Diplomacy & Defense Think Tank News

Its participation in the Future Mineral Forum meeting in Saudi Arabia reflects its plans to market its mineral reserves. But people in mining areas remain unenthused.

The BNP has a new leader. Students speak more openly about their affiliations with right-wing politics, and there is more freedom to criticize the powerful intelligence agencies.

The Philippine foreign secretary nonetheless expressed optimism that "something positive" might emerge from the recent one-sided polls.

How Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, and the Philippines are vying for the world's mobile workforce, and what it means for the region.

António Costa, the president of the European Council, said that the upgrade “underlines the importance we attach to the region and to Vietnam’s growing role within it.”

From 2021-2026, despite massive vacancies leaving 35 empty seats in the Central Committee (due to disciplinary dismissals or deaths), none were filled by alternates.

The rights group Amnesty International says that the government is doing nothing to deal with the mounting "humanitarian crisis."

The country's growth has become increasingly expensive to maintain, and its dividends are reaching ordinary households with diminishing force.

PDF/EPUB Cite Share options Information, rights and permissions Metrics and citations Figures and tables Abstract In 2004 the European Union (EU)’s membership grew from 15 to 25 member states. This article analyses how the EU used this ‘big bang enlargement’ to promote horizontal and vertical expansion to its role as a global development actor. It describes how the Union’s larger membership realised considerable horizontal expansion, primarily by increasing the development cooperation budget managed by the EU institutions. The global financial crisis, austerity measures in its member states as well as legal and institutional changes, however, hampered vertical expansion, with many member states failing to sufficiently increase their own national budgets and efforts to promote coordination and harmonisation delivering limited results. The understanding of the task division between the EU and its member states has evolved with the EU having gained a stronger role as a global development actor in its own right. This article contextualises and describes these expansion patterns by analysing key policy trends in the period 2000–2025 in a historical and international perspective and contributes new evidence to the literature on international organisation expansion.

PDF/EPUB Cite Share options Information, rights and permissions Metrics and citations Figures and tables Abstract In 2004 the European Union (EU)’s membership grew from 15 to 25 member states. This article analyses how the EU used this ‘big bang enlargement’ to promote horizontal and vertical expansion to its role as a global development actor. It describes how the Union’s larger membership realised considerable horizontal expansion, primarily by increasing the development cooperation budget managed by the EU institutions. The global financial crisis, austerity measures in its member states as well as legal and institutional changes, however, hampered vertical expansion, with many member states failing to sufficiently increase their own national budgets and efforts to promote coordination and harmonisation delivering limited results. The understanding of the task division between the EU and its member states has evolved with the EU having gained a stronger role as a global development actor in its own right. This article contextualises and describes these expansion patterns by analysing key policy trends in the period 2000–2025 in a historical and international perspective and contributes new evidence to the literature on international organisation expansion.

PDF/EPUB Cite Share options Information, rights and permissions Metrics and citations Figures and tables Abstract In 2004 the European Union (EU)’s membership grew from 15 to 25 member states. This article analyses how the EU used this ‘big bang enlargement’ to promote horizontal and vertical expansion to its role as a global development actor. It describes how the Union’s larger membership realised considerable horizontal expansion, primarily by increasing the development cooperation budget managed by the EU institutions. The global financial crisis, austerity measures in its member states as well as legal and institutional changes, however, hampered vertical expansion, with many member states failing to sufficiently increase their own national budgets and efforts to promote coordination and harmonisation delivering limited results. The understanding of the task division between the EU and its member states has evolved with the EU having gained a stronger role as a global development actor in its own right. This article contextualises and describes these expansion patterns by analysing key policy trends in the period 2000–2025 in a historical and international perspective and contributes new evidence to the literature on international organisation expansion.

India has secured tariff-free access to the EU’s garment market even as Bangladesh’s loss of preferential status looms.

The British prime minister’s arrival in Beijing signified a structural shift in Western policy toward China – and the end of a strategic narrative of containment.

Since the start of 2026, at least four Kazakh servicemen – mostly young conscripts – have died in accidents, some with murky circumstances and lingering questions.

Paradoxically, formally abandoning the goal of immediate unification is the only realistic means of securing long-term stability.

In the long run, India cannot hold back as a mere spectator to global conflicts, particularly in ones where its interests are at stake.

La guerre est revenue sur le continent européen. Mais elle ne prend plus seulement la forme de combats conventionnels. Drones, cyberattaques, sabotages d’infrastructures critiques, campagnes de désinformation et pressions industrielles s’imbriquent désormais dans un continuum de menaces hybrides qui brouille durablement la frontière entre paix et conflit. Depuis 2022, l’Union européenne évolue dans un environnement […]

The city’s recent announcement on language sits uneasily with Beijing’s policies prioritizing Mandarin.

Carbon pricing is widely recognized as a key tool for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. However, if implemented without compensatory measures, it can increase poverty and inequality. The aim of this paper is to examine the role of carbon pricing in generating fiscal space for expanding social protection systems in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Using tax-benefit microsimulation models for six countries (Ecuador, Indonesia, South Af rica, Tanzania, Viet Nam, and Zambia), we assess both the direct distributional impacts of carbon pricing and the potential poverty-reducing effects of recycling revenues into social protection. Our f indings show that even modest carbon pricing can mobilize substantial resources, particularly in higher-emission countries, and that channelling these revenues into targeted or categorical transfers significantly cushions households against welfare losses. The results highlight the dual role of carbon pricing: as a climate mitigation instrument and as a source of fiscal capacity for inclusive development. By ref raming climate policy as a means to expand social protection, this study underscores the opportunities and constraints for designing equitable climate–development strategies in the Global South.