Analysis of international security, armed conflicts, military strategy, defence policy, insurgencies, geopolitical tensions, and emerging threats to global peace and stability.
In recent years, conflicts have increasingly stretched from the Russia-Ukraine theatre to South Asia and West Asia. These contemporary conflicts, particularly the Russian-Ukrainian conflict and the West Asian theatre, have been serving as real-time test laboratories, where not only military technologies (both modern and outdated), but also prevailing assumptions and notions about warfare and strategy…
When wars widen, sanctions tighten and rival powers demand support, countries outside the traditional centres of power face a difficult question: how can they protect their interests without being pulled into someone else’s contest? BRICS is one forum through which a number of emerging economies are trying to answer that question. Its value lies less…
As American military protection recedes and Kurdish armed movements undergo profound changes in Syria and Turkey, Iraqi Kurdistan faces mounting geopolitical, security and economic pressures. Can Erbil preserve its autonomy amid competing regional powers?
Featured illustration: AI-generated for The Convention.
The global economy depends on shipping routes that often receive little attention until they are threatened. When a major route is disrupted, the effects are not confined to the sea. They can spread across countries, affecting fuel prices, transportation costs, trade and industrial activity. The Strait of Hormuz is one of the clearest examples of…
For three-quarters of a century, the study of international security was rooted in a foundational premise: war and peace are human endeavors. From the nuclear brinkmanship of the Cold War to the counterinsurgency doctrines of the post-9/11 era, Security Studies as a discipline prospered by deciphering human psychology, statecraft, institutional incentives, and strategic signaling. Scholars…
On March 11, 2025, the Baloch Liberation Army hijacked the Jaffar Express as it crossed the Bolan Pass, taking hundreds of passengers hostage in a siege that lasted two days. Pakistan’s military said it had crushed the attackers and recovered the train with limited losses. Two months later, the BLA’s media wing released its own…
When the United States enters a conflict, the question is never only tactical. It is also constitutional, political and moral. The confrontation with Iran has once again raised a familiar but unresolved problem: who gets to decide when the United States is at war, how far military action can go, and when a conflict should…
We are entering an arms race with no rulebook. Unlike nuclear weapons, which required rare materials and immense state capacity to develop, military AI is being built largely with commercial technology — the same machine learning techniques powering consumer apps are being repurposed for targeting systems and battlefield analysis. That accessibility should worry us more…
For most of modern history, military strategy has rested on a simple constraint: human decision-making takes time, and time creates room for restraint, negotiation, and de-escalation. Artificial intelligence is quietly eroding that constraint. Autonomous targeting systems, AI-assisted early-warning networks, and algorithmic threat assessment are compressing the decision cycle in modern conflict from hours to seconds….