For over four decades, the security architecture of the Persian Gulf rested on a single, seemingly unshakable foundation: the American security umbrella. Arab monarchies systematically […]
Author: Ayaan Ali
Ayaan Ali is a postgraduate student at the Nelson Mandela Centre for Peace and Conflict Resolution, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, India. He is also an Editorial Intern at Middle East Outlook.
The Return of Great Power Rivalry: How Contemporary Wars are Reshaping Global Order
The post-Cold War dream of a friction-free, hyper-globalised world governed by multilateral consensus seems to have encountered a systemic rupture. The international system has transitioned […]
The Baloch Tragedy: Rebellion, Insurgency and the Question of Survival
Balochistan, Pakistan’s largest province by land area, has been the site of one of South Asia’s longest-running armed conflicts. Stretching along the Arabian Sea coast […]
Strategic Transactionalism: Russia’s Post-Assad Playbook in the Middle East
For most of 2025, Western capitals perceived that Russia’s position in the Middle East was in terminal decline. The fall of Bashar al-Assad in December […]
European Security Architecture after Ukraine: Between NATO Dependence and Strategic Autonomy
The contemporary European security architecture is undergoing a significant systemic reordering since the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989. For nearly three decades, the […]
Beyond Regional War: Ukraine’s Conflict as Catalyst of Russia’s Global Repositioning
When Russia invaded Ukraine in late February of 2022, it was seen as one of the biggest geopolitical shocks to the existing international order in […]
NON-ALIGNMENT 2.0: A pretence or path for the global south?
For scholars, policymakers and strategic analysts navigating the fragmented architecture of contemporary international relations, the growing adoption of a non-aligned posture by many states is […]
China’s Global Ambitions in Tailspin Amidst US-Israeli War on Iran
The rise of China was the biggest rupture in the new world order. The Americans’ strategy needed an overhaul, and the world was slowly embracing […]
Why does the Military Dominate Pakistan?
On September 17, 2025, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan signed a Strategic Mutual Defence Agreement (SDMA) in Riyadh, formalising decades of military cooperation into a binding […]
Survival or Hegemony? Why Iran Can’t Kill its Nuclear Ambition
In the summer of 2025, at the behest of Israel, the US launched massive air strikes on three Iranian nuclear sites- Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan. […]