New Delhi, June 9 -- Despite ASEAN's growing efforts to diversify its economic and strategic alignments towards BRICS, the GCC, and other parts of the Global South-including deepening dependence on China-this remains a self-fulfilling utopian belief. It ignores current and emerging realities where power parity and long-term influence are still dominated by the United States.

Without the capacity for credible self-defence, ASEAN remains reliant on the US security umbrella. As long as this dependency endures, ASEAN's aspiration for centrality and non-alignment-hoping to extract benefits from both China and the West-remains unrealistic.

ASEAN is increasingly vulnerable to external shocks after decades of comfortably riding on Washington's ...