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When economic locomotive has shifted to Asia -- http://www.geopolitics.asia

27/08/2025

Thailand and Cambodia may have laid down their weapons, but the contest is far from over. One month after the five-day clash that drew in international mediation, the fragile ceasefire has only shifted the battlefield. Barbed wire on disputed soil, protests at Nong-Chan village, and the politics of sovereignty show how easily symbols become weapons.

Cambodia’s economy is straining under the weight of collapsed border trade and a widening twin-deficit trap, yet its leaders still frame the conflict in terms of territorial loss and national pride. Thailand, meanwhile, is consolidating its position with new Gripen fighters, offset policies, and hedging for future F-35 or KF-21 acquisitions, while Cambodia campaigns in Europe to cast Saab exports as arming authoritarian wars.

Our earlier warning made clear that Cambodia’s most potent weapon was never its firepower but its narrative. This remains the central asymmetry: Phnom Penh bends under economic pressure long before it breaks militarily, yet it cloaks weakness in the language of victimhood. The border war of July a...

06/08/2025

Thailand’s submarine procurement has long been a subject of scrutiny, debate, and strategic recalibration. With the recent Cabinet decision to move forward under a revised engine configuration, the Royal Thai Navy’s S26T submarine program re-emerges not only as a technical project but as a broader signal of maritime ambition. In this article, Geopolitics.Asia examines the legal entanglements behind the German MTU engine embargo, the shifting defense doctrine that underpins Thailand’s naval modernization, and the strategic logic of undersea warfare in Southeast Asia’s contested maritime domain.

On August 5, 2025, Thailand’s Cabinet quietly approved a pivotal shift in one of its most controversial defense procurements: the Yuan Class S26T submarine. Originally signed under a government-to-government agreement with China, the project had been stalled for over three years due to a technical...

04/08/2025

In July 2025, the Thai-Cambodian border flared into the most serious clash in over a decade, raising questions not just about territory, but about deeper regional instability. This article looks beyond the headlines—tracing the roots of the confrontation, exposing hidden strategies, and laying out a long-term plan for containing future escalation without triggering collapse. It's a detailed examination of how conflict, narrative, and power now move in Southeast Asia.

The July 2025 border clashes between Thailand and Cambodia marked the most intense confrontation since the Preah Vihear disputes of the early 2010s. What began with sporadic tensions around Chong Bok and Ta Muen Thom quickly escalated into cross-border exchanges involving artillery, airstrikes, and....

25/07/2025

In the ongoing 2025 border conflict, Thailand has demonstrated clear operational superiority within the first 24 hours of engagement. Cambodia’s command-and-control systems have shown signs of severe disruption, while early communication attempts reflect either strategic disarray or efforts to mask internal vulnerabilities. Thailand, guided by a disciplined and pre-established doctrinal framework, has chosen not to rush into negotiations. Any diplomatic engagement will proceed only under conditions that decisively support national objectives. This posture reflects both restraint and resolve, reinforcing Thailand’s commitment to strategic clarity and regional stability.

Thailand’s operational advantage in the ongoing border conflict has manifested rapidly and decisively. Within the first 24 hours, Cambodia’s ability to mount coherent countermeasures appeared compromised, not only by the disparity in firepower, but by visible signs of strain within its command-a...

13/07/2025

Mainland Southeast Asia has long been shaped not by a single civilizational core, but by multiple flourishing centers, each rising, overlapping, and contesting for influence across centuries. Drawing from archaeological evidence, Chinese pilgrim accounts, and epigraphic traditions, this article explores two competing theories: the "Thousand Flowers Theory," which sees the region as a landscape of diverse, coexisting city-states, and the "Cradle of the Peninsula" view, which positions Funan, and later the Khmer Empire, as the central civilizational driver. Through this lens, we revisit the history of the Irrawaddy, Chao Phraya, and Tonle Sap basins, not as passive recipients of Indianization, but as dynamic, evolving centers of power and belief.

Mainland Southeast Asia’s early civilizational landscape has long been interpreted through the lens of central empires like Funan and the Khmer, imagined as singular cradles from which culture radiated outward. Yet emerging archaeological, epigraphic, and religious evidence, alongside outsider acc...