By Kartik Bommakanti

The emerging nuclear competition is increasingly being shaped by a key structural driver: the expansion of Chinese military power.

By Clemens Chay

The reality is that “America First” under the Trump administration has functioned as a structural force rather than empty rhetoric — one that has prompted state actors to exercise agency by prioritizing their own national interests.

By Kabir Taneja

As the global appetite for risk increases drastically, strong bilateral relations such as India and the UAE will need even stronger guardrails to future-proof themselves.

By Rachel Rizzo

As the Arctic region, ocean floor, and space emerge as the new theaters of great-power competition, how major powers navigate this moment, and whether multilateral institutions created in a different era can adapt to the new one, will be the defining questions in the years ahead.

By Andre Nicola

Unlike previous elections where the primary concern was social media manipulation, 2026 will test how Brazil, and other large democracies, respond to this new generative AI challenge. The question is no longer whether AI will shape elections. It is whether governments will build the right safeguards before, rather than after, elections can be manipulated.

By Sapna Suresh

It is not just on trade and market access that Washington and Brussels are competing for favor in India. Their competition extends to defense and security and to migration and mobility.

By Dhruva Jaishankar

Despite Europe’s push for more military self-sufficiency amid tensions with the United States, questions remain as to whether Europe’s political leadership, domestic politics, and social conditions can facilitate the development of true security and strategic autonomy.

By Ammar Nainar

The Iran War has already had a severe impact on the United States’ arms and ammunition inventory. The new demands for arms and munitions come just as India has begun to improve its domestic weapons manufacturing and promote defense exports. In the coming years, this offers opportunities for India and the United States to cooperate in defense manufacturing at scale.

By Andre Nicola

Colombia’s upcoming election is not just a domestic political contest; it will shape whether Colombia remains a closely aligned U.S. partner or evolves into a more autonomous and less predictable actor in the region.

By Dhruva Jaishankar and Piyush Verma

A CTIP could deliver relatively quick wins by supporting joint manufacturing, standards cooperation, and market access to meet Europe’s diversification needs, while deepening India’s role as a global clean energy manufacturing hub. 

By Parul Bakshi and Samriddhi Vij

While the current crisis in the Middle East may not be permanent, Asia’s dependency on Middle Eastern crude is, necessitating a deeper examination of the structure and extent of this vulnerability.

By Anit Mukherjee

The current crisis in the Middle East has demonstrated that ensuring energy security will remain a challenge for policymakers in the foreseeable future, especially for countries like India. At the same time, the current disruption provides an opportunity to initiate and build on energy sector reforms to make sure that countries are better prepared to deal with such shocks in the future.

By Siddharth Yadav and Khush Advani

As AI reshapes economies, militaries, and societies, the nations that control the hardware pipeline will shape the rules of the emerging order. At present, that pipeline runs through a single bottleneck in Veldhoven, Netherlands. For middle powers, the choice is to either accept permanent dependency on a supply chain governed by the strategic priorities of others, or invest collectively in an alternative.

By Rohan Sharma

The effectiveness of U.S.-India AI cooperation will be measured not by the number of joint statements issued, but by whether both countries can build systems that are trusted, interoperable, and deployable across borders.

By Cauvery Ganapathy

Disruptions triggered by the Iranian blockade of the Strait of Hormuz have interrupted global efforts at industrial reshoring, data center-led digitization, electrification, and the reinforcement of defense production lines, while also posing risks to global food security.

By Jeffrey D. Bean

If the U.S. government can facilitate practical, targeted bilateral engagements for mining and processing under the banner of Pax Silica and FORGE, these could support derisking semiconductor, AI, and critical mineral supply chains provided key Global South actors are engaged effectively and equitably.

By Mahdi Ghuloom and Cauvery Ganapathy

What is noteworthy is that the UAE and Bahrain, two countries which have consistently advocated for a diplomatic resolution to the dispute, have now been forced to pivot towards seeking a more proactive approach aimed at securing the Strait under a UN-supported coalition.

By Arnold Musungu, Leigh Mante, and Reem Sagahyroon

The ensuing crisis in the Middle East is intensifying food and water insecurity, climate systems, and agricultural production. The Climate and Energy program from ORF Middle East provides concise analysis of these impacts and reflections on potential pathways forward. 

By Manish Thakre

As local governments increasingly rely on private vendors, building institutional capacity is essential to ensure AI technologies serve the public interest. Decisions about what AI systems to buy, and under what conditions, determine to what extent these systems benefit citizens or produce harmful outcomes.

By Ammar Nainar

Disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz resulting from the conflict between the United States and Israel, on the one hand, and Iran on the other, threaten to create another global energy crisis. India has many reasons to proactively take such action: the closure of the Strait of Hormuz risks exacerbating the country’s energy shortages and food insecurity.

By Mannat Jaspal

The only real winners will be those that draw lessons from the crisis and move quickly to build robust energy security frameworks — one that integrate securitization, resilience, and transition planning to safeguard the present and insulate the future.

By Cauvery Ganapathy

In Venezuela’s case, as was the case with Iraq, it is the systematic domestic mismanagement of its resources coupled with inequities of political agency that diminished the value of its natural wealth. American engagement in Venezuela’s oil sector may soon demonstrate, like it did in the United States’ Iraqi sojourn, how deep-rooted these structural fractures are.

By Caroline Arkalji and Telmen Altanshagai

In the coming decades, green steel will shape whether heavy industry can remain both competitive and environmentally-aligned. The remaining question is whether policy frameworks, financing mechanisms, and workforce strategies can move at the same pace.

By Samriddhi Vij, Kabir Taneja, and Akram Zaoui

Ten days into the U.S.-Israel strikes on Iran, the conflict has entered a more entrenched phase. With air and maritime connectivity significantly disrupted and President Trump maintaining uncompromising rhetoric, Gulf leaderships find themselves navigating a precarious balance between containment and active self-defense. ORF Middle East experts offer their concise analysis on the latest developments.

By Vishal Manve

India has largely resolved the political signaling problem around nuclear energy. The harder phase now begins: building the human capital, regulatory resilience, and industrial depth necessary to sustain multi-decade deployment.

By Jeffrey D. Bean

The AI Impact Summit underscored India’s commitment to be seen as a leader for technology deployment to the Global South. In this way, India is attempting to serve as a bridge between the leading technology manufacturing countries and the societies where applied technology may have the biggest impact on quality of life, in areas like healthcare, education, and agriculture

By Dhruva Jaishankar

With ongoing strikes in the Middle East, the strategic intentions of Israel, the United States, Iran, and the Gulf Arab states are worth examining, for they will shape the intensity and scope of the war — as well as the long-term repercussions regardless of the outcome. 

By Priyasha Chakravarti

Political parties can use EMAs to more easily campaign and effectively target voters, plan party operations, and rally their supporters, free of outside interference. At the same time, unverified information and hate speech can circulate largely undetected, particularly in countries with limited oversight and regulatory capacity.

By Marta Bengoa

Using outdated balance-of-payments provisions designed for fixed exchange rates makes no sense under current monetary arrangements. Trump can continue imposing tariffs within constitutional boundaries, but the constraints now bind more tightly. Whether this leads to a more sensible trade policy or simply shifts chaos to different legal authorities remains to be seen.

By Anit Mukherjee

Lula’s state visit to India will underscore the important role of Brazil and India as leaders of the Global South helping countries navigate geopolitical uncertainty, rebalanced global trade and supply chains, rapid diffusion of transformational technologies, and accelerating impact of a changing climate. With the United States hosting the G20 this year, a strong relationship between the two countries will be critical to consolidate the achievements and keep the priorities of the Global South on the agenda.