, and Russia Are Reshaping the World Order

The post-Cold War fantasy of a rules-based order upheld by cooperative great powers is finished. The United States, China and Russia are competing across every domain — military, economic, technological, ideological. The contest will define the century.

By Sunny Peter

/ 19 Aug 2025

Return of Great Power Competition: How the U.S., China, and Russia Are Reshaping the World Order

Digital Diplomacy: How Social Media Is Rewriting the Rules of International Relations

Foreign ministries once communicated through cables and communiqués. Now they tweet. Social media has democratised diplomatic communication and made it instantaneous — and made diplomacy noisier, faster and far more vulnerable to misreading and manipulation.

By Sunny Peter

/ 19 Aug 2025

Digital Diplomacy: How Social Media Is Rewriting the Rules of International Relations

Global South Rising: How Developing Nations Are Reshaping World Politics

The Global South is no longer content to be managed by institutions it did not design. From BRICS to the African Union to India’s G20 presidency, developing nations are demanding a seat at the table — and in some cases, building a different table entirely.

By Sunny Peter

/ 19 Aug 2025

Global South Rising: How Developing Nations Are Reshaping World Politics