Navigating a world on fire

Sixty-nine days into a war that nobody in South-East Asia provoked let alone started, Asean leaders gathered in Cebu confronting an uncomfortable reality: even regions that pride themselves on strategic non-alignment are not shielded from the consequences of great-power conflict.

The US-Israel-Iran war, now grinding through its third month with no sign of capitulation on the part of Iran, has shattered the myth of American military invincibility, tearing deep into the grand notion of its exceptionalism. But even weightier, it has exposed once again the fragility