Valdai Club

While OPEC+ and the US may be the two whales of global oil markets, ASEAN is not a third whale. Its countries are a school of smaller fish swimming between them. They do not get to decide how the whales move. What they can decide is how to navigate: not locking onto one whale’s wake, but staying agile enough to shift when the current changes, Tu Anh Tuan writes.

In spite of pessimistic forecasts of certain doom for Iran if Tehran ever found itself in a direct confrontation with Washington, the Islamic Republic withstood the overwhelming US-Israeli blow launched against it after decades of mounting tensions. With Iran emerging from the conflict as the first state in fifty years to survive a war with America, the outcome of the Middle East clash may now send ripples throughout an international system already fraught with uncertainty. Timofei Bordachev, Programme Director of the Valdai Discussion Club, examines the consequences of the Iran War for the macroregion of Greater Eurasia.