ISDP Voices

“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 […]

The 2022 Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, was marked by several notable actions indicating further organizational expansion. Egypt and Qatar were granted a dialogue partner status in SCO, Iran has signed a memorandum on joining the SCO and most remarkably, the process for granting Belarus full membership in the SCO was announced. […]

In August, as floods wreaked havoc throughout Pakistan, the country’s finance minister hinted at the possibility of importing food items from its neighbor India. For many observers, it seemed like a good opportunity for the neighbors to bury the hatchet and revive diplomatic ties downgraded in 2019. But, in what has now become a familiar […]