Showing 1 - 6 of 6
America risks grand folly in Iran war
Oped, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 06/03/2026
» It is just the first week of the joint attack between the United States and Israel on the Islamic Republic of Iran, but the repercussions from the Middle East for the Indo-Pacific are already discernible.
Myanmar revolts against dictatorship
Oped, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 02/02/2024
» When Myanmar's military coup took place three years ago, few thought it would turn out this way. Never has a military in Southeast Asia staged a successful coup and then failed to consolidate power afterwards. Yet this is precisely what's happening in Myanmar. A fierce and determined coalition of resistance forces is in the process of prevailing over Myanmar's battle-hardened army.
Where have the media reformers gone?
Oped, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 18/02/2022
» After two decades marked by two military coups in 2006 and 2014, Thailand is supposed to be a "reformed" country by now. While all kinds of reforms were promised with each military takeover -- from political parties, parliament and constitution to the bureaucracy, military and police -- none has taken place. In fact, pledged reforms have gone in the opposite direction in the past. Nowhere is this reaction and restoration of old power and interests more evident than in Thailand's media industry.
Top brass, technocrats, politicos all same
Oped, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 12/06/2020
» When ostensible technocrats become ambitious politicians, supervised by army generals and beholden to patronage-driven elected politicians, the result is a power struggle, internal party turmoil, and a country being governed to nowhere. This is the current state of Thailand's ruling Palang Pracharath Party (PPRP), the head of a motley and fractious 19-member coalition of minor and micro parties, some represented by one single MP, propping up the government of former coup leader and current Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha. Yet in the face of the opposition bloc that is weak because it has been weakened, after the third-largest winner the Future Forward Party from the last election was dissolved earlier this year, the PPRP is on course to be in office for the foreseeable future, as a new poll is not due for another three years. These dire dynamics suggest Thailand will continue to be rudderless, stuck in a quagmire of its own making, with headwinds that may lead to a reckoning tempest.
What the rescue of the trapped boys means
News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 13/07/2018
» Global news cycles over the past two weeks have been saturated by Thailand's gripping story of 12 boys from a local youth football team and their 25-year-old coach trapped in a labyrinthine and partially submerged cave complex in the Chiang Rai hills in the north of the country. Even after their successful rescue, the story continues.
Malaysia's poll ramifications for Thailand
News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 11/05/2018
» It was a vicarious happenstance. When the annual flagship event of Asean's consortium of think-tanks known as the Asia-Pacific Roundtable was scheduled in Kuala Lumpur for May 7-9, not a weekend but the first half of a working week, no one thought it would run into Malaysia's 14th General Election (GE14). But it did, as Prime Minister Najib Razak chose a Wednesday instead of a typical weekend, to stage Malaysia's momentous polls. But the tricky timing failed to help his cause. He lost in a big way that bears far-reaching ramifications for the fate of democracy and authoritarianism in the region and beyond, not least here in Thailand.