ISDP Voices

Introduction Japanese-Iranian diplomacy dates back to 1880, when Tokyo’s first official delegation visited Naser al-Din Shah Qajar. Japan shifted from “quiet diplomacy” to direct Gulf engagement during the 1970s Oil Crisis, later sending special representatives to Iran after the 1979 revolution. Today, Japan’s strategic interests in Iran and the Middle East are multifaceted. Crucially, Japan […]

Introduction Taiwan started 2026 by registering economic growth at its fastest pace in 39 years, driven mainly by exports of AI technologies and semiconductors. However, to sustain this momentum, Taiwan must address a critical national challenge: labor shortages. Indeed, its demographic structure has changed drastically over the past decades, with a declining birth rate and […]

Introduction Local elections in South Korea (hereafter, Korea) have a relatively short and interrupted history. First introduced in 1952, they were held only three times (1952, 1956, and 1960) before being abolished after Park Chung-hee’s military coup in 1961. Park, who ruled Korea as an authoritarian modernizer until 1979, sought to establish a centralized and […]

The Reciprocal Exchange of Logistics (RELOS)agreement between India and Russia was signed in February 2025, ratified by Moscow’s State Duma in late 2025, and kept low-profile by New Delhi, with virtually no official comments on its implications. When the Russian parliamentary ratification brought it into public view, the interpretive split was immediate: one faction of […]

Abstract This blog post by Josephine Ørgaard Rasmussen delves deeper into South Korea’s high elderly poverty rate and the mechanisms driving it, such as the rapid transition from familial care to government-sponsored elder care, an immature pension system, and the institutionalization of age discrimination on the job market. It provides a few policy proposals, including […]

On the morning of February 28, 2026, an impact in Jordan provided a sobering demonstration of how the cost-exchange ratio of modern warfare has shifted in favor of the asymmetric actor. A single Iranian one-way attack (OWA) drone, likely a variant of the Shahed family, successfully navigated past layered regional defenses to strike a critical […]

The defense relationship between the United Arab Emirates and Sweden represents a distinctive model of middle-power cooperation in an era defined by supplier diversification, technological acceleration, and geopolitical uncertainty. While it does not command the same political visibility as the UAE’s partnerships with the United States or France, the Sweden track has matured into one […]

With everyone’s eyes glued to the ongoing conflict between the United States and Israel against Iran in West Asia, a question arises in the far eastern waters of the Taiwan Strait—how similar or different will the situation be if a cross-strait war flares up? And how will it affect its neighboring countries that host United […]

Since the Trump administration’s “Liberation Day” on April 2, 2025, the world has witnessed the unravelling of the global trade order like never before as Donald Trump imposed reciprocal tariffs against all economies to varying degrees. While the seeds of it were sown during his first term, Trump has taken his protectionist agenda to unprecedented […]

As the U.S.-Israeli War in Iran completes a month, neither an exit plan nor an end is in sight. The only thing certain remains the uncertainty, and Europe’s silence. Following the recent European Council Summit, which saw leaders call for de-escalation in the region, increased protection of civilians and infrastructure, and protection of EU interests […]