The annual US-Philippine military exercise Balikatan began on 22 April and will continue until 10 May. Originally planned as a relatively small and bilateral exercise, in recent years it has become the largest of those conducted by the United States in the Indo-Pacific region with the participation of one or more of its allies…

Against the backdrop of growing contemporary threats to international security around the world, the countries of Southeast Asia (SEA) are no exception and, just like everyone else, have to deal with terrorism, cyber-attacks, the spread of dangerous diseases, and natural disasters. Given the cross-border nature of most security issues, this is a technically extremely difficult task to achieve in a single country, much less in a region…

Since the onset of the 21^st Century, tensions around the world have been simmering. Great power rivalry has reached to a new apex since the culmination of the Cold War. The rivalry between China and the United States is considered one of the most significant and appalling issues of the era. Given the importance of maritime trade, the South China Sea and the Southeast Asian countries have emerged as the strategic focus of the rivalry between the two sides…

The state visit of Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to Vietnam took place on 29-30 January this year. This event in itself and the various circumstances surrounding it deserve at least a brief and very general commentary. Mainly because it is a remarkable act in the relations between two important countries of the South-East Asia sub-region, where the current stage of the “Big World Game” with the participation of the leading world powers, i.e. China and the USA, is developing with particular acuteness. The presence of new emerging significant players is becoming more and more…

Thailand’s government has put together a serious proposal to build a land bridge across the Thai Kra Isthmus connecting ports on either side, providing an alternative for maritime shipping transiting the Malacca Strait, saving several days of travel in the process. The project, if completed, would transform Asia’s economic and even security architecture. The land bridge, along with the still-under-construction Thai-Chinese high-speed railway, would solidify Thailand’s role as a regional logistics hub connecting the Indian Ocean with the Pacific Ocean, and…

Thailand’s recently renewed commitment toward finishing the already under-construction Thai-Chinese high-speed railway may help move the Southeast Asian nation forward, out of the shadow of years of Western-induced political instability, and into the light of peace and prosperity as it and the rest of the region rise with China. The recent announcement has triggered condemnation from Western commentators who support Washington, London, and Brussel’s agenda of maintaining dominance over Asia and shaping Southeast Asia into a united front against a rising China…

With the rise of China, so too rises Southeast Asia. Southeast Asia has slowly transformed in terms of economics, infrastructure, tourism, industry, and politically over the last two decades as Chinese influence increases and inevitably displaces US influence over the region. At its height, US influence resulted in a major war spanning two decades, engulfing Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. The US maintained military bases across the region, including in Thailand and the Philippines. However, when the US finally lost its war against Vietnam, it withdrew much of its military…

The word “Maldives”, for most readers will probably, firstly, mean “heaven on earth” (primarily a tourist one) and, secondly, lead to a question of perplexity: why does it appear at all (“in our crazy time”) in the publication, which discusses various aspects of the escalating situation in the geopolitical region, where the focus of the current stage of the “Big World Game” is shifting to? Nevertheless, this dwarf state with a total population of half a million people living on a group of coral islands that stretch from north…

Today’s global geopolitics is more about great power competition than any other thing. It is evident from the ongoing military conflict in Eastern Europe, and it is evident from the ways in which the US has been trying to build a global coalition against China for the past many years now. So far, Washington has achieved no substantial success. While Washington, presuming that there is a lot of potential for conflict in the region and the countries are eager to find a powerful ally against China…

On July 5, the ASEAN Working Group on Chemicals and Waste held a meeting in Hanoi, the capital of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. In addition to the ASEAN member states, other countries in the Asia-Pacific region also participated in the meeting. The agenda included the issue of the proper treatment and disposal of hazardous chemicals and their by-products in compliance with the provisions of the Basel and Rotterdam Conventions, which have been ratified…

Myanmar has always been a crossroads of migration routes and trade routes. Indochina as a whole is one of the most favorable places for the development of homo sapiens, therefore, since ancient times, many often not very close ethnic groups have lived on the territory of the country. It is not surprising that by present a relatively small state is a patchwork of fourteen administrative entities, in each, with the exception of the capital, there is at least one separatist armed group. Together, this entity is called the Union…

As US-Chinese tensions grow and as it becomes increasingly clear the US is unable to compete with China head-to-head in terms of development, trade, and investment, especially in regions along China’s periphery, the US is resorting increasingly to asymmetrical measures including political coercion, subversion, and even violence. US military aggression and political subversion, particularly in Southeast Asia, spans many decades. Besides the Vietnam War and the related conflicts which raged across Laos, Cambodia, and even Thailand in the 20th century, more recently…