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Latest Policy Briefs and Reports
Is Trump Adding to the Backsliding of the ‘World’s Biggest Democracy’?
Report No.240 - August, 2025 • By Debasish Roy Chowdhury
This report examines the consequences for India of a second Trump presidential term. With his steep tariffs and cheap insults, Trump has eroded a decades-old Indian public consensus of a pro-America policy and revived old animosities towards the US. If an estranged India’s strategic engagement with America and the democratic world loosens, it can only be more bad news for its troubled democracy. Not that America has ever seemed to care about Modi’s assaults on democracy, or he, about its sensitivities.
Cooperative Security, Arms Control and Disarmament
A Sceptic’s Take on the Nuclear Bomb
Report No.239 - August, 2025 • By Ramesh Thakur
This report states that the spread of nuclear weapons to a total of nine countries today, and the spell they cast on the leaders and scientists of many other countries who are enchanted by the magic of the bomb, rests on several mutually reinforcing myths. The author outlines these myths and the five paradoxes which set the context for the global nuclear arms control agenda. The possession of nuclear weapons by nine countries leaves the world exposed to the risk of sleepwalking into a nuclear disaster. A more rational and prudent approach to reducing nuclear risks would be to actively advocate and pursue the minimisation, reduction, and elimination agendas for the short, medium, and long terms.
The Sultanization of US Politics
Report No.238 - August, 2025 • By Wolfgang Merkel
This report examines the terminology applied to the second presidency of Donald Trump. It has been called ‘fascist’, a ‘descent into fascism’ or a ‘revolutionary government in the form of an imperial court’. The US itself has been described as a ‘flawed democracy’. What are the arguments for describing Trump's USA as a plutocracy or fascism? Don't we rather see the bizarre features of a form of rule described one hundred years ago by the German sociologist Max Weber as patrimonial, or more precisely, sultanistic?
Peace and Security in Northeast Asia
Endless Strife in Kashmir: Concepts on How Not to Resolve Conflict
Report No.237 - August, 2025 • By Herbert Wulf
This report analyses the origins of the conflicts between India and Pakistan, and traces the different phases of wars, terrorist attacks, and the diplomatic rapprochements that repeatedly failed. The military potentials of the opponent are compared and the author asks what the future might look like after the recent military confrontations. The countless efforts to resolve the conflict, both bilaterally between the two hostile neighbours and internationally, have repeatedly failed for almost 80 years. The attempt to find a way out of the impasse with confidence-building measures also failed. The persistent tensions in the Kashmir Valley serve as a reminder of how some conflicts remain unresolved despite repeated attempts at negotiation and intervention.
The Return of President Trump and Its Implications for South America
Report No.236 - July, 2025 • By Daniela Campello
This report outlines the significant threat to democratic governance in Latin America posed by Trump’s renewed presidency. His attacks on the rule of law and alignment with authoritarian leaders have emboldened regional allies to weaken oversight institutions, concentrate power, and target vulnerable groups. As US soft power declines and China offers economic engagement without democratic conditions, the region faces growing risks of institutional erosion, deepening polarization both within and between countries, and rising political instability.