As the architecture of Western-led global order shows its age, ten nations bound by geography and careful diplomacy find themselves at the center of a historic reorganization. Scholars and former diplomats gathered in Bangkok this week to consider whether ASEAN might transform the anxiety of a multipolar transition into something constructive — a more genuinely pluralistic world order shaped by many civilizations rather than commanded by one. The question they posed is ancient in its form: how does a smaller collective preserve its integrity and agency when great powers compete for its allegia