Letter from the Editors

Welcome to the October 2023 issue of The Diplomat Magazine.

Diplomat readers often tell us they want more coverage of “geopolitics” – and with good reason. But geopolitics itself is a broad topic, encompassing everything from mineral supply chains to climate change, from classic government-to-government diplomacy to domestic inter-ethnic conflicts. In this issue, we approach the notion of geopolitics from a variety of different angles. In a world where nearly every conceivable topic relates to great power competition, everything is geopolitics (to paraphrase Thomas Mann’s famous quote).

Our cover story looks at a topic that increasingly draws attention from national security wonks the world over: access to critical minerals. As the world transitions (however slowly) away from fossil fuels toward renewable energy, demand for lithium, cobalt, and rare earths – necessary components for electric vehicle batteries, solar panels, and other key technologies – is skyrocketing. Zongyuan Zoe Liu, the Maurice R. Greenberg fellow for China studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, outlines the current stakeholders in critical mineral supply chains and how different powers – mainly China and the United States, but ASEAN states as well – are seeking to expand their share of the pie.

When the Taliban retook power in Afghanistan, there were dire predictions about the implications for Central Asia: massive inflows of refugees, an uptick in terrorism, and the possibility for a return to full-blown civil war. Instead, Jennifer Brick Murtazashvili, a professor at the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh, explains that the Taliban have created a rare moment of stability – albeit on the back of intensive repression. Central Asian governments, no strangers to repressive stability themselves, have been eager to capitalize on the relative peace to the south to forge new connections, especially as Russia becomes an increasingly bad bet. Now the question is whether the Taliban can maintain order – and at what cost.

Next, Phillip Y. Lipscy and Pinar Temocin explore the factors behind Japan’s lackluster climate policy and the implications for the country moving forward. As Lipscy, a professor at the University of Toronto, and Temocin, soon to be a research assistant professor at the University of Tokyo, explain, Japan’s government has missed several chances to embrace transformational change in the country’s energy and emissions policies. Instead, industry players continue to dominate the conversation and slow-roll progress. As a result, Japan risks being left behind in this century’s pivotal economic transformation.

Finally, Binalakshmi Nepram, an Indigenous scholar and a human rights defender from Manipur, explains the lingering crisis in her home state. The inter-ethnic clash that began in early May – and still paralyzes the state in India’s Northeast – has its roots in the 19th century colonization of Manipur, Nepram explains. The marginalization of Manipur’s Indigenous peoples, and the “divide-and-rule” policy that set them against each other for the colonizers’ gain, is ongoing even today. Manipur has not truly been at peace ever since. But the current violence, which the central government has largely ignored, now risks subsuming all of India’s Northeast, and the country’s crucial links to Bangladesh and Southeast Asia, in the growing flames.

We hope you enjoy these stories and the many more in the following pages.