By Medha Prasanna
The oil age will not end because the world runs out of oil, but because oil reserves stop being worth pumping. The UAE has moved fast, not as just a knee-jerk reaction to the conflict in the region, but as a strategic divergence.
By Andre Nicola
Across South America, governments are increasingly framing environmental regulation as a constraint on growth, investment, and national competitiveness. South America's political direction over the next several years will be an early test of whether economic development can be reconciled with environmental stewardship throughout the region.
By Pietro Zecca
Pursued only through scattered pilot projects, industrial decarbonization stays fragmented and slow. Organized as clusters, it becomes more practical and politically durable, connecting climate finance to visible assets and bridging decarbonization with development.
By Uma Vatsa and Shailesh Mishra
The AI industry is making large, long-lived bets on future demand, even as the technology itself is becoming more efficient. If AI systems become cheaper to run, more efficient to train, or less dependent on massively centralized compute, some of today’s infrastructure may prove oversized, poorly located, or economically fragile.
By Andre Nicola
Across South America, governments are increasingly framing environmental regulation as a constraint on growth, investment, and national competitiveness. South America's political direction over the next several years will be an early test of whether economic development can be reconciled with environmental stewardship throughout the region.
By Dhruva Jaishankar and Jeffrey D. Bean
Earlier this month, India was among the first countries to receive expanded access to Anthropic's Claude Mythos large language model, but the White House decision to block all foreign access to Anthropic’s new Mythos and Fable models via export control elevates concerns regarding reliability of U.S. partnership and AI dependency.
By Jhanvi Tripathi and Samriddhi Vij
Countries in the Global South are the fastest growing consumer markets with their growing and increasingly aspirational populations. Fulfilling this potential requires addressing deep connectivity gaps that have implications for the speed and cost of doing business.
By Soumya Bhowmick and Arya Roy Bardhan
For countries across Asia, Africa, and Latin America, the challenge is no longer simply how to engage Washington or Beijing diplomatically, but how to preserve developmental autonomy in an environment where great-power competition is restructuring markets, supply chains, and industrial choices.
By Aleksei Zakharov
China is carefully balancing its position on the war in Ukraine, offering Russia targeted support while avoiding direct military involvement in the form of supplying lethal weapons or deploying troops. Similarly, Moscow would like to avoid getting entangled in China’s conflicting relations with India, Japan, Vietnam, or the United States. This cautious approach on both sides imposes a clear ceiling on their engagement and leaves limited prospects for an alliance-like partnership in the future.
By Vasabjit Banerjee
China’s economic and military presence in Latin America is expanding, prompting the United States to pursue countermeasures. Other extra-regional actors, ranging from the European Union to countries such as India, are simultaneously deepening their engagement with the region. The United States could strategically leverage these relationships to reinforce its own position.
By Dhruva Jaishankar
The latest Quad joint statement highlights how economic security is receiving priority at this juncture, critical and emerging technologies are being somewhat marginalized by unilateral and bilateral efforts, and efforts of maritime security continue to progress in a more workmanlike manner.
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 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 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.
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