• OPINION

  Don't just keep relying on luck

  News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 17/02/2012

  » Faraway tensions from the precarious brinkmanship in the Middle East have reached Thai soil with the apparent terrorist bungle in central Bangkok. The government of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra continues to deny international terrorist presence in Thailand, but the weight of evidence increasingly points to the contrary. Thailand is a soft target among third-country theatres of operation. Unless the Thai authorities beef up their security measures and conduct deft diplomacy in the near term, the risk of this easygoing country degenerating from a transit point for illicit crimes to an outright staging ground of international terrorist violence will grow.

• OPINION

  A south-south opportunity emerges in global power shift

  Oped, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 01/05/2015

  » A tectonic power shift in the global arena is an emerging phenomenon that is no longer in doubt. Why, and to what end, this profound power shift in the international system is taking place at this time, however, remains a matter of dispute.

• OPINION

  Shrine saga throws up bluster, but few facts

  News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 28/08/2015

  » The fog of Thai crisis management can be thick and heavy. Almost a fortnight after a powerful bomb explosion rocked the landmark Erawan shrine area in central Bangkok and claimed 20 lives with scores of injuries, Thai authorities have made just about zero progress.

• OPINION

  Thai luck runs out with attack on shrine

  News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 04/09/2015

  » For a country that has done so well for so long in navigating the treacherous waters of international life, Thailand's luck may have run out with the bomb attack on the Erawan shrine in central Bangkok on Aug 17.

• OPINION

  Myanmar reflects Asean domestic dilemmas

  News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 06/11/2015

  » Myanmar's momentous elections on Sunday have a familiar ring to them. Now, just like 25 years ago, the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD), spearheaded by Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, is poised to thump the military-led Union Solidarity and Development Part (USDP) by a resounding margin.

• OPINION

  NE Asia summit shows SE Asia weaknesses

  News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 13/11/2015

  » Although it papered over differences, the recent resumption of a summit meeting among China, Japan and South Korea has cooled bilateral tensions in Northeast Asia with longer-term implications for Southeast Asia.

• OPINION

  Responding to guerrilla-style global terror

  News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 20/11/2015

  » The coordinated terrorist attacks against multiple targets in Paris last Friday were neither the first nor the last we will see from militant Muslims espousing extremist strands of Islam.

• OPINION

  Western folly in Middle East quagmire

  News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 27/11/2015

  » Democracy is not for every region. Nowhere is this more evident than in the modern Middle East. As individual regimes and the entire region disintegrate and revert back to their familiar past of tribal wars and internecine strife that are answerable only to force and strength, not international rules and norms, it is instructive to look back at the origins of the current phase of violence and mayhem.

• OPINION

  Post-Obama America's 'rebalance' to Asia

  News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 24/06/2016

  » As the United States' presidential election kicks into higher gear with the upcoming nominations of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump as the Democratic and Republican party candidates vying for top office, Asian countries, and Asean in particular, are concerned about what will happen to outgoing President Barack Obama's "rebalance" (also known as the "pivot") strategy to Asia. The "rebalance" is likely to be a lasting legacy of President Obama's foreign policy accomplishments. It has provided Asian countries from Myanmar and Vietnam to the Philippines with a counterbalance to China's increasing regional footprints. But the future of the rebalance hangs in the balance.

• OPINION

  Turkish, Thai democracy and dictatorship

  News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 22/07/2016

  » For coup-prone Thailand, Turkey's failed putsch has generated huge but ephemeral interest. When elements of the Turkish military rolled out the tanks and tried to seize power in Ankara and Istanbul, spectators in Bangkok naturally coalesced into two broad camps along the Thai divide, either for or against the putsch.

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