Looking Ahead

📍Pacific Islands Forum Eyes “Ocean of Peace” Amid Great Power Tensions

Our View: Leaders from 18 Pacific Island Forum (PIF) countries, alongside Australia and New Zealand, will meet this week in the Solomon Islands to discuss regional security, climate resilience, and a proposal to declare the Pacific an “Ocean of Peace.” The PIF summit is the region’s most significant annual gathering. This year, Solomon Islands Prime Minister Jeremiah Manele has barred nearly two dozen external partners, including China and the U.S., from participating. The exclusion marks a notable shift toward regional insulation amid growing great power competition and militarization. PIF member states’ response to the exclusion as well as the results of the forum meeting remain to be seen.

What We’re Watching

📍Ali Wins Presidential Election in Guyana Amidst U.S.-Venezuela Tensions

Facts: Guyana’s incumbent president Irfaan Ali won a second term in national elections last week. Ali, the People’ Progressive Party (PPP) candidate, received double the votes of the next candidate, businessman Azruddin Mohamed. Ali has stated his second term will be focused on protecting Guyana’s rainforests and defending the Essequibo region’s oil reserves from Venezuelan claims. In March, Guyana and the U.S. signed an MOU to strengthen resilience against regional challenges and deepen military cooperation. Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro recently called Ali a “puppet of ExxonMobile.”

Analysis: The election was embroiled in geopolitical concerns and corruption allegations. Mohamed, who founded the We Invest in Nationhood (WIN) party in May, was sanctioned by the U.S. last June for alleged tax fraud and bribery. Mohamed campaigned on allegations that Ali’s PPP used oil revenues to provide kickbacks to constituent districts. Guyana’s 2019 oil boom quintupled the state’s GDP (now $26 billion) in just five years, yet Guyana maintains one of the highest poverty rates in South America. The Ali administration is likely to utilize the Trump administration's escalating narco-trafficking enforcement operations against Venezuelan-allied Tren de Aragua to garner support for its legitimacy, territorial claims, and growing oil industry. 

📍Major Undersea Internet Cables Severed in the Red Sea

Facts: On September 7, at least three major undersea cables were severed near the Bab el-Mandeb Strait in the Red Sea, disrupting internet access across East Africa, the Gulf, and South Asia. The Red Sea is a critical maritime and internet chokepoint, hosting 17% of global undersea internet traffic. Microsoft confirmed elevated latency and traffic interruptions but has not yet attributed a cause. Cable faults can occur accidentally, but the incident follows months of Houthi attacks on commercial shipping and ongoing engagements with coalition forces in the region.

Analysis: The Red Sea incident highlights a growing strategic vulnerability in global communications infrastructure. Subsea networks are high-value, low-cost targets that transmit over 95% of international data traffic, yet lack robust international collaboration on security. Suspected Russian sabotage of undersea pipelines and cables in the early chapters of the Russo-Ukraine war demonstrated the grey area and attribution issues of undersea infrastructure attacks. In the absence of an international response, state and nonstate actors will continue to exploit undersea security vulnerabilities and disrupt critical communication infrastructure with relative impunity.

📍Trump Administration Resumes HIV Vaccination Funding

Facts: On Thursday, the Trump administration announced plans to provide Lenacapavir, a HIV-prevention drug, to up to 2 million people by 2028. The policy, a Biden administration remnant, aims to administer Lenacapavir to pregnant and breast-feeding mothers through the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) to prevent mother-to-child HIV transmission. After the Trump administration’s plans to cut $400 million in PEPFAR funding faced significant bipartisan backlash, the new plan reappropriates public broadcasting and USAID-designated appropriations to Lenacapavir funding. HIV infects 1.3 million people globally each year, and almost 40 million live with the disease.

Analysis: Although the Lenacapavir administration program seeks to inoculate 2 million people within three years, HIV advocates say it is not enough for lower-resource countries, especially in light of reduced U.S. aid. The State Department has yet to announce the 12 countries designated for initial distribution, and it is unclear how the Trump administration will go about picking the recipient states. Cuts to USAID have halted HIV vaccine research in Nigeria, where strains are different from those in South Africa and Kenya. Despite the resumed funding, critics argue the plan’s scale is too small and overlooks critical LGTBQ populations.

📍Malawi Prepares for Presidential Election with Regional Implications

Facts: On September 16 Malawi is set to hold its first presidential election since 2020. The frontrunners are incumbent President Lazarus Chakwera and former President Peter Mutharika, who governed from 2014 to 2020. The election follows the 2024 death of Vice President Saulos Chilima, which fractured Malawi’s governing Tonse Alliance, a coalition between Chakwera’s MCP and Chilima’s UTM parties. The coalition unseated Mutharika in 2020 in a re-run election after Malawi’s constitutional court annulled Chakwera’s first victory on the grounds of vote tampering. Malawi’s civil society faces mounting legal restrictions and diminished public trust following the annulled 2020 election results.

Analysis: Within southern Africa, Malawi has served as an example of electoral and judicial integrity, particularly since the successful annulment of Chakwera’s 2020 election victory. The country’s foreign policy is shaped in part by a deep reliance on external assistance. Since 2018 China has invested over $1 billion in Malawian infrastructure through its Belt and Road Initiative. Western and nongovernmental donors also contribute significant budgetary support. Next week’s elections are a test for Malawi’s democratic institutions and broader regional alignment amid economic downturn, aid reductions, and domestic instability.

What We’re Reading

💡So You Want to Work in International Affairs? Is a good Foreign Policy article and a great reason to join TSI!

💡Rand Paul is leading the Charge of the Light Brigade against Trump’s recent strike on Venezuelan narcotraffickers.

💡The End of Development is the flagship article of the FP print edition and well worth the read.

💡Recent cooperation between revisionist powers constantly reminds me of the vivid warning and daring insights of Zbigniew Brzezinski’s The Grand Chessboard. Plus, the CIA was kind enough to post a PDF for you to read!

🚗One For The Road🚗

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