In a room full of military officers and legal scholars gathered under the banner of Indo-Pacific security, Malaysia's Defence Minister offered a quiet but firm reminder: the architecture of peace in Southeast Asia was built by Southeast Asians, and it must remain theirs to steward. Speaking in Kuala Lumpur on Monday, Datuk Seri Mohamed Khaled Nordin placed Asean unity not as a diplomatic preference but as a precondition — the ground upon which any meaningful regional security conversation must stand. His message to the great powers in the room was ancient in its wisdom and urgent in its timing