Independent news and analysis on geopolitics across Asia and the Pacific.
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South Asia links Indian Ocean competition to land-based rivalries, industrial ambition, and the growing importance of India in coalition planning.
India's regional role, the Bay of Bengal, Pakistan, and the links between Indian Ocean and continental politics.
Countries and places
India's foreign, economic, and security policies increasingly influence cooperation across the wider Indo-Pacific.
Latest coverage
Recent source-linked headlines and analysis from across this region.
From floods to heatwaves, cascading climate disasters expose mounting vulnerabilities demanding coordinated scientific and policy responses.
Why it matters: This matters because diplomatic sequencing often reveals alignment changes before force posture does. South Asia links continental rivalry to the maritime logic of the wider Indo-Pacific.
The Taliban has issued a decree that further enables child marriages in Afghanistan and restricts women’s and girls’ ability to leave such unions. As the repression accelerates, Australia should build on its record of holding ...
Why it matters: A state-backed legal case would test whether regional partners can convert human-rights commitments into sustained multilateral pressure.
A recent prison riot at Negombo underscores the need for the government to dismantle drug trafficking networks, contain criminal activity and carry out prison reforms.
Why it matters: This matters because domestic mandates and institutional stability determine which regional commitments can endure. South Asia links continental rivalry to the maritime logic of the wider Indo-Pacific.
India’s ethanol push boosts energy security and farm incomes, but consumers remain unconvinced amid mileage and price concerns.
Why it matters: The dispute shows where national energy-security targets collide with household costs, agricultural interests, and uneven infrastructure readiness.
Topics to follow alongside this region
Navies, coast guards, maritime disputes, and the sea lanes central to regional security and commerce.
Leader-level meetings, coalition building, smaller groupings, and the negotiations behind joint statements.
Elections, cabinets, civil-military relations, protest movements, and the domestic mandates behind foreign policy.
Ports, shipping, critical minerals, industrial policy, and the routes linking factories to strategy.
Growth, currencies, debt, investment, and the economic choices that expand or constrain state power.
Shipyards, missiles, procurement, co-production, and the factories behind military posture.
Semiconductors, export controls, telecom infrastructure, AI competition, and digital sovereignty.
Politics, climate finance, regional partnerships, and the local priorities that inform Pacific decision-making.
Climate security, disaster response, food systems, migration, water, and the politics of adaptation finance.
Grid security, LNG, undersea cables, strategic ports, and financing contests around hard infrastructure.
Domestic legislation, maritime law, sanctions design, and the regulatory layer underneath competition.