What are five flashpoints and world trends to watch?

Not many people can say they spent their childhood following the opium trade around the world. Yet this was the trajectory of Hervé Lemahieu, who I’d like to introduce you to this week. Hervé is director of research at Lowy Institute , an independent international policy think tank based in Sydney. I got in touch with Hervé earlier this week because my head was spinning with the seismic events and simmering tensions that have come across the Explainer desk in recent times. I explained to Hervé that I would like to ask him a few questions, just casually, as if we were at a dinner party. It turned out to be a metaphorical “late night” as he shared his personal story and his thought-provoking insights into the world today. Hervé was born in Belgium but in this photo, above, he’s in Seoul (standing between his parents), in the early 1990s. “Dad was just starting off as a junior professional officer with the UN Industrial Development Organisation,” says Hervé, “a generation ago, when South Korea was still a developing economy!” When his father moved to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, the family moved too: first, to the Caribbean nation of Barbados, a transit point for drugs between North and South America; then, a few years later, to Myanmar, where the Golden Triangle is the world’s biggest opium producer. “My dad later headed up the counter narcotics effort in Afghanistan but by that point I was at uni. I would visit him for epic Afghan road trips. So, yeah,” he adds, with more than a touch of understatement, “an interesting background.” It’s little wonder that Hervé’s own working life has been about all things geopolitical. After studies at Oxford and St Andrews in Britain, and roles at a different think tank and at a geopolitical advisory firm in London, Hervé came to Australia where he is now a Belgian-Australian citizen and leading some fascinating research at Lowy . So, readers, may I offer you a glass of wine or a cup of tea before we get started? Hervé, what are people asking you about right now? Everyone’s always drawn to the US election. That’s the big one. I think the bigger picture here is that the world’s three largest democracies – the US, India, Indonesia – have had, or are about to have, elections this year.