Tag: Louis Teo
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Arctic Opportunity: Russian Roulette in a Warming World
This essay will analyze how Russia benefits from the warming Arctic, the competition it faces from Western interests and its ambiguous Arctic relationship with China. In doing so, it hopes to shed light on how Great Power Competition, geopolitics and international relations change in some ways and yet stays the same in many others in…
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Empire of Dams: China’s Hydroelectric Geostrategy and Conflicts
Capitalizing on its uniquely strong talent for river construction, China has embarked on an aggressive, multidirectional and increasingly predatory strategy of dam construction for strategic advantage, political leverage and economic profit. This essay will aim to explore how China has used this capacity in its foreign policy and geostrategy, and the resultant implications for neighbouring…
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Freikorps meets Mujahideen: How Russian invasion created Neo-Nazi Incubators in Ukraine
Driven into a corner by Russian aggression and European indifference, Ukraine was forced to seek help from an old enemy – the spectre of ultra-nationalism. Today, swastika adorned factions and warlords have become normalized as parts of Ukrainian military and political structure and increasingly entrench themselves further into the Ukrainian state. To export their nazi…
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Mindless Behemoth: The Tragedy of Leaderlessness in Hong Kong
It must have seemed such a wonderful utopian ideal. A movement of and by the people, bravely marching against the establishment, with no greedy ambitious men at the top seeking to exploit or subvert the revolution, in a grand collective struggle for shared goals. However, such a movement, structured in such a leaderless manner, is…
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Shrinking Pacific: Australia’s Struggle for the Status Quo
When it comes to the politics of the Asia-Pacific, it is often easy to forget Australia, owing to its isolated position at its corner of the South Pacific. This is a reality happily embraced by Australians who have been largely able to pick and choose which conflicts to participate in. However, recent trends point towards…
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A sustainable “Chinese Asia” is a wrong, US-centric idea
It is often fashionable, in present political discourse, to claim that the 21st century will be a Chinese century, and that in some great return to historical norm, mastery of Asia, if not the entire world, has swung back to the Chinese. However, does China really have what it takes to maintain control over Asia?…
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Europa Universalis IV: Mechanics and Sources of Political Development
Europa Universalis has a long and storied history among grand strategy gamers. In it, you take a country of your choosing from 1444 to 1821, building it from whatever condition you find it in, to whatever you choose: A mighty Empire, a Merchant Republic, or anything in between. For such a long historical timespan, there…
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DotA: Conceptualizing Tactical and Operational Dynamics of war
Gaming has had a long history in relation to the exploration and teaching of military concepts. While extremely old games such as chess and its global variants have tangential or thematic relationships to war, the first game designed to deliberately represent military concepts was the Prussian Kriegsspiel, a map-based game with two teams and an…
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Sid Meier’s Civilization: Geopolitical Realism vs Constructivism
Sid Meier’s Civilization is a turn-based strategy game about controlling a Civilization from the dawn of history to the modern and future age, incorporating ideas of military conquest, cultural imperialism and economic base building. It is a “4X” game, a term that broadly refers to the core actions of Explore, Expand, Exploit and Exterminate. While…
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Korean Reunification would be Catastrophic for Asia
Korea Reunification has been long been the principal objective of both North and South Korean foreign policy. However, even if South Korea’s perfect scenario can be achieved, and the two Koreas were able to reunify peacefully under a South Korean democratic government, this would result in massive problems for regional order. This piece will aim…
UnderStated 