Archives

Our archives are a repository of original thinking that chronicles two decades of research, analysis, and policy innovation. This collection brings together articles written by SFG’s founders and research analysts between 2005 and 2025, preserving the ideas, and insights that shaped our intellectual journey. These writings reflect the evolution of our thinking as we engaged with some of the world’s most pressing challenges and opportunities.

The archive offers a rich body of material for researchers, policymakers, students, journalists, and anyone interested in understanding complex global issues through a long-term strategic lens. The articles explore a wide spectrum of subjects, including peace and conflict, water diplomacy, international relations, technology, environmental sustainability, governance, security, and the changing dynamics of regional and global cooperation. They also place regional developments within broader international and geopolitical contexts.

Many of these articles anticipated trends and policy challenges that later became central to international discourse. Others document the development of concepts and frameworks that informed SFG’s subsequent research, dialogues, and publications. Together, they provide not only historical context but also enduring perspectives that continue to resonate in a rapidly changing world.

Beyond serving as a research resource, this archive offers a window into the intellectual history of SFG. It traces how our ideas evolved over time, how new policy concepts emerged through sustained inquiry, and how our engagement expanded from regional concerns to global challenges. Readers can follow the progression of our work across changing geopolitical landscapes and appreciate our evidence-based approaches to peace, security, and international cooperation.

Whether you are revisiting landmark analyses, exploring the origins of key policy ideas, or discovering our work for the first time, we hope these archives provide valuable insights, stimulate informed debate, and inspire fresh thinking about the future.

The Geopolitics of Food

  • By Anumita Raj
On the 11th of February, 2009 Morgan Tsvangarai, leader of the opposition in Zimbabwe was sworn in as Prime Minister of his country. This came on the heels of months of international pressure on him to adhere to a power sharing agreement between his party, Movement for Democratic Change, and President Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF.
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Living Beyond Our Means

  • By Ilmas Futehally
On a recent visit to China, the global financial crisis was the centre of most conversations. We debated the cause of it- and answers ranged from greed on Wall Street and the sub-prime crisis to lifestyles not in sync with real earnings, of people living on credit, in debt and beyond their means. The recent announcement of the Chinese government of a stimulus package of Yuan 4 trillion to create domestic demand for Chinese goods also figured a lot in our conversations. Western governments have also been discussing bail out measures and have begun to implement them. So, the financial system in the process of being rescued.
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Who Will Survive – Manufacturers of Destruction or Forces of Creation?

  • By Sundeep Waslekar
When a state fails to learn the art of creation, it develops the skill of destruction.
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Polarization Breeds Terrorism

  • By Gitanjali Bakshi
After the events of November 26th, 27th and 28th, Israel and India both found themselves victim to horrific acts of terror. The indiscriminate massacre of Indians and the capture and murder of Israelis by the terrorists in the Chabad house has brought about a common sense of purpose between these two rising state actors.
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Human Rights, West Asia and President Obama

  • By Anumita Raj
The 10th of December is celebrated as World Human Rights Day internationally. The date marks the anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the General Assembly of the United Nations, in 1948. That makes this year's December 10th all the more special, it is the 60th anniversary of the event. However, most of the attempts, in the media or otherwise, to commemorate the occasion brought into sharp focus the failure of the Declaration, for that matter the international community, with respect to ensuring basic rights for everyone across the globe. In South and West Asia, a region mostly populated by Islamic countries, the situation is seemingly more serious than most other places. An obvious reason for this is the fact that much of the region in mired in one or more of several regional and international conflicts. With the new incoming American administration, is there a chance to effect significant change?
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Piracy Perils & Procedures

  • By Rohit Honawar
As Somalia's pirates continue to attack merchant vessels along the Gulf of Aden - undeterred by the presence of the world's Navies - it is pertinent to question what measures the international community should enforce to ensure that one of the world's major shipping lanes is safeguarded, and that the lives of sailors are protected.
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