Focus Areas

Economic Statecraft Initiative

Critical supply chains deliver the technology, raw materials and finished goods that a modern economy needs to thrive. Globalized communications networks that uphold the economy depend on unseen technologies – in space and under sea – that most users never see nor think about. Free trade, once believed to have decisively defeated protectionism in the contest for ideas, has receded in favor of tariffs. Even planning, once rejected in favor of the invisible hand, is making a comeback in response to China’s five-year plans and long-term strategies to leapfrog the US.

Through the Economic Statecraft Initiative’s programs, research, and regular commentary Pacific Forum supports the economic security of the United States and its partners and exposes the economic coercion of adversarial states, while offering recommendations on how to combat it. We take on board the opinions of the private sector, plus economists, combined with our decades of experience in addressing security dilemmas to deliver policy solutions that make these countries not only secure, but economically viable in a contentious era of globalization.

The Forum, staying true to its tradition, adopts a collaborative approach to studying and understanding the region as opposed to prescriptive asymmetry. To that end, we engage in high-level dialogues, policy research and analysis, and next-gen activities.

At the Pacific Forum, we strive to cover India for all it has to offer. Not just the metropolises that convene the movers and shakers of India and increasingly the rest of the world – New Delhi or Mumbai – but as far and wide as the islands of Lakshadweep to the plateaus of Arunachal Pradesh.

This warrants a more inside-out approach to studying the nation, civilization, and the broader region.

The region has no slow days. It is constantly wrestling with complex debates at the intersection of identity, philosophy, and politics. From as foundational as its name (India or Bharat) to religion, caste, and the ensuing anthropological complexities, the debates make it a field day for a student of anthropology and a chimera for a tourist to the study of the region. Cursory reviews of headlines or the 3-minute read in global media do not do justice to the state nor civilization wrestling with many narratives surrounding its history, origins, and trajectory – a civilizational state, a post-colonial society, technological powerhouse, or the new factory floor of the world. Adding to this abstract is India’s foreign policy that is unlike any other. Its strategic affairs cannot fit into any one theoretical framework such as liberal internationalism or realism.

There is an “Aloha” element in all Pacific Forum’s work. The India program at the Forum is no exception. At the Forum, we bring the much-needed Aloha spirit to explore the dynamic US-India bilateral partnership, India’s foreign policy, and its engagement in the broader Indo-Pacific region.