Indo-Pacific

Why Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Turkey just signed a defense pact

By Atlantic Council experts

Each country pledged to defend the others, but each country also has its own motivations for joining the pact.

ASEAN-5 in an era of geoeconomic realignment: Opportunities and risks in a fragmenting global economy

By Amin Mohseni-Cheraghlou

ASEAN-5 is poised to become an increasingly important engine of global growth, supported by young populations, improving human capital, abundant resources, and deep integration into global supply chains. Yet fragmentation, trade tensions, climate risks, infrastructure gaps, and regulatory constraints could limit this potential, making coordinated reforms essential to securing resilient and sustained regional economic progress.

Nepal and Bangladesh are delaying LDC graduation. Now comes the hard part. 

By Nischal Dhungel

Both countries would need to use any delay in exiting “least developed country” status to advance structural changes to their economies.

ASEAN does not need decoupling. It needs coordinated resilience.

By Nik Foster

If the group of Southeast Asian nations does not craft its own path of economic resilience, then it will end up importing the industrial policies of its larger neighbors.

What the latest US sanctions bill means for Russia—and for China, India, and Iran

By Maia Nikoladze

If it passes, the bill would affect several major countries that currently trade with Russia, and those effects should be factored into US planning.

The best AI you can own is Chinese. The West needs to close that gap quickly.

By Ivan Ferrari

The controls the West built around the data center do not reach the laptop, and the answer is to compete on open models.

Why banning open-source AI is a bad idea

By JP Schnapper-Casteras

The best response to capable Chinese open models is not to make US developers less capable. It is to build better, safer, more competitive US models—open and closed.

How Japan is managing the energy shock

By Ben Cahill

Japan has so far managed the Hormuz oil market disruption comparatively well, but it will have to reassess its long-term energy strategy.

Washington is pushing Brazil toward China

The current trajectory raises the odds that over time more Brazilian firms will prefer partnering with Chinese suppliers and financiers.

Germany is finally waking up to the China challenge. And Beijing is gearing up to respond

By Jessie Yin

As Berlin confronts the effects of the China Shock 2.0, the EU will need to proceed strategically. After all, Beijing has expanded its economic statecraft toolkit to counter the EU's anti-dumping and anti-subsidy duties.