ISDP Voices

Asia is currently brewing with the heat of missile testing and rhetorical statements made by leaders with nuclear weapons like Pakistan and North Korea. North Korea and Pakistan are two countries with different socio-cultural and political structures but share an engrossing relationship i.e., nuclear power and technology, and are geographically destined with the same neighbor, […]

Ranking as 15th largest donor on the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in 2021, South Korea has been one of the promising donors which adheres to the humanitarian-based global development norm. This is visible from the increase in humanitarian aid from South Korea to the Global South. […]

“Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” Winston Churchill There comes a time in a prolonged and extended battle when the attacking force is unable to make gains and its leading forces reach a point where overextended logistics support or the absence of reserves no longer makes it practical to […]

China’s military expansion, North Korea’s nuclear power and now Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have all propelled Japan to revise its National Security Strategy (NSS) in terms of taking a tougher stance on being able to improve its capabilities to defend itself from threat. Japan’s National Security Strategy was revised on December 16, turning away from […]

Diplomacy between China and Brazil during the years of Xi Jinping’s government has been characterized by systemic components. First, there have been political and ideological changes in a large part of Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), in countries like Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Colombia, and recently in Brazil, with the recent triumph of Luiz […]

Xi Jinping as President of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) for a third term is revelatory of a systemic process within the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), of ‘electing’ an individual already ‘selected’ after an entrenched ‘manipulation’ and ‘co-option’ has been arranged to give impression of functional regularity and ‘legal sanctity’ to the once in […]

Intelligence gathering is key in today’s global affairs, and nobody does it better than the United States. The precision drone strike in Kabul, Afghanistan, killed Al-Qaeda chief Ayman Al-Zawahiri, the most wanted terrorist on July 31 more than a decade after Bin Laden’s assassination. He was known as ‘the man behind Bin Laden’ and the […]

The basic premise of discourse theory is that humans use communication whether verbal or written to construct knowledge and truth. Michel Foucault argues that the knowledge and truth that shape our lives is created through discourse by people in power. The western discourse of power in the 20th century was so powerful that the marginalized […]

On June 9, Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister, Mélanie Joly, announced the creation of an Indo-Pacific Advisory Committee entrusted with overseeing Ottawa’s new Indo-Pacific Strategy. The committee is comprised of a wide range of Canadians, including representatives of the private sector, civil society, and government. Both the new committee and overall strategy embody Canada’s attempt to […]

Due to a record warm fall season, supressed gas demand, and booming U.S. liquified natural gas (LNG) exports to Europe, average gas storage levels reached the EU-mandated 80 percent target ahead of time. Gas futures at the Dutch Title Transfer Facility (TTF) were trading at around €100/MWh in early November – less than a third […]