On the morning of June 4, 18 former Philippine marines arrived at the Philippine Senate to testify about a flood control scandal that had allegedly cost the public hundreds of billions of pesos. Getting them inside required senators to physically escort them past a cabinet secretary standing in the corridor.

What follow…

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The Philippine Senate Blue Ribbon Committee, the upper house’s primary investigative arm for handling allegations of corruption and abuse of power, has operated since its founding in 1950 on the kind of logic that led then United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt to appoint Joseph P. Kennedy, a well-known stock market specul…

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Thirteen years ago, Prime Minister Nguyễn Tấn Dũng walked onto the Shangri-La Dialogue stage and delivered one of the most consequential foreign-policy speeches by a Vietnamese leader in the post-Cold War era. He called for “strategic trust-building” while warning against attempts to change the status quo in the South China …

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When General Secretary and State President Tô Lâm steps onto the stage at the 2026 Shangri-La Dialogue, Vietnam’s “bamboo diplomacy” will once again be presented as a model of strategic flexibility. Supporters praise its ability to balance relations with competing powers while preserving national sovereignty and political autonomy. Tô Lâ…

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When Xi Jinping and Donald Trump met in Beijing on May 13 to 15, public attention focused on the familiar “4T” agenda — trade, tariffs, technology, and Taiwan. Yet the more significant development was conceptual. Xi introduced a new framing for U.S.–China relations: “constructive strategic stability.” He also invoke…

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The Association of Southeast Asian Nations next week will hold its 48th Summit at Cebu, the Philippines, amid geopolitical turmoil arising from the torture and killing of international law in Iran. ASEAN’s ability “to navigate its future, together,” the summit’s slogan, will depend on the rules embedded in international law that the Associ…

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The Arab Gulf’s rulers are confronting a paradox of their own making. As Iranian missiles strike their cities and energy infrastructure, some are edging toward a dangerous conclusion: that only the decisive weakening – or even destruction – of Iran can restore security. It is a seductive idea. It is also a deeply flawed one. The current war is already demonstrating a harsher truth: escalation is not containing Iran. It is exposing the Gulf to forms of instability not seen since the brutal takeover of Iraq and Syria by ISIS.

Escalation Without Control

The Gulf states may not have chosen this war, but they are increasingly shaping its trajectory. Recent reporting indicates that some Gulf governments are weighing more direct military involvement or quietly backing a more aggressive US strategy against Iran. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is leading the van, urging US President Donald Trump to continue and intensify military strikes against Iran to finish off the regime. This shift reflects both fear and anger. Iran’s retaliation has been wide-ranging: missiles and drones have struck energy facilities, cities and critical infrastructure across the region. The psychological effect has been profound. Gulf capitals, long insulated from regional wars and most attractive places for foreign capital, are now very much within the battlespace.

At the same time, global markets are already registering the consequences. Gulf stock indices have fluctuated amid escalating tensions, while oil prices have surged on fears of disruption. The Strait of Hormuz—through which a significant share of global energy supplies passes—has again become a strategic chokepoint.

Yet this environment is precisely why escalation is so risky. While military logic suggests that intensifying pressure on Iran could degrade its capabilities, political logic points in the opposite direction. External attacks have historically strengthened, not weakened, the Iranian state by consolidating elite cohesion and legitimizing hardline factions. As it stands, and much to the disappointment of Mossad, no internal rebellion has erupted.

The Illusion of Iran’s Collapse

For Gulf states, the danger lies in misreading escalation as control. The war is not moving toward a clean resolution. It is expanding geographically, economically, and politically enough. The deeper strategic error is the belief that Iran can be solved through force, an assumption with both precedent and a cautionary history. The US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 was famously framed as a decisive intervention that would remove a hostile regime and stabilize the region. Instead, it triggered state collapse, violent insurgencies and the eventual rise of ISIS. The lesson is not simply that intervention can fail. It is that destroying a state in the Middle East often produces outcomes far worse than the status quo.

Iran presents an even more complex case. It is larger, more populous and more institutionally resilient than Iraq was, even with a large part of its population estranged from a brutal and repressive regime. Decades of sanctions have not hollowed it out; they have forced adaptation. Its security apparatus is deeply entrenched, and its regional networks, state and non-state, extend across multiple theaters.

A fractured Iran wouldn’t resemble a neutralized threat. It would resemble a proliferation of them: competing militias, unsecured weapons systems, refugee flows and chronic instability spilling across borders. In simple words, a fragmented Iran would produce a permanent war in the Persian Gulf. For Gulf states, this would transform a familiar adversary into an unpredictable and fragmented security environment. There are already hints of this dynamic in the current conflict. Iranian retaliation has been asymmetric, targeting infrastructure and leveraging regional networks rather than relying solely on conventional warfare. This approach underscores a key reality: Iran doesn’t need to win decisively to impose costs. It only needs to sustain disruption.

Moreover, this war is exposing vulnerabilities within the Gulf itself. Critical infrastructure from oil facilities to desalination plants is highly concentrated and difficult to defend. Even limited strikes can generate outsized economic and social consequences. The result is a strategic asymmetry. While Iran absorbs punishment and adapts, the Gulf’s economic model – built on stability, predictability and openness – is far more sensitive to prolonged disruption.

Economic Exposure and Strategic Entrapment

If escalation continues, the Gulf states risk undermining the very foundations of their power.

Their economic systems depend on four interlinked pillars: secure energy exports, open shipping lanes, investor confidence, and a large expatriate workforce. Each of these is vulnerable to sustained conflict. The early signals are already visible. Market volatility, infrastructure damage, and rising geopolitical risk premiums are beginning to affect Gulf economies. Even if oil prices rise in the short term, the broader investment climate deteriorates. Capital is mobile—and it tends to flee uncertainty.

There is also a more subtle risk: strategic entrapment. By aligning themselves with maximalist objectives such as the total degradation of Iran, Gulf states are tying their security to outcomes they do not control. If the US fails to achieve decisive results, or if the conflict stalls into a prolonged stalemate, the Gulf will be left exposed. It will have escalated tensions without securing either victory or stability.

Recent rhetoric from Washington underscores this uncertainty. Threats to target Iran’s civilian infrastructure, including energy and water systems, signal a willingness to escalate further. At the same time, Gulf states themselves remain divided. While some are hardening their positions, others continue to emphasize diplomacy as the only sustainable path forward. This divergence reflects a fundamental dilemma: how to respond to immediate security threats without locking the region into a long-term cycle of escalation.

The Geography of Reality

The Gulf’s strategic challenge is not Iran’s existence; it is Iran’s permanence. Geography cannot be bombed away. Iran will remain a central actor in the Gulf regardless of how this war ends. The question is not whether Iran can be eliminated, but how it can be managed.

A strategy built on destruction is unlikely to succeed, and even less likely to produce stability. A strategy built on management, by contrast, acknowledges the constraints of geography and the limits of force. This does not mean accommodation or naivety. It means combining deterrence with diplomacy, containment with engagement, and competition with clear rules of the game.

The alternative is a region locked into perpetual crisis, where each escalation produces new insecurities rather than resolving old ones. The Gulf states have spent decades building islands of stability in a turbulent region. That achievement is now at risk, not because Iran is too strong, but because the response to Iran is strategically misguided and blind to what it can do to the very future Gulf states might be looking to secure. In the end, the most dangerous illusion is not that Iran can be confronted. It is that it can be made to disappear.

Dr. Salman Rafi Sheikh is an Assistant Professor of Politics at the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) in Pakistan. He is a long-time contributor on diplomatic affairs in Asia Sentinel.

The conflict with Iran continues to strain military resources, elevate geopolitical risk and destabilize the Middle East. Policymakers and defense leaders face a strategic environment where conventional tools alone cannot resolve the deeper forces driving hostility. Invincible Defense Technology, a non-religious, field-tested, scientifically validated approach, offers a practical and cost-effective method for reducing societal stress and preventing conflict escalation. The evidence supporting this approach is robust, peer-reviewed, and directly relevant to national security planning.

IDT is not a replacement for conventional defense. It is a force multiplier that reduces the underlying social stress that fuels extremism, insurgency, and interstate conflict. By lowering the ambient level of tension in a population, IDT helps create conditions where diplomacy and stabilization efforts can succeed.

Operational Logic of Invincible Defense Technology

IDT is based on a well-documented phenomenon in which large groups practicing the Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhi programs generate measurable increases in societal coherence. Peer-reviewed studies have shown reductions in war intensity, terrorism, and crime when these groups reach a specific threshold relative to the surrounding population. For defense planners, the operational value is clear. IDT provides a non-lethal method for reducing hostility before it escalates, a low-cost capability that requires no new weapons systems, and a scalable tool that can be integrated into existing military structures.

The mechanism is supported by physiological research showing increased brain coherence, reduced stress hormones, and improved autonomic stability among practitioners. These individual-level effects scale upward to influence collective behavior, providing a scientifically grounded explanation for the reductions in violence observed in multiple field studies.

Strategic Application to the Iran Conflict

The war with Iran is driven not only by political and military factors, but also by deep-rooted societal stress across the region. High-stress environments increase the probability of miscalculation, radicalization, and escalation. Conventional military operations cannot neutralize these underlying drivers. A dedicated IDT unit (known in military circles as a Prevention Wing of the Military) within the armed forces could serve as a coherence-creating group that reduces regional tension. As societal stress declines, the likelihood of escalation diminishes, diplomatic channels open more easily, and extremist motivations weaken. This approach has been shown to produce measurable effects even in high-conflict environments.

For policymakers, IDT offers a strategic advantage. It reduces the operational tempo required to manage crises and lowers the probability of large-scale conflict. It is a stabilizing capability that reduces the likelihood that adversaries will attack under the influence of high societal stress.

Peer-Reviewed Research Supporting IDT

A substantial body of peer‑reviewed research supports the effectiveness of IDT. Studies published in the Journal of Mind and Behavior and Social Indicators Research have documented notable reductions in crime, terrorism, and international conflict during periods when large groups practiced the TM and TM‑Sidhi programs. Dillbeck, Landrith, and Orme‑Johnson reported that a relatively small portion of the population engaging in these practices seems able to improve overall societal quality of life, emphasizing how scalable the effect may be.

Orme‑Johnson and colleagues found statistically significant decreases in war intensity during large coherence‑creating assemblies and concluded that the findings are consistent with the idea that such groups can lessen societal stress and conflict. More recent work by Cavanaugh, Dillbeck, and Orme‑Johnson in Studies in Asian Social Science identified reductions in homicide rates associated with these practices and described the underlying mechanism as a nonlocalized field of consciousness that influences social behavior.

Research supporting the mechanism behind IDT is equally strong. Studies in the International Journal of Neuroscience have shown increased EEG coherence during TM practice, while research in Psychosomatic Medicine has documented reductions in stress hormones and improved autonomic stability. Sociological analyses published in the Journal of Social Behavior and Personality have linked periods of increased societal coherence to improved economic performance and social well-being.

A particularly relevant contribution comes from the Journal of Conflict Resolution, which published a study examining the relationship between societal stress, group coherence, and conflict dynamics in the Middle East. The authors found that reductions in societal stress were associated with measurable decreases in hostility and conflict intensity. Their analysis concluded that societies exhibiting higher levels of collective coherence demonstrate lower levels of violent conflict, a finding that aligns directly with the operational goals of IDT. This research provides an important bridge between the physiological and sociological mechanisms of IDT and the real-world dynamics of Middle Eastern conflict.

Together, these and many other studies form a coherent scientific foundation for understanding how IDT reduces violence and enhances stability.

A Strategic Path Forward

Ending the war with Iran and stabilizing the Middle East will require more than military strength. It will require a strategy that reduces the underlying stress that fuels conflict. IDT offers such a strategy. It is practical, affordable, and supported by decades of peer-reviewed research. For policymakers and military leaders, the question is no longer whether IDT works. The question is how quickly it can be integrated into existing defense structures to reduce conflict and enhance national security.

Dr. David Leffler earned his Ph.D. in Consciousness-Based Military Defense. He has published extensively on IDT and has presented on this topic at military and security conferences worldwide. He is the Executive Director of the Center for Advanced Military Science (CAMS).

Count me as one of many Asians who view Japan’s plan to take up arms again and abandon its soft power, which has played an integral role in keeping the peace in the region for the last 70 years, as a bad omen. For many Asians, especially in China, South Korea, and Southeast Asia, Japan’s wartime legacy is not history but a…

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The mystery surrounding Jeffrey Epstein, after the release by the FBI of 3.5 million pages of emails, text messages and court records pertaining to him and connections to hundreds of people, is how a man convicted of procuring an underage girl for prostitution in 2008 was able to amass such an astonishing inventory of influential people. They weren’t all hunting for nubile flesh, as presumably the likes of former Prince Andrew might have been.

Epstein, who was found dead in his New York prison cell on August 10, 2019, was like Jekyll and Hyde. While men turned to Hyde for ugly sexual diversion involving underage girls, there appear to have been many seeking out Jekyll for legitimate business reasons, including in Asia. Epstein was a member of the Board of Directors of the New York Academy of Art, the Santa Fe Institute, the Trilateral Commission, the Council on Foreign Relations, the board of trustees of the Interlochen Center for the Arts and the university council of Rockefeller University, among many others.

He seems never to have stopped making these connections. Donald Trump was one of his early acquisitions, whether by Hyde or Jekyll. Linguistics professor Chomsky, author Deepak Chokra, IT titan Peter Thiel, Barack Obama’s White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler, former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak, supermodel Naomi Campbell, physicist Lawrence Krauss, Russian UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin and former French president Nicolas Sarkozy are among those all presumably trying to explain how they knew him

Asia connections

In Asia, Epstein’s connections included Indian minister and former diplomat Hardeep Singh Puri, the Indian billionaire Anil Ambani, a still-unnamed Hong Kong academician to whom he gave thousands of dollars, and many more, including a gaggle of top Chinese businessmen and officials. Epstein’s partner, Ghislaine Maxwell, discussed an aborted investment proposal with the late Hong Kong socialite David Tang.

Epstein emerges as an architype of the feral wheeler-dealer whose ability to connect billionaire A to politician B to banker C to country satrap D to counterspy E was his stock in trade, offering intelligence, gossip, whispers, scandal, financial advice, military intelligence and using that information to make himself rich. He somehow knew, for instance, as Asia Sentinel reported on February 1, that Anwar Ibrahim, instead of being Encik Reformasi, intended to “clean up” if he got to be prime minister, and he knew to pass that information on to former JP Morgan banker James Edward “Jes” Staley.

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Despite the slippery odor about him, he was apparently a vital asset, nichs hiyoni to the Israelis, 重要資產 in Hong Kong, viktig ressurs to the Norwegians, ressource vitale to the French, essential resource to the British. Staley, who was dismissed as Barclays chairman for his ties to Epstein, declared to Epstein in an email that he was one of his few “profound” friends, after his first conviction of a sexual offence in 2008.

British police are investigating Andrew and former UK minister Peter Mandelson for their associations. Norwegian police said on February 9 they had launched a corruption investigation into Political Leader, Group Chairman and Climate Spokesperson for Norway’s Det Konservative Folkeparti, and her husband Terje Rod-Larsen, a former diplomat, over the couple’s links to Epstein.

The Norwegian parliament has agreed to set up an independent commission to investigate the ties between Epstein and others including Crown Princess Mette-Marit and Jagland, a former chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee. The French foreign ministry has been in turmoil since links were revealed between diplomat Fabrice Aidan and Epstein. The US is undergoing a political earthquake because of him.

Epstein was not only allegedly procuring girls for rich and powerful men but playing an active role in transnational business deals, including in Asia through his concupiscent regal playmate the royally downgraded Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, who forwarded to Epstein reports of his trips to Vietnam, Singapore, Hong Kong and Shenzhen. British police are investigating the former prince for potentially violating the confidentiality of his trip to these Asian destinations, according to media reports.

In an email on July 21, 2011, David Stern, a German businessman who previously worked for Andrew, told Epstein that Lord Jacob Rothschild, a member of old British Jewish money, was travelling to Beijing to raise a US$750 million private equity fund from Chinese investors. Stern told Epstein, “This topic keeps moving fast, its a massive opportunity. I will keep low profile/no action as instructed until you give me the go-ahead.” It’s unknown whether Epstein got involved in Rothschild’s Chinese fund, but the email indicates Epstein was a decision maker behind this China deal.

In an email on March 7, 2012, Ian Osborne, a British investor living in Hong Kong, told Epstein, “We dropped the Brazilian deal on YOUR advice after you told me at the island not to waste effort on a $1.5 million investment.” Through Osborne, Epstein made edits and inputs in documents related to the establishment of an investment firm, Hedosphia Investments, Asia Sentinel reported on February 9. The initial shareholders of this now defunct company included Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing, his business partner Solina Chau and the family of Robert Kuok, Malaysia’s richest man.

Men have engaged procurers to obtain women for sex, but don’t usually make business decisions based on a procurer’s advice. Li, Chau and members of the Kuok family probably never met Epstein and there is no evidence they partook of Epstein’s sexual activities. But he had worked behind the scenes through Osborne on a deal with the Kuoks and Li, an indication that he was secretly a player in deals with such heavyweights, whose integrity is not in doubt.

Government connections

One 2012 email has Epstein telling Osborne that he was in government meetings all day, without specifying the nationality of the government. The well-connected Osborne answered: “Just back from dinner with the Prime Minister. His team still want to come and visit you & Woody in Paris.” Normally, pimps don’t attend government meetings and a team of any prime minister of any nation wouldn’t publicly consort with a pimp, an indication of how Epstein’s connections went beyond sex to the political.

In a July 25, 2012 email, Epstein told Osborne, a former public relations executive, that the Financial Times’ then chief editor Lionel Barber could “talk to” Staley, then a senior JP Morgan executive, “about color on what he will do.” But, Epstein said, “under no circumstances let it out of the bag.” Barber was an editor of undoubted integrity, and the Financial Times is a respected newspaper. It is normal for public relations executives to arrange for journalists to interview newsmakers. But here was Epstein arranging for the Financial Times to interview Staley while keeping an unknown matter secret.

Diplomats and spooks

Epstein’s friendships extended from businessmen to diplomats and spies. An American calling himself “Melvyn Kohn” and claiming links to US intelligence alleged Epstein previously had “exposure” to North Korean and Chinese intelligence, Asia Sentinel reported on January 7. In an email on June 26, 2015, Epstein told Peter Thiel that he had spent “a great deal of time” with his China advisers. Emails in September 2014 show Epstein introducing William Burns, then US Deputy Secretary of State and later CIA director, to Thiel. According to an FBI document on October 19, 2020, an unnamed source alleged Epstein trained as a spy under former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. The Epstein files contain many emails exchanged between Barak and Epstein, as well as information on Barak visiting Epstein at his house. Epstein pulled strings behind fixers like Osborne. Epstein and his partner Maxwell, now in an US prison for perjury and sex trafficking of children, are Jewish and the documents provide indications Epstein was helping the Israeli cause.

He funded Israeli groups including Friends of the Israeli Defense Forces, and the settler organization the Jewish National Fund and was tied to members of Israel’s overseas intelligence services. Was he a spy? The files don’t give a definitive answer. But given the breadth and depth of Epstein’s connections to spies, diplomats, tycoons and government officials of various nations, he certainly had plenty to pass on to spies.

His friend Woody Allen produced Zelig in 1953, a movie featuring a character defined by his ability to morph into the personality, appearance, and mannerisms of whoever he was around. In Epstein’s case, it seemed also to include the ability to offer not just intelligence or financial advice but proximity to underage girls. A huge number of the rich and famous are paying for that now.

Toh Han Shih is a Singaporean writer in Hong Kong and a regular contributor to Asia Sentinel.

I know who I am. My Italian and Greek antecedents left Europe in the mid-19th century to escape poverty and persecution. They found safe haven in the Middle East – in the emerging economies of Muhammad Ali’s Egypt and Ottoman-ruled and reformed Palestine. They thrived and prospered – and then returned to Europe at the end of the co…

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Although the recently released US National Defense Strategy (NDS) aims to restore “peace through strength for a new golden age of America, far from a statement of American strength, it is a roadmap for accelerating America’s global isolation. Rather than repairing the fractures in the US-led order that have become increasingly visible, the document doubles down on coercion, retrenchment and unilateralism. In doing so, it risks transforming allies into reluctant dependents, partners into sceptics and neutral states into future rivals.

At a moment when European and Canadian leaders are openly talking about the “ruptures” in the post-war order, Washington has chosen not to heal those cracks but to widen them. The result is a strategy that creates more geopolitical space for China and Russia, i.e., precisely the outcome the US must prevent.

Strategy Born of Suspicion, Not Repair

The tone is revealing from its opening pages, framing the international environment less as a system to be stabilized than as a contest in which allies, partners, and adversaries alike must be compelled to adjust to American priorities. It declares that the US faces “one of the most dangerous security environments in our nation’s history,” citing not only China and Russia but also failures of allied burden-sharing and “free-riding,” particularly in Europe. It endorses the use of disproportionate violence as the ideal way for the contemporary world. To quote: “In the Middle East, Israel showed that it was able and willing to defend itself after the barbaric attacks of October 7th—in short, that it is a model ally.”

This framing matters. The strategy repeatedly emphasizes that past US administrations “encouraged [allies] to behave as dependents rather than partners, weakening our alliances and leaving us more vulnerable.” The solution proposed, however, is not deeper institutional cooperation or renewed political trust, but pressure. The NDS calls for “increased burden-sharing with US allies and partners” while making clear that American support will be conditional and selective. Although Israel also depends on the US for securing military aid worth several billion dollars annually and for bombing, or threatening to bomb, Iran every now and then, the Trump administration has created a ‘state of exception’ over all other allies. The message for its traditional allies is, thus, to find their own spaces—something that, for instance, Canada recently did by signing a deal with Chiba. The BBC explicitly described the move as a shift away from the US, leading Trump to threaten Canada further with 100 percent tariffs.

Trump can make these threats because the US is also moving very explicitly away from its traditional allies. The rupture is real. Nowhere is this clearer than in the strategy’s approach to Europe. The NDS signals a sharp reallocation of attention and resources away from the continent, stating that the United States will offer only “limited support” as it prioritizes homeland defense and the Indo-Pacific. The logic is blunt: European security is increasingly Europe’s problem. While burden-sharing has long been a US demand, the language here implies not partnership, but disengagement backed by leverage.

From Deterrence to Coercion by Design

Defenders will argue that the NDS doesn’t explicitly endorse coercion. That is true in a narrow textual sense. But strategies do not shape behavior only through explicit commands; they do so by defining incentives, hierarchies and red lines. In this respect, it is structured in a way that pushes US policy towards coercive outcomes, even when dealing with partners. The strategy emphasizes defending the “homeland and hemisphere” and warns that US access to “key terrain like the Panama Canal and Greenland” is “increasingly in doubt.” This language implicitly frames regions such as Latin America and parts of Europe not as cooperative spaces but as arenas of compliance. When combined with the strategy’s praise for the Trump administration’s willingness to use military power to compel outcomes, the message is unmistakable: alignment with US priorities will be enforced, not negotiated.

The NDS celebrates a military rebuilt to be “the world’s absolute best—its most formidable fighting force,” and repeatedly returns to the theme of restoring the “warrior ethos.” Strength is not merely a deterrent but a tool for discipline. The risk is that allies who diverge from Washington’s preferences—on trade, energy, technology, or diplomacy—come to be seen less as partners and more as obstacles.

That is precisely the dynamic that European and Canadian leaders warned against at Davos. Their speeches underscored that the legitimacy of the post-1945 order rested not only on American power but on American restraint, the willingness to lead through institutions rather than dictate through force, at least vis-à-vis allies. The NDS, by contrast, reflects deep skepticism towards multilateralism and little patience for consensus-building. It assumes that pressure will produce alignment. More importantly, it wants traditional US allies to fully comprehend the message.

Strategic Retrenchment, Rival Expansion

Perhaps the most consequential aspect of the 2026 NDS is its implicit acceptance of US retrenchment outside a narrow set of priorities. By diverting resources away from Europe and limiting commitments elsewhere, the strategy seeks to reduce overextension.

The Indo-Pacific—and particularly China—now dominates US strategic thinking. Deterrence there is to be pursued “through strength, not confrontation,” but this focus comes at a cost. As US attention narrows, other regions are left exposed to influence-seeking by rival powers. Russia, already testing the limits of European cohesion, benefits from a weaker US commitment to NATO’s periphery. China, adept at exploiting institutional vacuums, gains opportunities to expand economic and diplomatic influence in regions where US engagement recedes. Ironically, the NDS itself acknowledges that past US policy “ceded influence in our hemisphere” and allowed adversaries to grow stronger. Yet it repeats the same error on a global scale by assuming that power vacuums will remain empty. They never do.

What makes this especially damaging is the signal it sends. When the US signals that its support will be limited, conditional and transactional, partners hedge. They tend to diversify relationships, pursue strategic autonomy and become more receptive to rival powers. This dynamic is already visible in Europe. At Davos, French President Emmanuel Macron remarked that “China is welcome,” reflecting unease with an increasingly unpredictable Washington rather than enthusiasm for Beijing. Germany offers an even starker example: despite US calls for economic “decoupling,” firms such as Volkswagen and BMW have expanded electric-vehicle production and battery supply chains in China, deepening industrial dependence at a moment of transatlantic strain. Beijing has skillfully exploited these openings by offering market access and regulatory flexibility, positioning itself as an indispensable partner as US–EU ties fray. Over time, this pattern of hedging erodes US influence far more effectively than any external challenge ever could.

In short, if the 2026 NDS is a confession of strategic anxiety, the world should brace for its two most likely outcomes: a more interventionist US abroad and a weaker American order at home and globally. The same doctrine that elevates military coercion and conditional alliances also normalizes the use of force as the primary instrument of policy. That makes a US-led intervention in Iran not a remote fantasy but a plausible next chapter, especially as the strategy frames the Middle East as a proving ground for “model allies” and “barbaric” enemies. The paradox is grim: Washington may become more willing to invade, even as the global system that once absorbed and contained American power is falling apart. The future, then, is not merely one of more war or more disorder, but of both unfolding together.

Dr Salman Rafi Sheikh is an Assistant Professor of Politics at the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) in Pakistan. He is a long-time contributor on diplomatic affairs to Asia Sentinel.

Events in the country and region have undermined Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s leadership, raising questions whether he can survive relentless political machinations after his party lost a crucial December by-election in the eastern state of Sabah, and whether he can continue to shield himsel…

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Papua’s special autonomy, enacted in 2001 by the Indonesian government and granting authority to the region in managing education, health, and natural resources, is not an ordinary policy born from calm, technocratic processes. It emerged from an acute crisis of state legitimacy, and a long-standi…

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Hong Kong’s four-year exercise in “patriotic” democracy took place on December 7 against the backdrop of anger over the city’s worst fire in nearly eight decades, overshadowing government efforts to rally support for the polls in an exercise that bore little resemblance to free or fair elections. To sum up the imbalances, 1,317,682 voters, or 31.9 percent of those registered, elected candidates for 20 seats in the 90-seat legislature. At the same time, 194,000 voters elected 30 members to represent various so-called ‘functional constituencies’ based on industry and employment groups. Meanwhile, just 1,500 members of the elite Election Committee, many already holding government posts, chose the other 40.

This imbalance in voting power between the masses, represented by geographical constituencies, and the small circle elections, goes some way to explain why fewer than a third of the public turned out to vote even after the government spent HK$1.6 billion on the exercise and made it a criminal offense, under which several charges have already been made, to urge people not to vote. That didn’t stop 3 percent of ballots from being invalid – blank or spoiled by voters apparently unwilling to participate. Four suspects have been arrested for attempting to discourage participation, part of the sour mood continuing to overhang the city from the 2020 imposition of the National Security Law that effectively put an end to free expression.

Those who voted were given “Thank You for Voting” cards which were rewarded by some businesses with gifts or discounts. This somehow fell outside the definition of electoral bribery. The government denied the cards would be used to check whether civil servants had voted, but the fear that they would be appeared to be an incentive for some to turn out. The government vainly blanketed the city with posters imploring voters to support the elections as well as offering carrots including fee entry to public swimming pools and museums on polling day, organizing carnivals in city districts, and televising a variety show and gala.

In the event, the government considered it a triumph that the voting percentage marginally exceeded that in 2021, when only 30.2 percent of voters turned out in a race postponed as a result of the Covid pandemic. But it was less than half the 71 percent recorded in the 2019 District Council elections which saw a surge of pro-democracy candidates and was followed 2020 with Beijing’s 2020 imposition of the sweeping National Security Law.

That law in turn led to the absence of real opposition candidates, pro-democracy advocates having long been either jailed or ruled out by a vetting process which allowed only those deemed “patriotic” to become candidates. The number of registered voters also fell.

The overall election result this year showed a few personnel changes but nothing which seemed likely to raise the quantity or quality of debate in the legislature or have a marked impact on government policies.

It did, however, show up official nervousness about the depth of resentment against the government that is quietly running through large sectors of society. This became acute in the wake of the Wang Fuk Court fire disaster which claimed at least 159 lives with 31 people still missing. Foreign media were accused of stirring up anti-China forces and various news agencies were summoned to be berated for unspecified hostile reporting. Official nervousness was also demonstrated by senior National Security police officer who went to the memorial site for the fire victims. He claimed the situation was “becoming more like that of the ‘black clad’ violence of the 2019 demonstrations.” The site was cleared immediately after the election.

“Hatred of the government” may be a natural feeling among those who lost family in the fire given that at least some of the blame for the failure of officials to monitor safety rules. Suspicion also exists over political meddling in construction contracts. Hence, now any strong criticism of government actions, or inactions, or individual investigative inquiries into the causes is liable to come with the purview of threats to National Security. Protection of existing powers and system is feared to override investigative independence. As it is, the Committee of Inquiry set up by the Chief Executive lacks the investigative and judicial powers held by Commissions of Inquiry held after previous Hong Kong disasters such as the 2012 Lamma Ferry sinking and the 1996 Garley Building fire.

Earlier this month, the United States made the unprecedented decision to skip its Universal Periodic Review (UPR) at the United Nations Human Rights Council. This withdrawal from the mechanism, which regularly assesses the human rights situations of all United Nations member states, marks a sharp departure from decades of engagement and …

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When the White House released four statements on October 26, outlining new “reciprocal trade agreements” with Vietnam, Malaysia, Cambodia, and Thailand, most observers saw them as routine updates on Washington’s economic outreach in Southeast Asia. But only one statement — the one concerning Vietnam — used the phrase “reciprocal, fair an…

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As the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations comes together for its annual summit meeting in Kuala Lumpur this week, it faces some of its most critical tests. How it handles them will tell volumes about its relevance in the 21st-century world.

The first is the arrival on October 26 of US President Donl…

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At one level, US President Donald Trump’s September 23 speech to the United Nations General Assembly was a rambling, at times barely coherent mix of rants and ramble, full of self-congratulation, abuse of allies, and plenty of plain, simple lies about much of the rest of the world. On another, it contained a warning to Asia and the world that America has left and gone for good.

Here was the grandson of German and Scots immigrants to the US exhibiting to the world and to non-white America his strong distaste for “invaders” from what he earlier called “shithole” countries – non-western or non-Christian ones. Here was an oracle making up stories on climate issues, on Sharia law coming to London, and why he should get the Nobel Peace prize for ending multiple wars.

Some might well dismiss this as the unhinged rhetoric of a megalomaniac. It would pass, normalcy would return. Yet it may also be seen as a window into Trump’s soul and those of tens of millions of his star-struck followers, one reacting to the relative decline of America by making out that it was now richer and stronger than ever, thanks to him. Much of the rest of the world was going to hell, overrun by immigrants and impoverished by believing fictions such as climate change.

Saving America from such ills required firm government, intolerance of enemies as had flourished under Presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama, and keeping America distant from the destructive influences from outside, be it a Muslim mayor in London or the “colossal invasion” across America’s southern border which he had stopped. US interests required such hitherto shocking developments ranging from a claim on Greenland, to the destruction of Venezuelan vessels allegedly and without evidence carrying drugs, and repeated support for Israeli President Binyamin Netanyahu’s genocidal Gaza destruction.

All these things could perhaps be dismissed as temporary aberrations of one individual. Yet the reality is that they all enjoyed the (sometimes grudging) support of the Republican majority in Congress and of a Supreme Court majority supplied by the arch-conservative Federalist Society, swept up by the executive’s demands for ever larger powers, overriding congressionally approved policies and budgets.

Free speech, at least when it criticized Trump and his policies, was undermined, critics were threatened with prison, academic freedoms were limited by the withdrawal of funds while Trump’s followers stepped up their barely disguised vitriol against those who did not adhere to the white, Christian self-image of Trump and his followers.

Trump may not carry the majority with him. The US is too diverse for that. But the power of his MAGA followers remains in the ascendant, at least for now, meanwhile bolstered by, among other factors, a stock market which has (at least as far as AI and tech stocks are concerned) reached delusional valuations. It is no coincidence that the tech titans now align with Trump.

But even assuming that that axis falls apart, that the great Trump boom turns to bust, that the tariff chaos gives way to stabilization at more moderate rates, that the US economy stagnates while inflation remains, that midterm elections 13 months away see a Democrat revival, there can be no undoing of all of Trump’s destruction.

That is particularly the case with external relations and US foreign influences. Some policies may be reversed, renewed commitments made by a new administration to open trade, and plans to force local production of certain goods abandoned. Easing of immigration restrictions and anti-migrant rhetoric may provide a new boost to an economy which historically thrived on migration.

Some ground lost can never be regained. The idea that the US is a reliable trade partner which operates under broadly understood rules, whether those are within the World Trade Organization or subject to specific mutually-agreed bilateral agreements, is being shaken to its core.

Likewise, the dominance of the US dollar in international trade and finance has been seriously undermined. The dollar was probably destined to gradually lose ground to other currencies. Its weaponization against Russia following the Ukraine invasion caused concerns among several countries with large dollar reserve assets. But much more damage has since been done by Trump’s abrogation of trade deals and resort to strong-arm tactics of various sorts as the US makes every country, often friends more than foes, subject to transactional bilateral deals based on Trump’s whims and prejudices.

At the same time, faith in the dollar has been eroded by Trump’s commitment to tax cuts which are almost certain to increase government debt and keep long-term interest rates high or see a sharp devaluation of the dollar. Trump’s campaign against the Federal Reserve and in favor of a looser monetary policy may suit his short-term domestic objectives but will encourage holders of US debt to seek alternatives.

China is likely to gradually make yuan assets more readily available. The encouragement of cryptocurrencies by Trump may also see the rise of cryptos linked to currencies other than the dollar. Some in the US may view a reduced role for the dollar as neutral or even a benefit. However, it also reduces the inordinate privilege the currency has enjoyed and enabled the US to run decades of external deficits without feeling much cost.

Most significant for the longer term of all aspects of Trumpism is a lack of trust in military alliances. Americans can be forgiven for suspicion of a global role when overconfidence leads them into Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. But Trump’s accommodation of Russian despot Vladimir Putin and failure to give adequate arms support to Ukraine is seeing Europe think again about the trans-Atlantic relationship. His ambiguity towards Taiwan worries not just Taiwan but Japan, Korea, Australia, and the Philippines. His attitude towards Modi and India defies explanation. Meanwhile, China continues to erode its firepower imbalance with the US.

In short, empires rely on a mix of power, trust, and self-interest. Possibly, it is in US interest to retreat to the Americas. But this is not the 19^th century. The Monroe Doctrine long ceased to have any meaning. America’s strength now is commercial and technological but alliances, whether mercantile or military, are fundamental to the global success of US enterprise. Friends regret America’s exercise in self-harm, a Brexit times 10. Like Brexit, it will be regretted. But returning to the previous status quo is not possible.

The sudden September 7 resignation of Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba has sent domestic politics into disarray, leaving the country facing myriad problems on both the domestic and external fronts, including a severely aging and declining population, a high national debt exacerbated by economic stagnation, imm…

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