Publication

This text takes stock of ASEAN’s strengths and imperfections, and its utility to the US in Southeast Asia and the wider Asia-Pacific region. More specifically, the author explores 1) the challenges that ASEAN faces, which include the ongoing nation- and state-building processes of member countries, the political unreliability of local elites, etc.; 2) the glue that hold the organization together (there is no acceptable alternative architecture available, for example); and 3) the great power face-offs that are intensifying in this part of the world.