• OPINION

  Thai sovereignty is not for abuse

  Oped, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 28/10/2022

  » Thailand's dramatic and damaging shift in position towards Russia's aggression in Ukraine raises myriad questions with few answers -- none holding any water.

• OPINION

  What's next for post-Thaksin Thailand?

  Oped, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 08/09/2023

  » The formation of a new coalition government under Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin has closed a two-decade chapter in Thai politics.

• OPINION

  Reversing Myanmar's internal strife

  Oped, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 10/02/2023

  » This month marks two anniversaries of ongoing conflicts in Europe and Southeast Asia, namely 12 months after Russia invaded Ukraine and two years since Myanmar's military seized power by toppling a democratically elected and civilian-led government under Aung San Suu Kyi.

• OPINION

  Domestic drivers of superpower rivalry

  Oped, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 10/07/2020

  » The coronavirus pandemic is fundamentally global but its impact is mainly local because of the international system of state sovereignty, borders and divergent national interests. What is needed to cope with, contain and overcome the pandemic is more international cooperation and coordination. But we are seeing less international efforts to fight the virus together and more self-help where every nation fends for itself. The upshot from this fractured and fragmented international system during Covid-19 is the primacy of domestic determinants of international outcomes. Nowhere is this reality clearer than the competition and confrontation between the United States and China.

• OPINION

  Myanmar, Thai militaries in cahoots

  Oped, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 08/07/2022

  » The recent incursion by a Myanmar MiG-29 fighter jet into Thai airspace is par for the course in the intimate ties between the militaries of both countries. Myanmar's military, also known as the Tatmadaw, in fact wants to be more like its Thai counterpart. The Royal Thai Armed Forces, on the other hand, may end up later having to be more like the Tatmadaw to maintain its role and rule in politics. These two militaries together pose a litmus test for states and societies everywhere. If the popular will and public interest can be systematically stolen and subverted in this corner of the globe, it can happen anywhere.

• OPINION

  Myanmar military fails sovereignty test

  Oped, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 04/02/2022

  » After seizing power from an elected civilian government on Feb 1 last year, Myanmar's military junta under the State Administration Council (SAC) has fallen short of the four categories that constitute the definition of a sovereign state.

• OPINION

  Prayut government seems bullet-proof

  Oped, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 21/05/2021

  » The passage of time shows the government's growing lack of accountability. In fact, the government of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha appears the most unaccountable on record because it has been the most incompetent. Myriad charges from policy mismanagement and blatant irregularities to outright constitutional violations have been levied against the government but none have stuck. Although some attribute this phenomenon to Gen Prayut's "Teflon" qualities, a more accurate understanding may well be that his cabinet is somehow bullet-proof. Charges can stick but they cannot penetrate.

• OPINION

  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.

• OPINION

  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.

• OPINION

  Where Northeast, Southeast Asia meet

  News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 13/12/2019

  » That the post-Second World War liberal international order is unravelling is no longer in dispute. While there are ongoing issues and challenges about how and to what extent the incumbent rules-based international order that has been so beneficial to so many nations and peoples in their course of economic development can still be maintained, there is broad agreement that the international system as we know it has run its course.

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