strategic

The Thai-Cambodian tension is almost uniformly treated as a manageable bilateral issue, serious but contained, sensitive but familiar. This is a mistake. The real implication of the dispute is not the danger it poses of immediate escalation but rather what it indicates of the future security order of Southeast Asia and of ASEAN’s decreasing strategic relevance in the formation of that order. The problem is not that ASEAN lacks goodwill or experience, but that it is increasingly misaligned with the type of conflicts now emerging within its own region. At the heart of the dilemma is a category mistake: ASEAN was never constituted to arbitrate or adjudicate, only to regulate. Its diplomatic culture emphasizes confidence-building practices and the maintenance of open, institutionalized avenues for dialogue. Those are things necessary and reasonable. Territory sovereignty is different; it is zero-sum and domestically chiseled. As such, solving such disputes with ASEAN’s traditional toolkit is to operate outside one’s skill set, not unlike an artist trying to bake a cake.

Border tensions play a role in domestic politics on both sides. They play into narratives of sovereignty, justify military readiness, and distract from internal pressures. Crucially, escalation is not an end in itself. Escalation has its risks; resolution has its concessions. Protracted ambiguity, on the other hand, can be handled politically. ASEAN’s preference for dialogue without deadlines, restraint without enforcement, and consensual rather than arbitrated decision-making seems to reproduce this state of equilibrium. This dynamic is often misinterpreted as diplomatic paralysis. It is instead the reflection of a stable, albeit fragile, strategic equilibrium. ASEAN offers a forum for de-escalation. From the standpoint of member states, this is not an institutional malfunction but a rational outcome. The costs of change exceed the benefits, especially when national leaders must answer to domestic audiences that reward toughness over compromise. Where this method turns strategically perilous is in the aggregate. Managed conflicts are not frozen conflicts; they harden over the years. Military interventions are normalized, crisis rhetoric becomes established, and trust dribbles away. What begins as stability based on restraint gradually transforms into militarized coexistence. This process is not the escalation of the crisis but its solidification. As strife becomes routine, the region becomes accustomed to permanent insecurity, and politicians come to treat it as usual, not abnormal.

The regional context renders this trend more significant. Southeast Asia is not functioning in a permissive strategic environment today. Competition among the great powers is increasingly shaping the calculations of states in the region. Thailand’s security ties and Cambodia’s external alignments are not marginal to the conflict; they are part of its strategic backdrop. With external alignments solidifying, tensions within the region are becoming less easy to isolate. Even when they are not directly involved, the great powers’ presence changes bargaining behavior, threat perceptions, and strategic confidence. ASEAN can least afford to see its centrality challenged now. Centrality is strategically and politically meaningful when regional institutions make rather than take outcomes. When disagreements are settled outside the ASEAN framework through bilateral interests, external balancing, or strategic ambiguity, the organization’s role is so minimal as to be symbolic at worst. The consultations and statements continue, but the real influence is shifting elsewhere. ASEAN, over time, also runs the risk of becoming a platform on which it simply reacts rather than organizes and shapes regional strains.

The economic aspect makes the matter even more complex. ASEAN’s integration project presupposes a degree of predictability and strategic restraint. However, it is not entirely effective while security tensions between the two remain unresolved. Border disputes impede cross-border trade and infrastructure planning and introduce risk into investment calculations. They seldom produce immediate or dramatic changes, but they do build up. For a while, economic integration can coexist with political tensions, but not forever. Often, uncertainty begins to erode confidence, particularly in mainland Southeast Asia, where connectivity is most vulnerable to instability. The fundamental problem, then, is not whether ASEAN can stop war. It pretty much can, and it often does. The more profound question, then, is whether war prevention is sufficient in a region under such long-term strategic duress. A security order based solely on restraint, without avenues for resolution, will erode its ability to adapt. It treats the symptoms and not the causes of these problems. This does not necessitate that ASEAN turn away from its founding principles, but rather that it apply them in new and innovative ways. Consensus and respect for non-interference continue to be the pillars of regional cohesion. However, they no longer suffice. Without additional tools in the toolbox, such as informal arbitration, issue-specific mediation regimes, or more explicit regional norms on appropriate dispute behavior, ASEAN will remain trapped in a stance of containment, with no progress.

Overall, the Thai–Cambodian tension is no mere side issue. It shows how latent tensions, domestic politics, and external competition converge in ways that ASEAN cannot fully control. The risk is not a sudden breakdown but strategic stagnation: a region at peace but progressively divided, stable but strategically tenuous, and whose members continue to hesitate over which direction they want to take. If ASEAN is ever to have a fundamental, not just a token, role, it has to face up to this fact, not just in rhetoric but in its structures. This decision will determine whether the future security structure in Southeast Asia is built on deterrence of conflict or on the tolerance of latent tensions as the price of regional cohesion.

As Afghanistan reevaluates its economic geography in light of the deteriorating relations with Pakistan, India has become a major option for Kabul in its quest for diverse trade routes. The recent top-level meetings between the Taliban and the Indian government indicate a desire on the part of the former to diminish their reliance on the Pakistani transit corridors and to gain more strategic independence. However, India’s role is more a matter of political calculation than of geographical convenience. Afghanistan has no direct land route to India, and therefore its trade with India is expensive routes via Iran with limited air corridors, making it very difficult for a sanctions-hit and cash-strapped economy to scale up. Although the engagement with New Delhi gives the Afghan government the chance to send diplomatic signals and obtain very limited economic relief, it also poses the question of whether India is going to be a long-term trading partner or merely a geopolitical counterweight in Kabul’s broader regional strategy.

Taliban officials have begun signalling a recalibration of economic policy. Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar publicly urged Afghan traders to explore alternative transit corridors, accusing Pakistan of using border closures as a tool of political pressure. Shortly thereafter, Nooruddin Azizi, Minister of Industry and Commerce of Afghanistan, had an official visit to New Delhi on 19 November 2025 for official discussions aimed at increasing bilateral trade, enhancing the mechanisms for import and export and finding out different ways for Afghan businesses to trade. This visit comes after the Afghanistan’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Amir Khan Muttaqi’s trip to India in October that lasted for eight days, which was his first trip to India, for which he was granted a temporary UN sanctions exemption, even though India has not yet recognized the Taliban government.

Over the past two decades, the Taliban’s propaganda has been persistently depicting India as a Hindu “kafir” state that is supporting the “anti-Islam” forces in Kabul, making Indian diplomats look like enemies and Indian consulates like secret intelligence stations working against Afghanistan and Pakistan. The destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas was declared as a holy war against the “un-Islamic idols” and the whole Buddhist-Hindu civilization, which was a clear indication of the Emirate’s hardline ideological approach. However, this narrative has changed for political and economic reasons.

Moreover, the Taliban, having once described the Indian state as their ideological enemy, are now actively courting India, even sending their foreign minister and commerce minister to New Delhi to get access to trade routes and investment in infrastructure. However, the newly established open channels of communication between the two parties are indicative of a major pragmatism shift, wherein the former rhetoric of enmity and ideological purity has been replaced by the language of using one another in business transactions, thus, signaling the willingness of Afghanistan to retrieve economic lifelines and gain a strategic position in a region.

Historically, Taliban’s official communications are filled with references to Islamic unity, historical connections, and the values of Muslim brotherhood in its relationship with Pakistan. However, when relations with Islamabad were strained over the Tehrik-i-Taliban support, as well as border management and refugees; the Emirate quickly turned to engagement with other regional states instead of reconciliation with its closest Muslim neighbor. This selective realism reveals a definite order of priorities; Afghanistan is ignoring Pakistan’s main security issues but is ready to do anything for a state that is Hindu-majority and can offer trade routes, investment, and international legitimacy.

This transactional approach is not only limited to regional politics but also encompasses the global economic system. The Taliban constantly criticized “Western economic slavery“, interest-based financial systems and considering themselves as an ideological alternative to the West. Nowadays, the Taliban are lobbying India who is heavily involved in the Western capital markets and global financial networks positively to get banking access, reconstruction projects, and investments. The ideological rigidity at home is sharply contrasted with the foreign policy flexibility; those states which were once labelled as anti-Islamic are now being courted for material and political gains.

The Taliban’s selective pragmatism is also evident in the territorial and security sensitive issues. On one hand, they keep on challenging the issue of the Durand Line with Pakistan, an internationally recognized border between both states, while on the other hand, they are quite liberal with India. Likewise, in the past, Taliban-associated clerics and militants celebrated jihad in Kashmir, denounced Indian government actions toward Muslims there and such discourse got muted during visits to Delhi. It is very clear that economic and diplomatic goals are prioritized over ideological or sectarian consistency.

Afghanistan’s trade pivot underscores the delicate balance between ambition and structural reality. While the Taliban’s efforts to diversify transit routes reflect a desire for economic autonomy and greater regional leverage, geographic constraints, limited infrastructure, and entrenched economic patterns impose severe limitations. Engagement with India offers symbolic and partial relief, yet Pakistan remains the linchpin of Afghan commerce, providing the fastest and most cost-effective access to global markets. The Emirate’s strategy is as much a political signal-demonstrating flexibility, pragmatism, and a quest for de facto recognition as it is an economic maneuver. Ultimately, Afghanistan’s “strategic heart of Asia” narrative will be tested not by intent but by its capacity to reconcile aspiration with the unyielding realities of terrain, logistics, and regional interdependence.