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 Next Stage in Our Evolution

  • By Ilmas Futehally
Certain events in the world act as dividers of time. The world before the event and after the event are fundamentally changed for ever. So, I have often been asked "where were you when Indira Gandhi was assassinated?", "where were you when the deluge of 26th July took place?. A very common question that all of us have been asked is where were you on the morning of 9/11?" I am sure that all of us remember the answers to these questions very graphically. Where one was standing when you heard the news, who else was around, one's immediate reactions and emotions......
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Why Should Business Care?

  • By Sundeep Waslekar
A study by Strategic Foresight Group reveals that there is a strong relationship between business and peace . Conventionally peace is meant to be a business of government and businesspeople are meant to concentrate on profit making enterprises. It is by increasing rate of return on their investments that they create income and employment. If business enterprises can do this, they would eventually contribute to peace and sustainability in their societies. Why should they care to go beyond their conventional responsibilities and promote peace?
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Beyond Cities

  • By Ilmas Futehally
The 21st Century has been described as the century of the cities. For the first time in history, more people live in cities today than those that do not. To say that cities are growing is to state the obvious- one can see it from our own windows. However the rate of growth is frightening. Fifty years ago, about 30% of the world's population lived in an urban environment. In a decade from now it will cross 60%.
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Which Idea Will Dominate the 21st Century?

  • By Sundeep Waslekar
The most influential force in the world is the idea. Gods, priests, kings, dictators, democrats, terrorists, anarchists all need an idea to justify themselves.
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Re-baathification in Iraq?

  • By Gitanjali Bakshi
The Iraqi government has recently approved a bill that will attempt to reverse a de-baathification law, established in 2003. Initially, abstraction of Baath party members was meant to appease the majority Shiite population, now the reversal aims to pacify the disgruntled Sunni minority. Both approaches, although diametrically opposed, attempt to reconcile the ethnic rifts within Iraqi society. The question is will the new law work? But first what is de-baathification and how have the recent developments contributed to democracy in Iraq?
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Forgotten Spots in World Affairs

  • By Jessyca Keil
In today's world, globalization alleviates information gaps to an increasing degree and renders it possible for something that happens in one part of the world to appear on TV five minutes later in another part of the world. However, there are still some parts of the world that the media does not cover and hardly anybody knows about them. These are the blind spots in world affairs and the Western Sahara can definitely count as one of those blind spots. Being a former Spanish colony, and subsequently annexed by Morocco, the country's status has been under dispute for decades.
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