GPF Team

June 23, 2017 Jihadism in Marawi is actually a good thing for U.S. strategy in Asia.

June 23, 2017 Cooperation among Southeast Asian states has never come easy, but the surge of Islamist militancy in the region is encouraging Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines to give it another try.

Recently, the three countries formally launched trilateral patrols in the Sulu and Celebes seas — a vast expanse that has become a hub of piracy, militancy and smuggling. They have discussed the possibility since 2016, when the Abu Sayyaf, a jihadist group aligned with the Islamic State, conducted a string of kidnappings in the Sulu Archipelago. Whatever differences that may have impeded the patrols, however, were put aside during the siege of Marawi city, a provincial capital in the restive Philippine region of Mindanao.

But the slow start to the patrols shows just how elusive integration has been in Southeast Asia. Historically, mountains and island chains, not to mention starkly divided ethnic communities, have tended to produce inward-looking countries too preoccupied by instability and too suspicious of foreign meddling to bother to assimilate. (Singapore is a notable exception.)

June 22, 2017

Jacob Shapiro and Kamran Bokhari discuss some recent anomalies in the Middle East and consider the relationship between sectarianism and nationalism in the Muslim world. Click here to sign up for free updates on topics like this.

June 22, 2017 The kingdom is resilient, but it has never faced such daunting challenges.