Letter from the Editors

In this issue, we put the “politics” back in “geopolitics” – examining how domestic factors shape great power competition and global governance efforts. World leaders like China and the United States might dominate headlines, but ultimately their diplomatic successes – and failures – often depend on the political undercurrents at work in other countries.

Our cover article this month is a case study in how local politics in Papua New Guinea is impacting the geopolitical landscape in the Pacific Islands region writ large. As authors Patricia O’Brien and Douveri Henao write, “The geopolitical game playing out in PNG is mapped onto what seems at times to be a precarious domestic situation.” This year alone, Prime Minister James Marape has faced crisis after crisis, from riots in the capital to a bloody mass murder in the Highlands, all stemming from PNG’s economic malaise. It is in that context that Marape must make critical decisions about PNG’s security and economic partnerships moving forward – which in turn will reshape the great power rivalry underway in the Pacific region.

Then we turn to Pakistan, where the mood is “angry and disillusioned” even as a new government takes office and inflation cools, both of which are typically indicators of stability. But as Uzair Younus, a principal at The Asia Group’s South Asia Practice, writes, “It is politics, not economics, that is preventing a wholesale turnaround of Pakistan’s broader trajectory.” The ongoing polycrisis in Pakistan has deep roots and they’re close to the surface. Imran Khan’s popularity grows with every day he’s in prison; the current hybrid regime, led by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif with the full backing of the army for now, has a small window of opportunity before its prospects will also dim. But seizing that opportunity to truly turn Pakistan around flies in the face of the vested interests that brought the present government to power. Bold action seems unlikely, as does significant change in Pakistan’s reputation as a basketcase.

Finally, journalist Jon Letman explores the different domestic political calculations behind a major global governance effort: the push to ban nuclear weapons. “Beginning with the first atomic bombs dropped on Japan in 1945 and continuing over five decades of testing, nuclear weapons have exacted a heavy toll in Asia and the Pacific,” Letman writes. And with seven of the nine nuclear-armed states located in the Indo-Pacific, the stakes of nuclear weapons use are high. With that in mind, over 20 Asian and Pacific states have signed on to the landmark Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). But from Japan and the Marshall Islands to Kiribati and Kazakhstan, the internal calculations on the TPNW are not straight-forward.

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