Pacific Council member Naseem Qader shows how the Pacific behaves less like territory and more like software. She compares it to the Atlantic, which gave the world its institutions, but the Pacific has become a planetary coordination system where cooperation is grounded in relationship and feedback.

Jonathan Fielding, Peter Katona, and Seth Freeman argue that the Trump administration's dismantling of the CDC, cancellation of cancer research funding, and withdrawal of global health aid constitute a dangerous "War on Public Health" that will lead to increased suffering, preventable deaths, and the reversal of decades of lifesaving progress.

Pacific Council member Naseem Qader reveals that power in 2025 is no longer about controlling territory but instead about commanding the networks, code, and minerals that shape how the world connects. She talks about how we’re living in a new world where speed has become strategy and where influence outruns understanding.

Pacific Council member Colette Mazzucelli and co-author James Felton Keith reveal how youth unemployment has become central to understanding spatial inequality in the global economy, showing that where industries cluster, opportunities follow.

Pacific Council member Naseem Qader shows how tariffs have quietly become the hidden architecture of global power, rewiring the world economy through deliberate detours that reshape everything from supply chains to international alliances, making economic disruption the new language of geopolitics.

Pacific Council member Cassie Hermiston-Boyd shares her takeaways from the Young Diplomatic Forum (YDF) in Washington, D.C.

Pacific Council Junior Fellow Joseph Leonard examines how China is exerting an increasingly malign influence over California, just as Washington has dismantled the very defenses meant to stop them.

This summer, the Pacific Council welcomed its 2025 Summer Junior Fellows Joseph Leonard, Luisa Luo, and Juliette Hawley. We took a moment to ask them about their fellowship experience, where they go to stay up to date on international affairs, and what global issues they find most pressing.

Naseem Qader argues that the real AI race isn't about building smarter systems, but about who controls the physical infrastructure—from mines to data centers—that will determine global power for decades to come.

Jonathan Fielding, Peter Katona, and Seth Freeman warn that U.S. cuts to global and domestic health programs risk a surge in preventable deaths and global disease outbreaks, undermining decades of public health progress.