ABSTRACT
South and Southeast Asia host a number of longstanding armed conflicts. For decades, the continued intervention of US and NATO troops, regional support for the Taliban and other forms of covert and overt intervention were key drivers of the conflict in Afghanistan, making it the most internationalised of internal conflicts in Asia. The spread of transnational jihadism in South and Southeast Asia has traditionally raised concerns among regional and Western governments. More recently, the Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan in 2021 has contributed to the resurgence of the TTP in Pakistan, with important repercussions for regional security. Ongoing conflicts in Asia involve multiple non-state armed groups. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations is similarly inconsequential in the conflict in Myanmar, although it did exclude Myanmar's generals from its meetings.
