Southeast Asia Archive

At its height half a decade ago, the Islamic State was among the most feared armed organizations in the world. The infamously brutal group had at one point captured and established governance of more than a third of Iraq and large swaths of Syria. But that shocking, sudden rise to infamy was followed by a steep, if slower, downfall. By January 2019, the Islamic State had lost nearly all of its territory in Iraq and Syria. The U.S. declared it defeated and media organizations began to pay only sporadic attention to its isolated attacks. By 2021, Google searches for the Islamic State, a […]

Early last December, the European Union unveiled its Global Gateway, a plan to spend up to 300 billion euros, or $340 billion, over the next six years financing major infrastructure projects around the world, particularly those to develop clean energy and combat climate change. Although the Global Gateway does not have an explicit focus in terms of specific countries, it prioritizes developing regions such as Southeast Asia.   The investment plan is just the latest expression of Europe’s heightened interest in Southeast Asia and the Indo-Pacific region more generally. In the past year, several European countries have released Indo-Pacific strategy […]

Two recent state-level elections in Malaysia have put the spotlight on the country’s volatile political landscape, ahead of national elections that many expect to be called this year. The scandal-tainted ruling United Malays National Organization, or UMNO, came out strengthened from victories in both campaigns, while the opposition Pakatan Harapan’s disappointing performance presents it with new challenges in its efforts to return to power. But backroom deals and maneuvers by political elites in Kuala Lumpur are leaving many ordinary Malaysians frustrated and disillusioned with a political system that seems riddled by corruption and unresponsive to their needs.  Mahathir Mohamad, the […]

In late 2018, a violent attack in Indonesia brought sudden, global attention to West Papua, a region whose fight for independence was by then decades old. The attack targeted construction workers who were building a stretch of the controversial Trans-Papua highway, a project the central Indonesian government has said will improve quality of life, but that many locals oppose. By the end, 17 civilians and Indonesian military members had been killed; a separatist militant group, the National Liberation Army of West Papua, later claimed responsibility.  It was the deadliest attack Indonesia had seen for several years—and it was a sign of […]