Photo source: Global Times By Naveed Qazi | Editor, Globe Upfront Seventy-five years after its founding, NATO stands at a moment of both continuity and strain. Established in 1949 to contain Soviet influence and anchor Western Europe to the United States, the alliance has survived the Cold War by adapting to new realities. Critics have long argued that it should have dissolved after the Soviet Union’s collapse, yet NATO has instead expanded its membership and redefined its purpose—at times acting as a military instrument of Western power, at others as a security framework for its members. In today’s geopolitical climate, however, NATO appears more contested than at any point in its history. With Russia once again cast as its principal adversary following the war in Ukraine, the alliance has refocused its mission on European security. At the same time, it has identified China as a ‘systemic challenge’, extending its strategic outlook far beyond the North Atlantic. This widening scop...

  Photo source: East Asia Forum By Naveed Qazi | Editor, Globe Upfront The CIA has suggested that President Xi Jinping has instructed China’s military to be ready by 2027 to conduct a successful invasion of Taiwan. Former CIA Director William Burns made this point in 2023, and analysts such as Edan Morag at the Institute for National Security Studies have further reiterated that 2027 is seen as the year China could have the capability to forcibly unify Taiwan. Taiwanese defence experts, reported by Fang Wei‑li and Jonathan Chin in the Taipei Times, clarified that Beijing’s goal is to prepare for military unification by 2027, not to set a fixed date for war. This threat loomed large over Taiwan’s January 2024 elections. Lai Ching‑te of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) won the presidency with around 40 per cent of the vote, defeating Hou Yu‑ih of the Kuomintang (KMT). As Brian Hart and Jude Blanchette noted in their analysis for CSIS, the election drew global attention because ...

  Photo source: Foreign Policy By Naveed Qazi | Editor, Globe Upfront Due to a wave of Houthi missile attacks in Red Sea, shipping companies are departing it in droves. In 2023, the Iran-backed Yemeni group has launched at least 100 missiles and drone attacks against a dozen ships in the Red Sea, according to US officials. They threatened to target all vessels heading toward Israel, whether they are Israeli-owned or operated.  To avoid suffering the same fate, major energy and shipping companies, including BP and Maersk, have halted their operations there. It has rattled the energy markets by driving up global oil prices and soon everything else. The Red Sea is what connects Asia to Europe, in terms of cargo ships, so disruptions are felt around the world. The Houthi attacks ‘have created worries for global freight markets, for the flows of energy commodities, other commodities, goods,’ said Richard Bronze, the head of geopolitics at Energy Aspects, a research firm, to Foreign...

  Photo source: The Guardian By Naveed Qazi | Editor, Globe Upfront An estimated 225,000 migrants are presently stranded in Mexico, according to reporting by Associated Press, including people from Central America, the Caribbean, South America, Eastern Europe, South Asia and sub‑Saharan Africa, most waiting for an opportunity to cross into the United States. In 2023, Mexico received a record number of requests for refuge, a 31 per cent increase over 2022, as noted by Reuters. Although only a small share of migrants formally request refuge, which allows them to transit through the country without being detained by immigration authorities, this remains one of the few official statistics that illustrates the magnitude of people on the move. Asylum seekers facing backlogs from overwhelmed immigration authorities have grown desperate. In September 2023, dozens of migrants tried to force their way into a government facility, resulting in injuries, reported by El País. For many years, mig...

Photo source: Al Jazeera By Naveed Qazi | Editor, Globe Upfront C hina has been showing a keen interest in investing in Afghanistan after the takeover of the Taliban. In January 2023, a Chinese company agreed to provide 450 million dollars to explore and develop oil reserves in the country. After that, another Chinese company in April 2023 wanted exploration and development of Afghanistan’s lithium reserves. In contrast to the previous military adventures done by American, Soviet, and British into the Afghan frontier, China’s involvement is focused more on the economic and diplomatic side, with a negligible military element. Furthermore, China seeks to expand its political and economic influence in the region as part of its Belt and Road initiative in Afghanistan which for a while has been a weak link in this chain. Moreover, trade frictions with the US and other countries have increased the pressure to open other markets for China’s goods. The Belt and Road is an effective channel to ...

  Photo source: The New Arab By Naveed Qazi | Editor, Globe Upfront China’s growing diplomatic activism in the Middle East—most notably its role in facilitating the 2023 rapprochement between Iran and Saudi Arabia —has underscored a broader shift: the region is no longer shaped solely by the United States and Russia. In this evolving landscape, India has begun to assert itself more quietly, positioning as a pragmatic middle power seeking influence through economic and strategic engagement. A glimpse of this ambition emerged in May 2023, when Jake Sullivan met counterparts from India and the United Arab Emirates , alongside Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman . As reported by outlets such as Reuters and The New York Times , discussions centred on an ambitious connectivity initiative linking India with the Middle East through ports, railways and road networks—an effort aimed at deepening trade and economic integration. This proposal builds on the work of the I2U2 Group , est...

  Photo source: The Irish Times By Naveed Qazi | Editor, Globe Upfront T he war in Ukraine is far from over. As it kept on brewing in front of the world, what became apparent is that the Russian aggression was not about territorial expansion anymore, but it was actually more about controlling Ukraine’s political destiny. Even if Ukraine succeeds in pushing Russia’s military forces all the way back to its 1991 borders, the conflict won’t truly end. Ukrainian intelligence officials estimate that if the fighting were to stop in 2023, Russia would have sufficient capabilities in its arsenal to restart the war by 2027-2028, even with economic sanctions remaining in place. So, in order to truly end the conflict, Russia will have to understand, or be made to understand, that Ukraine’s future will be decided in Kyiv, not Moscow. And Kyiv has made it abundantly lucid that it sees its future with the West, as an integral part of the Euro-Atlantic institutions. That is why for Kyiv, finding a...

Photo source: New York Times By Naveed Qazi | Editor, Globe Upfront In the fight against extremism, the United States deployed thousands of troops in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, a move that resulted in a crushing failure. But, in places like Somalia, the United States turned to a different playbook. They favoured spies, special operation raids, and drone strikes, instead of troop deployment. The mission was to hunt al-Qaeda fugitives, which later expanded to fighting Al-Shabaab, the most dangerous of al-Qaeda affiliates. Now, with time, this playbook is also failing. Al-Shabaab has been strongest in Somalia for years. They roam the countryside, bomb cities, run an undercover state, make extortion rackets, and demand parallel taxes, which are at least $120 million a year, by American government estimates. Al-Shabaab also has had plans to attack the United States, after the arrest of a militant in 2019, who took flying missions in the Philippines, for conducting another 9/11 attack...

Photo source: Council for Foreign Relations By Naveed Qazi | Editor, Globe Upfront In October 2021, China flew its military planes around one forty-nine times around Taiwan, trying to display its military might and thereby putting pressure on the country. In response, the self governing island scrambled its own warplanes, and this scenario looked like a theater of war. Taiwanese defense ministry described the current situation as most severe in forty years. Taiwan had split from China since the civil war erupted in 1949. Domestically, the military pressure serves Chinese President Xi Jinping’s propaganda and political agenda. Xi’s defining political idea is promoting the ‘China Dream’ to his people, which entails becoming ‘a strong nation with a strong army’ in the future. China’s nationalist Global Times newspaper even went so far as to call the flight incursions a form of National Day 'military parade'. This escalation has come at a time, when Chinese Communist Party is at a...

Photo source: Politico By Naveed Qazi | Editor, Globe Upfront A ustralia has stabbed France in the back. They ditched a nuclear deal with them worth more than $66 billion and instead acquired nuclear powered subs from the United States. Canberra had signaled in June 2021 that it was looking to turn away from the contract signed in 2016, during the Turnbull government, with French company DCNS (now known as Naval Group) to build twelve Barracuda submarines. Outraged and humiliated, France had recalled its ambassadors from the U.S. and Australia. France had hoped that its deal with Australia would bring the two countries strategically closer. According to a report in Guardian, France was even looking to protect its interests,  which include the overseas territories of New Caledonia and French Polynesia. It is the only European country with a presence in the region, with nearly two million French citizens and more than seven thousand troops. When the deal was first announced in 2016, ...

  Photo source: Time By Naveed Qazi | Editor, Globe UpFront It was in May 2020 when a forty six year old black American called George Floyd was suspected of buying cigarettes with fake $20 dollar bills outside Cup Foods, on Thirty-Eighth Street and Chicago Avenue South, in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Three squad cars had converged to siege him as he sat in the driver’s seat of a blue Mercedes SUV. A white police officer named Derek Chauvin, involved in three civilian deaths and seventeen conduct complaints, had kneeled upon his neck, while three other stood guard, until the victim gave anguished gasps before dying. His last words were: ‘I can’t breathe.’ Another of the officers involved in Floyd’s arrest, Tou Thao, was the subject of at least six complaints, five of which resulted in no discipline. Their records exaggerated the cruelty in Floyd’s death. He was even shot on the video. It reflected how racial injustice was a recurring feature of modern American life. Floyd, however, was ...