Resilience has become a familiar term in recent years, especially after COVID-19, supply chain disruptions, rising geopolitical tensions and rapid technological change. But today, resilience is no longer just about recovery. It is about how countries and regions adapt and rethink how they operate in a more uncertain and fragmented world. For ASEAN, this challenge is particularly complex. Resilience looks different across emerging technologies, global value chains and health and other non-traditional security issues. And policy choices in one area can create vulnerabilities in another. In this episode's of Policy Unpacked, join our expert panel, LKYSPP's Dr. Denis Hew and Dr Miguel Gomez, Senior Research Fellows at the Centre on Asia and Globalisation, SMU's Associate Professor Chang Pao Li and RSIS' Professor Mely Anthony, as they explore what resilience really means for ASEAN and what it will take for the region to remain competitive, resilient and secure.

Henry Kissinger, the late US secretary of state, once reportedly remarked that “to be an enemy of America would be dangerous, to be a friend would be fatal”. That observation, while made in the context of America’s allies in the Vietnam War, has gained fresh resonance at the recently concluded Munich Security Conference, where current Secretary of State Marco Rubio artfully delivered a message that was, to all intents and purposes, an iron fist in a velvet glove.

In the brutal world of geopolitics, great powers are like crocodiles and small states need to be very careful even when they appear to smile.

Border tensions between Thailand and Cambodia flare with rhythmic predictability. Every few years, a clash, standoff, or troop movement reignites nationalist sentiment and triggers hurried diplomacy. Quick fixes follow—some bilateral, some externally encouraged—but calm rarely endures. The pattern is clear: the conflict recurs because the system governing it remains unchanged.