SEPTEMBER 11 -- The geopolitical dashboard in the world continue to beam with serious signs of systemic perturbations. How ?
On September 10, 2025, a geopolitical tremor rattled the Nato alliance -- and reverberated far beyond Europe. Nearly 19 Russian drones -- some launched from Belarus -- violated Polish airspace during a mass aerial onslaught against Ukraine. This was a deliberate provocation, perhaps meant to test Nato's resolve.
For the first time since the war began, Nato fighter jets from the Netherlands and Poland responded directly, shooting several drones down. Germany's Patriot air defence batteries were mobilised, while Italian early-warning aircraft and multinational refuelling tankers joined the defence.
Poland described it as the most serious violation of its skies since World War II, prompting an immediate invocation of Nato's Article 4, calling for urgent consultations. War has not broken out, but the alarm bells are unmistakable.
In Washington, President Donald Trump reacted with characteristic brevity on Truth Social: "What's with Russia violating Poland's airspace with drones? Here we go!" A cryptic, bemused post, but one that underscored the sudden fragility of the global order.
This episode is more than a European crisis. It is a warning that the three great powers -- United States, Russia, and China -- are engaged in a relentless contest for influence that now spans every continent.
From Eastern Europe to the Indian Ocean, from Africa's mineral corridors to Latin America's shipping lanes, and certainly across the Asia Pacific, the rivalry is all-encompassing.
The Russian incursion into Poland's skies demonstrates that Moscow is prepared to challenge the limits of international tolerance.
Yet Russia is not acting in isolation. Its strategic entente with China provides it with diplomatic cover and, in some cases, economic oxygen. China, for its part, watches Nato's every move, calculating what lessons can be applied to Taiwan Straits and the East China Sea.
And the United States, stretched between European commitments and Asian assurances, seeks to prove it can still enforce a global order without stumbling into overextension.
What happened in Poland is not just about Nato's credibility.
It reflects a broader pattern of behaviour where great powers are testing red lines everywhere. Russia does it with drones and hybrid warfare; China does it through maritime assertiveness, island militarisation, and technology dominance; the United States responds with sanctions, alliances, and military deployments.
All three are jostling for influence in Africa's resource zones, Latin America's financial systems, Europe's energy networks, and South-east Asia's maritime corridors. No region is spared.
The Asia Pacific, with its dense trade routes and contested waters, is becoming the new pressure point. The East Asia Summit in Kuala Lumpur in late October 2025 will inevitably become an arena where Washington, Beijing, and Moscow size each other up -- not with drones or fighter jets, but with words, gestures, and alliances.
Asean's responsibility
Asean has long prided itself on being neutral ground, a convener of dialogue, and a promoter of regional stability. But neutrality is no longer enough.
The East Asia Summit will require deft chairmanship to prevent the gathering from turning into a rhetorical battlefield between the three superpowers. If Europe is any indication, provocations can happen suddenly, with consequences spilling across borders.
The Asean Chair must therefore project calm, discipline, and a refusal to let South-east Asia be reduced to a proxy arena. This is not to deny reality -- Asean countries have deep economic ties with China, robust security ties with the United States, and, in some cases, important defence or energy links with Russia.
But the grouping's collective credibility depends on showing that its summits are not platforms for geopolitical chest-thumping, but for constructive dialogue that benefits smaller states as much as larger ones.
The Chair must also make clear that Asean centrality is not a slogan but a practice. The way forward is to provide a stage where all voices -- large and small, superpower and microstate -- can be heard.
When Nato rallied to defend Poland's skies, it showed what cohesion looks like. In Asia, cohesion means preventing unilateral actions that endanger regional security, whether by military means, coercive diplomacy, or economic pressure.
From Warsaw skies to Kuala Lumpur halls
The lesson of Poland is simple: provocations escalate quickly when clarity is absent. Europe responded with unity, showing that Nato remains credible.
Asia, however, does not have a Nato. It has Asean, with all its strengths and weaknesses, and with an institutional culture that prefers consensus to confrontation.
That preference can be a liability if it means silence in the face of aggression, but it can also be an asset if it means creating a climate where escalation is not the default reaction.
The United States will arrive at the East Asia Summit determined to demonstrate its reliability to allies and partners.
China will seek to frame itself as the indispensable economic engine and regional stabiliser. Russia, though weakened, will try to prove it is not irrelevant in Asia, leveraging its partnership with China and residual ties with South-east Asia.
Each will jostle for influence, probing for weaknesses in Asean's resolve.
It is here that the Chair's voice matters most. The Chair must assert that South-east Asia is not a chessboard, nor are its people pawns to be sacrificed for the ambitions of others. The Chair must insist on a balanced world order -- one where power competition does not spiral into conflict, and where multilateralism, however fragile, still offers an avenue for cooperation.
A warning, not an omen
Trump's words -- "Here we go" -- were likely an off-the-cuff remark. Yet they captured the weary anticipation of a world bracing for escalation. But for Asean, those words must not signal resignation. They must serve as a warning that complacency is no option.
The East Asia Summit will test Asean's capacity like never before. It will decide whether this region can hold the line against the sharp elbows of the three superpowers -- or whether it will allow itself to be dragged into conflicts not of its own making.
Peace is never guaranteed. It is the outcome of deliberate choices, careful diplomacy, and principled leadership. The Asean Chair must ensure that the choice made in Kuala Lumpur is one of balance, calm, and responsibility -- before "here we go" becomes a grim prophecy for Asia as well.
*Phar Kim Beng, PhD, is Professor of Asean Studies and Director of the Institute of Internationalisation and Asean Studies (IINTAS) at the International Islamic University of Malaysia.
**Luthfy Hamzah is a Research Fellow at IINTAS.