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Rome Marches into the Age of AI

Saliya Weerakoon — Fri, 29 May 2026 13:08:20 GMT

Editor’s Note: In this Vuepoint, Saliya Weerakoon suggests that Pope Leo XIV’s new encyclical on artificial intelligence should be read not only as a religious document, but as a civilizational inter…

Living Inside Google

Saliya Weerakoon — Thu, 14 May 2026 15:17:33 GMT

Editor’s Note: Ahead of Google I/O 2026, Saliya Weerakoon reflects on Alphabet’s latest earnings call not simply as a financial event, but as a marker of a broader civilizational shift. His concern i…

The Hedging Gambit: Strategic Realism, the Trump Factor, and is a China on the Rise?

Eric Huang — Sun, 26 Apr 2026 05:57:35 GMT

KMT leader Cheng Li-wun with Xi Jinping in Beijing this month.

The recent meeting in Beijing between Xi Jinping and KMT Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun marks a significant recalibration of cross-strait optics…

The End of Democracy Will Look Like Progress

Mark Roeder — Sat, 28 Feb 2026 04:59:12 GMT

Editor’s Note:
AI is often discussed in terms of productivity and growth. In this VuePoint, Mark Roeder explores a more unsettling possibility: that the very efficiencies intelligent systems promise c…

Gold Watch

Morton Lane — Sun, 22 Feb 2026 03:36:59 GMT

Editor’s Note:

Gold has long functioned as a hedge against inflation, instability, and monetary uncertainty. In this Vuepoint, Morton Lane suggests the price of gold can also serve as a real-time mark…

The Five Rings of Global Integration

Habib Moudachirou — Mon, 16 Feb 2026 22:49:35 GMT

Editor’s Note: A guest post by Habib Moudachirou, a Chicago-based global investor focused on growth strategy across international markets. He also serves as chairman of the board of French American C…

Power without Momentum

Saliya Weerakoon — Thu, 05 Feb 2026 18:04:35 GMT

Iran at the Breaking Point

Narimon Safavi — Tue, 13 Jan 2026 16:40:22 GMT

Editor’s Note:
In this Vuepoint, Narimon Safavi looks past familiar political narratives about Iran and focuses instead on the economic pressures and strategic contradictions shaping the country’s cur…

Europe’s Frozen Reserves Gambit

Ivan Savov — Sat, 20 Dec 2025 07:18:14 GMT

Editor’s note: Guest columnist Ivan Savov is Chairman of the European Risk Policy Institute (ERPI). He explores the wide-ranging ramifications of a permanent seizure of Russian assets within the EU, …

When Capabilities Pass Us By

Saliya Weerakoon — Thu, 27 Nov 2025 06:35:16 GMT

“ People are not afraid of losing jobs. They are afraid of losing meaning.

There comes a morning when the world wakes up differently, even though everything looks deceptively unchanged. The headlines …

Xi Jinping’s Quietest Signals

Eric Huang — Wed, 26 Nov 2025 14:59:23 GMT

Xi Jinping’s rhetoric has grown markedly more declarative and self-assured. At the same time, China’s formal institutions, once essential channels for internal debate, constraint, and succession, hav…

Will China Need A Blue Water Navy To Protect Its Commodity Imports? David Hale, Jun 2005

Lyric Hughes Hale — Sun, 19 Oct 2025 16:16:04 GMT

Will China Need A Blue Water Navy (1)

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The Beautiful Streets of Nairobi

Saliya Weerakoon — Thu, 02 Oct 2025 04:00:47 GMT

Askari War Monument—Nairobi, Kenya (Wikimedia Commons)

After hours of waiting at Doha airport, where time slows and every announcement feels heavier than the last, I was eager to finally board my Qata…

Who Loses in China in a War with Taiwan?

Eric Huang — Fri, 26 Sep 2025 14:57:21 GMT

Former President of Taiwan Ma Ying-jeou (KMT) leads a group of students on a visit to mainland China. (2024)

❝ Beneath Xi Jinping’s tight grip lies a vast bureaucracy filled with people who quietly dr…

From Chips to Checkmate

Eric Huang — Wed, 23 Jul 2025 20:04:06 GMT

💬 For investors, TSMC’s results are reassuring. Its pricing power, technological leadership, and deep relationships with Apple, NVIDIA, and other giants create formidable moats

When the world’s most …

Losing Faith in the Dollar?

Marsha Vande Berg — Sun, 13 Jul 2025 00:30:23 GMT

❝ Faith in dollar-denominated assets has not returned to Trump’s second-term peak.

Data visualization based on trends in U.S. Treasury TIC reporting. Image generated by OpenAI for econVue

Signaling Risk:

Marsha Vande Berg — Thu, 03 Jul 2025 16:19:14 GMT

❝ I am persuaded that the old maxim, ‘Honesty is the best policy’ applies with as much force to States as to individuals.
––Benjamin Franklin, quoted during treaty negotiations in France

Latika Bourke - The Hughes News Episode 5

Eleanor Shiori Hughes — Mon, 23 Jun 2025 20:30:39 GMT

Dear Readers,

Hi everyone, I’m Eleanor Shiori Hughes, and I’m a Non-Resident Fellow with econVue and the host of the Hughes News podcast. For Episode 5, I’m thrilled to have my friend Latika Bourke on the show. Like me, Latika is a fellow Substacker and has been, well before this platform experienced a deluge of new users and writers in recent months. She also hosts a podcast: Latika Takes, which you can find on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Youtube. We first met through a fellowship that we were both a part of through the Australian Institute of International Affairs and The Japan Foundation in 2023 and 2024.

About My Featured Guest

Latika Bourke, Writer-at-Large for The Nightly and Expert Associate at the Australian National University (ANU)’s National Security College

❝ We have not still had a one-on-one between our prime minister and Donald Trump, and that’s starting to now look concerning. Before the election, it looked liked ‘ok that’s fine, we get to do things on our own terms.’ Now that the Americans have not only imposed tariffs on [Australia] unfairly, unncessarily, and ridiciously some might say, but are now also triggering this review on AUKUS, there is plenty of reason for Anthony Albanese to need to get into Trump’s face and have a personal relationship with him, because we know that is the currency with which Donald Trump conducts international relations.
-Latika Bourke’s assessment on why it is problematic that Albanese has not had any face-time with Trump yet

Latika is the Writer-at-Large for The Nightly, an Australian-based media outlet, where she reports on foreign policy, geopolitics, and national security issues. Earlier this year, she became an Expert Associate at the Australian National University’s National Security College. Based in London, Latika regularly makes media appearances and moderates panels and discussions (she just emceed a conversation featuring Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky at the GLOBSEC Bratislava Forum!). She spent eight years in the Canberra press gallery and previously worked for The Sydney Morning Herald, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), and 2UE Radio.

This podcast was recorded on Sunday, June 22, 2025 (US EST and BST).

Here is a list of some of the topics that we talked about:

How Latika found her calling to become a journalist
How the two of us first crossed paths through a fellowship on disaster resilience that took us to Japan and a few other countries
Latika’s experiences reporting on Australia’s recent federal election, trailing both Prime Minister Anthony Albanese (Albo) and now-former Opposition Leader Petter Dutton for over a month
The variables that shaped the outcome of the election with Albo and the Labor Party emerging as the victors
The discourse in Australia regarding AUKUS, upping its defense spending, tariffs, and Australian perceptions of the U.S. under Trump
The pressure points that are slowly but surely unveiling divergences between Canberra and Washington, particularly regarding the Middle East

You can find the audio version of our podcast recording below:

Closing Thoughts

❝ There are growing fissures in the U.S.-Australia alliance—especially over AUKUS and how Australia should handle Trump.
— Eleanor Shiori Hughes, on shifting strategic alignments

The global security environment is certainly finding itself in a more precarious - and a more peculiar - situation, and its fluid nature keeps many of us guessing day by day. I oftentimes find myself waking up not knowing what the media cycle will hold for us consumers of the news, and I’m sure that I’m not alone in feeling this way. This is why the work that journalists like Latika does is invaluable. She has a knack for not only churning articles and podcast episodes left and right, but she also has a keen ability to articulate geopolitics and national security in a way that is not too esoteric and is easily digestable for readers.

On a more personal note, it warms my heart to see her thriving in her profession to the extent that she is, and I’m even more grateful to have her as a friend. Below is a photo of the two of us at Shibuya Crossing - one of the busiest intersections of the world in Tokyo. My hope is that the two of us can travel again together sometime soon and share more memorable adventures. Who knows: perhaps we’ll have a Mario Kart rematch? 💫

Eleanor and Latika at Shibuya Crossing in September 2023

Best wishes to you all,

💬 Eleanor

Voices

Eleanor Shiori Hughes

March 11, 2020

Eleanor Shiori Hughes is a Non-Resident Fellow at econVue. She frequently writes about geopolitics in Asia; Japan - Taiwan relations; Australia; the Pacific Islands; business and geopolitics; and workforce development issues for critical technologies.

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Unintended Human Capital Consequences

Kathleen Graham — Wed, 18 Jun 2025 06:02:20 GMT

💬 The unintended consequences—positive or negative—of people simply being human should always be considered a given.
— Kathleen Graham

In today’s era of rapid geopolitical turmoil, it’s important to r…

A Geopolitical Nightmare

Karim Pakravan — Fri, 13 Jun 2025 19:14:21 GMT

❝Any diplomatic resolution of the Iranian nuclear problem is dead in the water. —Karim Pakravan

The large-scale Israeli military operation against Iran’s nuclear and military facilities will have dev…