Showing 1 - 10 of 19
Trump goes off-script, US gone rogue
Oped, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 27/03/2026
» It was not supposed to work like this. "America First" and "Make America Great Again" (MAGA) were supposed to be about an inward turn to repair, replenish and rebuild an externally overstretched and internally weakened country, weighed down by unnecessary global entanglements, unsustainable national debt, and unimpeded mass migration. It seemed for a time that the MAGA movement to prioritise America above and beyond the international system and its constituent parts had found its final prophet in President Donald J Trump. But now, somehow, President Trump has betrayed the movement that has carried him to office by waging a disastrous war on Iran in cooperation with Israel.
No-confidence and poll date in flux
Oped, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 14/11/2025
» Amid the drumbeats of military conflict with Cambodia, Thailand's political environment is evidently unruly and unsettled. The minority government of Anutin Charnvirakul, the third prime minister from the third largest-winning party since the latest national election in May 2023, is hard-pressed to stay in office beyond the four-month "Memorandum of Agreement" between his Bhumjaithai Party (BJT) and the People's Party (PP), the largest camp in the national assembly.
Digesting Trump's trip through Asia
Oped, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 07/11/2025
» Storming through Asia last week, US President Donald Trump's first stop in Kuala Lumpur on Oct 26, before moving on to Japan and South Korea over the next four days, capped by his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping before returning to Washington, was the most consequential for Southeast Asian economies.
Anutin's new cabinet is a mixed bag
Oped, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 26/09/2025
» The composition and size of Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul's 36-member cabinet suggest that he intends to stay in office for as long as possible, clinging to the terms of the government-enabling Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) and calling an early election only if circumstances make it unavoidable.
Defusing Thai-Cambodian border row
Oped, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 13/06/2025
» At issue in the ongoing border standoff between the Thai and Cambodian armed forces is timing and circumstance. In less than two weeks, a seemingly minor border skirmish intensified into a full-scale military confrontation. What is being overlooked in the thick of mutual antagonism and ultranationalism on both sides is when and how the current round of confrontation transpired. Getting its origins right is crucial to finding ways and means for conflict resolution.
Authentic intelligence rises with AI
Oped, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 16/05/2025
» As the cognitive power and proliferation of artificial intelligence take the world by storm, the case for authenticity and originality paradoxically becomes more compelling and carries higher premiums. It is now a widely accepted reality that AI is on its way to master human thought processes and proceed beyond them. This means that it will be more difficult for humans to differentiate between what comes from AI and what does not. As such, the time has come after nearly 40 years of being published -- including more than 25 of them with this newspaper -- that this column goes subjective.
Myanmar's civil war after four years
Oped, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 31/01/2025
» Four years after its military coup and consequent civil war, Myanmar's spotlight in global headlines continues to dim as geostrategic reorientations and realignments among the major powers take centre stage. Dramatic and drastic foreign policy changes are afoot in the United States under the second administration of President Donald J Trump, while the European Union faces an existential threat from Russia's aggression in Ukraine, and Japan is mired in political sclerosis at home. Myanmar's fate and future will thus likely be determined by the course and outcome of its civil war, China's expanding influence in the country and Asean member states' manoeuvres to a lesser extent.
Thaksin's return and 2025 prospects
Oped, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 03/01/2025
» Thailand's political environment last year was marked by machinations to keep the biggest election winner, the Move Forward Party, from power and to ensure the runner-up, the Pheu Thai Party, leads a coalition government the old guard can put up with. These manoeuvres after the May 2023 poll, initially forced Move Forward into the opposition and ultimately dissolved the party while bringing Thaksin Shinawatra back from self-exile in August 2023 for a perfunctory jail sentence and installing Srettha Thavisin as prime minister over the same period.
Srettha confronts myriad of challenges
News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 22/09/2023
» As the coalition government of Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin gets going, it faces multiple daunting challenges, from public expectations and policy deliverables to the maintenance of political stability.
Global, regional, local trends for 2023
Oped, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 23/12/2022
» Although economic predictions are usually reserved for the foolhardy, as the future is always difficult to ascertain, there are certain trend lines and probabilities that can be discerned at the global and regional level as well as the local level here in Thailand. As a year-end exercise, we can tease out a few contours with a reasonably high degree of probability.