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Reactionary Internationale: What a globally-networked, export-friendly Far-Right is and means for the world
In February 2021, a 16-year old Christian Indian student in Singapore was arrested for plotting terrorist attacks on two mosques after being radicalized online. Such a plot was the first of its ideological kind in Singaporean history, marking a new chapter in Singapore’s fight against terrorism, which before had mainly dealt with Salafi-jihadism and revolutionary…
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Long-Leashed Attack Dogs: How Formal Autonomy facilitated Extraordinary Repression in Roman Judea, Chechnya and Hong Kong
Through tracing a throughline from King Herod’s Judea to Ramzan Kadyrov’s Chechnya and Carrie Lam’s Hong Kong, this essay shall seek understand the why, how and broader implications of zones and systems of “autonomous oppression/ imperial enforcement”.
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Trading National for Service: How Conscription cripples State Control in exchange for Military Might
This response essay seeks to illustrate why conscription is a process that does not produce political control, coherence and influence, but rather spends that very resource of control in exchange for the military resource of manpower.
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A Gray-Zone shaped Hole: Why “Escalation Ladders” affect Deterrence analysis and planning
this essay will attempt to build upon LTC Harris Tan’s piece on deterrence through adopting and adapting the “escalation ladder” to think about conflict and aggression with greater logical specificity and clarity.
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Sowing Addiction, Reaping Reliance: The Imperial Hard-Power Logic of Foreign Aid
To people who are fundamentally distrustful of the loyalty of friends and partners in International Relations, foreign aid can seem like a frivolous expenditure of critical state resources. This piece will seek to prove that with some strategic imagination and material re-prioritization, foreign aid can still be used as an excellent method of intense, even…
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Feeding the Dogs of War: Dynamics, Utility and Risks of Sponsored Insurgency in Border Competition
A security-studies approach to analysing sponsoring insurgency as a tool in the power projection toolbox, explaining why it is used in border competition specifically and the associated risks.
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Inoculating the Republic: Securing Singapore from Superpower Subversion through Open, Mass Political Policing
This piece shall dive deeper into threat analysis on subversion threats facing Singapore and based on that threat analysis, explain why an empowered political policing process that goes beyond hunting extremists is a necessary step in safeguarding the integrity of Singapore’s political process and social cohesion.
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Too Angry for Empire: How a Han-centric, hypersensitive nationalism undermines Chinese imperial expansion
Why China’s specific strain of nationalism, as constructed by Beijing, hurts the exercise of Chinese power, no matter that power’s degree.
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We’re gonna need a bigger boat: Singapore and the Aircraft Carrier
Would an aircraft carrier make sense in the Singapore navy? Through answering this question, this essay hopes to also shed some light on Singapore’s maritime needs and the role of aircraft carriers and the thought process involved in defence acquisitions and strategy. What unique purposes do aircraft carriers serve? In essence, aircraft carriers serve the…
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Evaluating Allies: What makes a good partner
With the Trump-Brexit and coronavirus-accelerated reshuffling of global order, recent reexaminations and reimaginings of global alliance have been rife. Questions of new sets of alliances, alignments and understandings are now common, whether it be Macron’s suggestions of a new European-Russian reset or renewed talks around whether the Quad could actually be a functional China-containment coalition.…
UnderStated
Exploring the intersection of geopolitics, history and strategy that makes our world the way it is.
UnderStated 