May 6, 2026
ISEAS - Yusof Ishak Institute
By Anoulak Kittikhoun
We live in an uncertain world in which “might makes right” is back in fashion. It was always there in substance and episodes, but past transgressions had at least been couched in internationally acceptable terms. Presently, even successful regional institutions such as the EU and ASEAN feel lost in the realist world of big power politics.
One response to this change came from middle-power Canada, whose Prime Minister, in a January 2026 World Economic Forum speech to the world’s richest countries and companies, called for “variable geometry,” meaning the building and sustaining of different coalitions for different issues.[1] Middle powers may be able to do this with sufficient capacity and resources, as well as a reasonable size that enables them to withstand adverse consequences. Mark Carney’s speech, however, had little to say about smaller states, such as Laos, which make up most of the world’s countries, and it certainly did not raise the need to reform or strengthen regional or international institutions that traditionally amplify their voices.
In this global “rupture” where capable middle powers are rethinking the world order, what do states with weaker capacity and smaller size do? If big countries do what they wish, and middle powers do what they can, would smaller ones have to suffer what they must? Consider Laos, a small, landlocked country bordered by larger neighbours, historically exposed to external intervention and repeatedly exploited as a battlefield. Laos cannot play the same game as middle powers can. It has little room for manoeuvre, small margins for error, and high exposure to pressure.
Shaped by regional powers’ expansions, by French colonial rule, and by the US–Soviet Cold War, including the US’ “Secret War” when it became the most bombed country on earth,[2] Laos learned that caution, balance, and the post-Cold War rules-based international order anchored in the UN, WTO, and ASEAN brought stability. To survive the age of might makes right, Laos should indeed be “realist” in its assessments of the world, but remain “liberal” in its belief that cooperative institutions do amplify the actions of individual states, and most importantly, “constructivist” in its optimism that visionary and bold leadership bring about meaningful outcomes. In short, four principles are key: geopolitical competence, cooperative institutions, strategic partnership and visionary leadership.
GEOPOLITICAL COMPETENCE
Small states must be especially competent geopolitically. It must recognise how its size, location, regional context, and historical experience shape its identity and options in ways that turn vulnerability into leverage.[3] Every small state is faced with a different mix of geographical jinxes and blessings. Historically, Laos’s geography had been more a drawback than an asset. Yet geography also offers Laos a strategic set of opportunities. Born landlocked, it is building up to be land-linked, cultivating political and economic relationships with its immediate neighbours over the last three decades. As a result, Vietnam is a long-standing political ally with which it has strong defence ties. If there is any doubt about the depth of the mutually beneficial relations and affections between the two countries, this should be stilled by the fact that the top three Vietnamese leaders – Party General Secretary, Prime Minister, and President of the General Assembly – travelled to Vientiane together for the first time to meet their Laotian counterparts in February 2026.[4] Laos-Vietnam relations have been upgraded to “strategic cohesion”[5] – the special of the special – aligning political, security and economic relations and outlook. Laos’ military capacity, built on its joint struggle with Vietnam during their revolutions and subsequent security pact, ensure Laos’ successful military defence against another neighbour in the 1980s. Economic cooperation with Vietnam, a rising economic engine of ASEAN, has made it one of Laos’ top three trading partners and investors, whose impact can only increase with more connectivity through the planned expressway from Vientiane to Hanoi and high-speed Laos-Vietnam railway to Vung Ang on the South China Sea.[6]
Despite a more complicated Laos-China relationship during the Cold War, the situation has dramatically improved. China is now a central ideological, economic, and connectivity partner of Laos, with the flagship BRI project, the Laos-China Railway, connecting Laos and the region to the huge Chinese market.[7] Where Thailand is concerned, notwithstanding the complex bilateral history, the peoples on both sides of the Mekong River basin share strong ethnic, linguistic, and cultural ties, and the two countries have had excellent political and economic relations for the past 30 years. Laos and Thailand have built five “Friendship Bridges” across their shared Mekong mainstream, and regional connectivity and trade are set to upgrade once the Thailand-China Railway is complete and linked to the Laos-China Railway.[8] Laos also shares historical and religious affinities with Cambodia, and economic ties between the two are now increasing. Tensions do sometimes rise between Laos and its neighbours, such as the controversies around Xayaburi dam, funded by Thailand and initially opposed by Vietnam, and Don Sahong dam, opposed at first by Cambodia. These were managed by Laos’ strong relations with these neighbours, and by its strategic use of regional cooperative mechanisms such as the Mekong River Commission.[9]
One strategic area not currently optimised for regional connectivity is Laos’ geographical advantage as the Mekong’s central riparian state. With much of the mainstream and key tributaries on its side, Laos can accelerate its role as an energy battery of ASEAN not only through hydropower, which sometimes causes concerns, but other green energies such as solar, wind and possibly hydrogen; with expanded storage, it can build itself to be a water tower, managing water for irrigation, navigation and flood and drought relief. Doing so would not only contribute to regional sustainable development but also strategic outcomes in augmenting Laos’ indispensability to the region and the interests of its neighbours and partners.
How can this be done? By pursuing what the author has called “a New Deal for the Mekong,” managing and developing Southeast Asia’s largest river as one interconnected and interdependent system rather than a patchwork of separate national sectoral projects.[10] Integrated development and management of the Mekong would benefit not only riparian countries but also non-riparian ASEAN states in terms of food, energy, environment and eco-tourism.
To make the deal beneficial for all of ASEAN, two critical actions are needed: first, Laos can operate its existing dams in coordination with China (as the two have the most storage capacity in the Mekong), and second, build new ones jointly (e.g. with Thailand). Coordinating dam operation (i.e. when to store water, when to release, which dam and where) and developing more water storages jointly, will ensure there is more reliable energy generation (benefiting importing countries such as Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia and Singapore), greater dry-season water availability for irrigation (benefiting Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam, as well as importing countries in the rest of ASEAN), reduced flood peaks and droughts (benefiting Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam), improved navigation potential throughout the basin (benefiting China and Cambodia, and China-ASEAN connectivity), and environmental flows and preserved wetlands and watersheds for eco-tourism (benefiting the millions of ASEAN citizens who travel to the Mekong annually).
To achieve all this, Laos must work with concerned countries to strengthen regional institutions such as the MRC and ASEAN to assemble the technical parts of the deal, build strategic partnerships and coalitions that align incentives and prevent isolated deal-making in one sector or between two countries, which historically have led to large trade-offs. To make it optimal, the deal would need to be multi-sector and multi-country, which could only be carefully studied (i.e. in comprehensive economic, social and environmental aspects) and proposed by institutions having the best interests of the region at heart.
COOPERATIVE INSTITUTIONS
Strong institutions, ideally at both the international and regional levels, and their secretariats are critical for small states. Institutions reduce information asymmetry, create predictable procedures, and make it harder for stronger actors to impose purely bilateral terms. Whether it is the UN, ASEAN or MRC, experienced staff of these organisations’ international secretariats have the knowledge, expertise, and institutional memory at their fingertips. While larger countries field extensive diplomatic missions in key international organisations, many small countries lack the capacity to cover all issues in sufficient depth or breadth. Hence, it is critical for small states’ missions, especially if they wish to play a facilitation and brokerage role, to learn from and work with the experienced staff of these secretariats.
Furthermore, many international secretariat officials are naturally sympathetic to the plight of smaller and poorer members. Laos has benefited from this repeatedly. The UN Secretariat helped sustain the landlocked developing countries’ agenda on transit rights and sea access across years of negotiation, and the MRC’s technical credibility and facilitation have provided data, modelling, and procedures that make Mekong cooperation possible even when politics were tense. In ASEAN, Laos received support from the ASEAN Secretariat during its chairmanships in 2004, 2016, and 2024, to ensure continuity and process management.
A stronger ASEAN Secretariat can better support smaller member states when these are faced with regional and global crises, especially when these states are not acting as Chair and are unable to drive coordination and a united response. The recent US tariff is a case in point. When a superpower applies trade pressure, small members (with Cambodia and Laos being hit initially with 49% and 48% of tariffs) are the most vulnerable if they face one-on-one bargaining. ASEAN (the world’s fifth largest economy), backed by rapid analysis and recommendations from ASEC and other ASEAN institutions, could aggregate its voice and capability and attempt to get better trade deals as a bloc. Despite issuing statements and setting up a geoeconomic task force, individual members were instead currying favours to get the best deals for themselves.
A stronger ASEAN can still redeem itself, but only if it treats its Secretariat as a strategic body rather than an administrative overhead. This means resourcing ASEC through a budgeted, multi-year strategic plan, upgrading staffing in both quantity and quality, and building stronger coordinating and monitoring mechanisms so that ASEAN commitments – including centrality and solidarity – may better translate into implementation.[11] The Secretariat’s analytical tool kit must also be modernised, including data platforms and AI-enabled analytics for early warning, policy tracking, and rapid scenario support. With that capability, ASEAN would be better positioned to protect smaller members when external shocks hit and to deliver regional public goods that they cannot secure on their own. Programmes like the Initiative for ASEAN Integration would help, but more importantly, stronger and well-resourced ASEC and ASEAN institutions would be better able to think for the region, especially with regards to its weaker members, than ASEAN chair(s) rotating in and out within a year and being primarily concerned about national interests.
The above kinds of ASEAN institutions would be able to drive a New Mekong Deal to reality by working with Mekong institutions such as the MRC, the Mekong Institute, and the Lancang-Mekong Water Resources Cooperation Center, to upgrade decision-support systems, data-sharing protocols, and to commission long-term assessments, joint studies, and refine options on each aspect of the deal. Those technical packages would then be elevated systematically through senior officials’ and ministerial meetings across Mekong platforms and into ASEAN processes, so the deal becomes an ASEAN-level public good rather than a fragmented set of riparian agreements.
STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP
Small states have real agency when they coalesce and forge strategic partnerships. Several regional and global agendas would not have advanced without small-state leadership – to name just a few: climate ambition and finance by Small Island Developing States, law of the sea and ocean governance by coastal and island states, including Singapore,[12] and landlocked countries’ development and transit rights by a coalition of states, including Laos. Laos has historically been skilled at widening options with multiple parties, big and small, without provoking a backlash.
For the cause of landlocked developing countries, Laos worked with sympathetic transit countries and supportive donors to move reluctant actors. In the Mekong, it has built issue-specific alignments to advance hydropower development, and has drawn on certain development partners when technical credibility or financing was needed. In ASEAN, it applied the same method during its chairmanships, especially in periods of heightened tension when ASEAN unity was at risk. The 2016 South China Sea episode, in which the Permanent Court of Arbitration ruled in favour of the Philippines against China, showed that it could broker agreements on a joint communiqué (in light of the failure during 2012 on a similar issue) and the chair’s statement of the East Asia Summit through quiet consultation, careful drafting, and compromises anchored in ASEAN principles and international law, and calibrated to avoid bias but that kept all parties on board (or rather left them equally unhappy).[13]
For the Mekong’s new deal, Laos should therefore work deliberately with fellow small states that stand to gain the most from a basin-wide bargain. For example, with Cambodia, Laos can support coordinated reservoir operations that stabilise flows to protect fisheries and livelihoods tied to the Tonle Sap, and even improve navigation potential, including the economic viability of the proposed Funan canal, if done cooperatively. In return, Cambodia can buy more energy from Laos and help advance practical pathways for ASEAN power connectivity, including sub-sea cables to Singapore. With Singapore, Laos can position coordinated dam operations as a regional resilience project that increases reliable clean power and supports food security through more stable downstream agriculture (i.e. Mekong delta rice which Singapore import significantly). For its part, Singapore can support the MRC’s work, protecting the “water tower” of Laos, and accelerating the ASEAN Power Grid agenda to obtain more Lao energy.
VISIONARY LEADERSHIP
In the end, small states will have better chances of survival if they invest in excellent leaders. A new Mekong deal certainly will not materialise without bold and visionary leadership. Albert Einstein once observed that powerful states need no ambassadors, their force speaks for itself. But for small states, it matters how they express themselves. “Through the sheer force of their abilities,” it has long been noted, statesmen and diplomats from small states can ensure their arguments are heard and acted upon.[14] In today’s world, when the President of the United States speaks or when the leader of a middle power like Canada says something extraordinary, people listen. Leaders of many small states, however, struggle to command global attention. The UN General Assembly Hall are sometimes half emptied when they take the stage.
History tells an interesting story. At pivotal moments, visionary leaders from small states have commanded attention and shaped global debates. Think Ghana, which had leaders including Kwame Nkrumah in Pan-African nation-building, and Kofi Annan at the United Nations. Think Lee Kuan Yew, whose Singapore the United States took seriously and whose model even influenced China’s thinking on governance and development; or Fidel Castro, who compelled the Soviet Union to reckon with Cuba’s brand of communism that inspired movements across the developing world; or Czech leader Václav Havel, who galvanised much of the West. Despite their different ideologies, these giants from small places proved that clarity and leadership transformed their countries, inspired their own officials to fight the same fights across institutions, and moved outcomes that would otherwise not have happened. It is precisely this kind of leadership that small states need today.
Laos can build a pipeline of leaders and officials who can operate under pressure with skill, and who can translate national interests into broader interests that others can endorse. That pipeline must include the ministries that matter most for regional bargaining – foreign affairs, finance, commerce, transport, and environment – and be reinforced through specialised training in negotiation, drafting, economic statecraft, international law, and technical literacy on climate, water, agriculture, energy, connectivity and technology.
Equally important, Laos should place competent nationals inside regional and international secretariats. This is where agendas are prepared, options framed, texts drafted, assessments conducted, projects initiated and implementation monitored. Over time, a cadre of capable Lao officials at home and within institutions becomes the most reliable way for a small country to not only survive but thrive.
CONCLUSION
In a harsh world, small states cannot survive by fending alone and for themselves, pretending that the rules and institutions that they and others build do not matter, or by bandwagoning with the strongest. They survive, and can even shape outcomes, by becoming geopolitically competent, by strengthening cooperative institutions, by building strategic partnerships, and by investing in leaders who can turn geographical advantage into bankable bargains.
For endnotes, please refer to the original pdf document.Source:
This article was published by ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute
No comments:
Post a Comment