Showing 1 - 10 of 11
Early implications of Russia's invasion
Oped, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 04/03/2022
» Just one week after his military invasion of Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin has found some truisms of warfare the hard way. Once war starts, the fog that accompanies it and the friction that it creates lead to unanticipated and unintended outcomes. Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine, borne out of choice rather than necessity, appears to be dragging on, not the short and swift victory Mr Putin and his military planners might have envisaged. While Russia may still triumph on Ukrainian battlefields, it has lost the war just about everywhere else.
Aukus pact raises geopolitical tensions
Oped, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 08/10/2021
» In less than a month, the trilateral security partnership among Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom (Aukus) has stolen the thunder from other geostrategic schemes that have been around for over a decade.
The trade-off: Freedom and authority
Oped, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 17/09/2021
» Freedom is a funny thing. In excess, it leads to complacency and devaluation. In scarcity, it brings about urgency and desperation. Put this way, nowhere is freedom more taxed and toyed with than in the United States of America, a country that has so much going for it and yet is so conflicted within.
Biden's pivot to free, open Indo-Pacific
Oped, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 03/09/2021
» If former United States President Barack Obama is known for his "pivot to Asia" geostrategy and President Donald Trump for the Free and Open Indo-Pacific, there is now a geostrategic synthesis under President Joe Biden. It can be aptly called the US "pivot to the Free and Open Indo-Pacific".
Myanmar: From diplomacy to force
Oped, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 30/04/2021
» At its recent "special" summit in Jakarta on Myanmar's crisis, Asean reached its diplomatic maximum by coming up with a "five-point consensus" that will likely prove too little and too slow. Constrained by consensus and its non-interference principle where any of its 10 members has a virtual veto, Asean's overdue response to Myanmar's fast-escalating violence on the ground is likely to prove ineffective. As Asean's diplomacy faces limitations, more of Myanmar's outcomes are likely to be decided by the use of force in an intensifying civil war.
US presidential poll and implications
Oped, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 06/11/2020
» It is surprisingly unsurprising. Contrary to most polls and pundits, incumbent United States President Donald J Trump did not lose by a landslide in the presidential election this week. The final results are so close that both candidates, Mr Trump and Democratic Party rival Joe Biden, have claimed victory. Despite ongoing rancour and acrimony until the next US president is sworn in next January, several outcomes and implications are already clear.
Thai-Australian ties in the regional mix
Oped, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 05/06/2020
» Unlike the externally originated coronavirus pandemic, the mass protests in the United States in the aftermath of George Floyd's wrongful death at the hands of police officers in Minneapolis are internally driven. Seen from outside, the public fury, street demonstrations and ensuing violence over the fatal suffocation of Floyd, a black man, yield geopolitical ramifications. If the US is socially unwell and geopolitically unreliable, regional states in Asia will have to respond accordingly in view of the US-China rivalry and competition. A case in point is Thailand-Australia relations in the regional mix.
Concentric Mideast wars and prospects
News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 10/01/2020
» Nothing captures attention in an age of media saturation like the talk of war. The recent decision by US President Donald Trump to assassinate a top Iranian official, Quds Force Commander Major General Qassem Soleimani, has conjured up the spectre of a wider conflict encompassing not just the Middle East but the broader world, as Iran's top leaders deemed it "an act of war" and vowed "severe revenge". Although Iran's military and its proxy militias and client states in the Middle East and elsewhere are poised to exact retribution for their loss, we are unlikely to see a world war in the immediate aftermath of this killing.
America at war within can't lead world
News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 18/10/2019
» The extraordinary country that once touted itself and was seen by many as the "leader of the free world" is no longer so great. America, the fabled "city upon a hill" and beacon of freedom and democracy for the world, is unwell from within, wracked by nasty divisions and visceral polarisation.
Global turmoil and Thailand's political reset
News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 21/12/2018
» As the world moves into 2019, there is a consensus that the roughly seven-decade-old rules-based liberal international order no longer works. Either it has to be fundamentally revamped to suit new realities and the international distribution of power and wealth, or it will be increasingly violated and marginalised. In a remarkable parallel, Thailand's hitherto political order that lasted about seven decades also requires adjustment and recalibration.