🧵 Today @ShonaLoong and I launch our book:. New Answers to Old Questions: Myanmar Before and After the 2021 Coup d’État. In it, we question misplaced optimism about the Aung San Suu Kyi government, and challenge the fatalism that followed the 2021 coup.

RT @CollinSLKoh: Royal Thai Navy decides to proceed with the option for PRC propulsion as an alternative to power its S26T submarines, thus….

The Jakarta Post on why Prabowo pardoned Anies and Hasto:

RT @rachman_joseph: Tom Lembong and Hasto Kristiyanto both out with presidential pardons in a day high drama in Jakarta .

RT @TheEconomist: Not since the Cambodian civil war ended more than three decades ago has the border between Cambodia and Thailand seen suc….

One thing is clear, we argue: the opacity of the political system on both sides is fundamentally destabilizing.

Why did war break out over the border between Cambodia and Thailand last week? We are left with theories but no answers in this senseless conflict. For @TheEconomist this week:

RT @nuicemedia: The DPR nullified Tom Lembong’s corruption charges following recommendation from President Prabowo. That effectively erases….

RT @amity_circle: “The Guns Must be Silenced” - Statement by the Amity Circle on the outbreak of armed clashes between Cambodia and Thailan….

The remote Batanes islands, between Luzon and Taiwan, are at the centre of US Marines' new plans for deterring an invasion of Taiwan—and by extension, defending the Philippines, too. I flew up to the Batanes with the Marines to see the new NMESIS missile system deployed 👇.

RT @TheEconomist: We’re looking for a fluent speaker of Korean and English

RT @olliecarroll: Ukraine’s astonishing raid deep inside Russia rewrote the rules of war. It also enraged Putin — and that will have conseq….

Our look back at #SLD25, by my colleague @AntonLaGuardia, already on the E4-B back to Washington with SECDEF:

First way that Hegseth says that the U.S. is improving deterrence by denial is deploying NMESIS in the Batanes. See our report on NMESIS in this week’s paper below. #SLD25.

Whenever China would say hot-headed things at Shangri-La in the past, things that didn’t make sense to say to Southeast Asia, we used to figure that their first audience was really back in their own capital. Guess that’s true for America now, too. #SLD25.

It's at the center of the new way that Marines are rehearsing to deter an invasion of Taiwan by the PRC—and defending the Philippines, too. I wrote about it, and the political and logistical challenges to implementation, this week for @TheEconomist.

I was there to see US Marines deploy a new missile system in the Batanes for the first time. The Navy Marine Ship Interdiction System, or NMESIS, is not the hardest hitting weapon in America's arsenal. But it is small, light, easy to move, and hard to find.

Last month I boarded a US Air Force C-130 at Clark Air Base outside of Manila and flew to the Batanes Islands. After a low ingress through emerald valleys, we landed on a short, gently sloping runway at Basco, halfway between Luzon and Taiwan.

RT @Birdyword: I didn't think the experiences I had covering Indonesian businesses and how they mix with politics would give me such direct….

Not a shift in Indonesia’s position, which is still predicated on the realization of a two-state solution. But Prabowo met Israeli officials when he was defence minister, and tends to take an amoral or pragmatic approach to foreign affairs. So I wouldn’t rule it out, either.

RT @CNMNguyen: A story from the northeastern side of the Sino-Vietnamese borderlands over 100 years ago. I wonder if Trump can comprehend t….