When land meets sea: How Asean can shape the next world order

IT is tempting to think of today’s geopolitical turbulence as something new — a modern drama of ideology, technology and strong men. But peel back the headlines and you will find something far older and more elemental at work.

Beneath every summit communiqué and security pact, there’s a deeper fault line running through history itself: the clash between land power and sea power, between empires built on territory and those built on trade.It’s a rivalry as old as Athens and Sparta, as enduring as Rome and Carthage — and it’s shaping the 21st century every bit as much as it shaped the 19th.