Page 15 - CMA Journal (Mar-Apr 2026)

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW

“
The Iran con ict can

be regarded more

as an in ection point

that indicates a sense

of rede nition of the

prevailing nature of

international affairs. “

Mr. Chris Ogden

Author | Geopolitical Analyst | Policy Advisor | Public Intellectual

Associate Professor in Global Studies

University of Auckland, New Zealand

Chris Ogden specializes in great power politics,
ICMA: How do you interpret the current crisis in the
shifting world orders, and the rise of India and China.
Middle East in the context of accelerating shifts in the
He is a Fellow of the UK's Higher Education Academy,
global order?
Senior Research Fellow at the Foreign Policy Centre in
London, Honorary Fellow at the Centre for South Asian Chris Ogden: The current crisis in the Middle East has
Studies in Edinburgh, and Visiting Scholar at the revealed several signi cant fault lines in international
Chinese University of Hong Kong. He has held relations. First, Washington's failure to build up a suitable
academic positions at the Universities of Edinburgh, St coalition of willing partners to pursue the con ict against
Andrews, Glasgow, and Durham, among others. Iran has led to a weakening of the US's traditional alliance
system, primarily with European partners but also involving
The author of eight books including The Authoritarian
major international actors such as Japan and South Korea.
Century (Bristol University Press, 2022), his scholarship
That such countries have been unwilling to lend military,
spans global authoritarianism, the Asian Century, and
logistical or concerted political support to the United States
Indo-Paci c security. Beyond academia, he founded
shows not only a degree of miscalculation from the current
the ESSAIR research network in 2018 and brought his
US President but also an unwillingness of these countries to
expertise to a wider audience as Series Consultant for
be drawn into a con ict that they neither desired nor
the BBC series India: The Modi Question (2022).
planned for.
ICMA’s Chartered Management Accountant, Mar-Apr 2026 13