India’s Rare Earth Dilemma: Between Chinese Leverage and an Afghan Offer
October 18th, 2025
Via The Diplomat, a look at India’s behavior in regard to critical minerals can be best understood as strategic hedging: Beijing is signaling geoeconomic control over a chokepoint industry by deciding to resume the supply of rare-earth magnets to India on the condition of a written “no-diversion” pledge. This is more than just a contractual detail. […]
Read more »The Taliban Emirate, China, India and Pakistan
October 17th, 2025
Via Geopolitical Futures, commentary on what attacking Pakistan means for the Taliban to try to break out of international isolation: After the United States withdrew from Afghanistan in 2021, it was only a matter of time before conflict erupted between the Afghan Taliban and their former patron, Pakistan. One of the ways this manifested was […]
Read more »What Are China and Central Asia’s Shared Interests in Afghanistan?
September 17th, 2025
Via The Diplomat, a report on how – as neighbors to Afghanistan – both China and the Central Asian states have vested interests in the country, desiring a peaceful, prosperous, and stable Afghanistan: Afghanistan is often referred to as the “Heart of Asia” because of its strategic location at the crossroads of Central and South […]
Read more »Looking Back at a Hot Railroad Summer for Central Asia and Afghanistan
September 11th, 2025
Via The Diplomat, a look back at the summer of Central Asian railroads, when – in July – Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan all signed agreements with Afghanistan related to the development of railways: On July 31, Turkmenistan signed a $5 million agreement with Afghanistan to jointly develop and invest in the expansion of Torghundi, a dry […]
Read more »Airlines Now Pay The Taliban $700 A Flight—Their New Cash Cow For ‘Safe Passage’ Over Afghanistan
August 31st, 2025
Via View from the Wing, a look at how airlines now pay for ‘safe passage’ over Afghanistan: Russian airspace has been off-limits to most Western carriers since the start of the Ukraine war. For U.S. airlines that means a much less direct route, longer flight times and more fuel burn. Large swaths of the Middle […]
Read more »Taliban Cancel Oilfield Deal With Chinese in Afghanistan’s North
June 25th, 2025
Via Nikkei Asia, a report that the Taliban have canceled an oilfield deal with the Chinese in Afghanistan’s north due to slow progress: Afghanistan’s Taliban government has terminated a two-year-old oil extraction and development contract with a Chinese company due to alleged violations of contractual obligations, with some experts believing the move to be a […]
Read more »Focusing primarily on The New Seven Sisters - the largely state owned petroleum companies from the emerging world that have become key players in the oil & gas industry as identified by Carola Hoyos, Chief Energy Correspondent for The Financial Times - but spanning other nascent opportunities around the globe that may hold potential in the years ahead, Wildcats & Black Sheep is a place for the adventurous to contemplate & evaluate the emerging markets of tomorrow.