Critical minerals like nickel and tin may power the next economy, but extraction alone will not secure ASEAN’s place in it. Southeast Asia does not need to become the quarry of the energy transition. It needs to become one of its industrial architects.

Southeast Asia is not moving towards China. It is moving away from US dependence.

The Iran war is resurrecting old initiatives for bolder cooperation on energy and food security within ASEAN, but with them comes the now familiar friction between geopolitical alignment and collective decision-making.

Malacca doesn’t just provide Malaysia with geographic relevance. It also represents industrial opportunity, but only if Kuala Lumpur moves to take advantage of it.

Calls to revoke a 2001 MOU delineating shared borders risk a severe breach in Cambodia–Thailand relations. The ASEAN Cebu summit can help get bilateral relations back on track.

The 'inflation' that matters most in Indonesia today is not found in commentary or critique. It is found in hospital bills, school fees, rent payments, and grocery receipts.

The ‘ASEAN Way’ is curtailing the ability of states to collectively crack down on Illicit scam centers operating in plain sight in Southeast Asia.

Indonesia’s tradition of non-alignment is being tested by a sweeping new agreement with the United States. The plight is not exceptional and is increasingly familiar among middle powers looking to balance prosperity, security, and autonomy in an era of great power competition.

The recent Xi-To Lam summit suggests that functional cooperation can coexist with unresolved sovereignty claims in the South China Sea.

Indonesia is adapting to the new era of great power competition by openly engaging with all sides, but this balancing act is not without its risks.

A new trade deal with the United States demonstrates how Indonesia’s nickel sector is no longer merely an industrial policy instrument – it is a geopolitical lever.

Settling disputes intra-regionally and respecting sovereignty have long stood as the fundamental norms of ASEAN. Phnom Penh has undermined both of them in its ongoing border conflict with Thailand.

The defining risk for Southeast Asia in 2026 is not simply “geopolitics.” It is policy volatility, and it is arriving in tandem with an older, less glamorous constraint: energy infrastructure.

While Europe remains preoccupied with itself, a geopolitical buildup is taking shape in the Indo-Pacific that has long ceased to be mere war-gaming. The third act of the world order won't premiere in Brussels—but in Chumphon, Ranong, Subic Bay, Guam, and most importantly: Bangkok.

What happens when the principal architect of the post-war order begins quietly dismantling the scaffolding it once built?

Bangkok must now decide on a debate that’s as old as the Thai state – embark on the Kra Canal megaproject or construct a land bridge between the Andaman Sea and the Gulf of Thailand. The result will resonate not just across Thai society, but global geopolitics.

Indonesia’s democratic struggle is not a domestic footnote. It is a regional bellwether and a global test case, one that Australia – and the wider democratic world – are closely monitoring.

This week we examine the growing backlog in US weapon deliveries to Taiwan, the long-term prospects of a recent ceasefire in the Thai-Cambodia border war, and President Trump’s Christmas Day strikes on Islamic State camps in Nigeria.

Thailand represents the microcosm of a global shift: a tectonic revolution in Southeast Asia's center. Anyone seeking to understand why the West has lost influence in the region need only look here.

Southeast Asia is not seeking to influence the Taiwan question—only to survive it. The hope is that restraint, dialogue, and neutrality can keep the region from being dragged into a calamity it neither wants nor can prevent.