#84- Kishore Mahbubani: How The Future Of Global Order Will Look Like

Kishore Mahbubani is one of Asia's most prominent public intellectuals — a former diplomat, academic, and author whose career spans decades at the intersection of geopolitics, philosophy, and statecraft. He served as Singapore's Permanent Representative to the United Nations on two occasions and as President of the UN Security Council, before becoming the founding Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at NUS. He is the author of several widely read books on the shifting global order, most recently Has China Won?In this conversation — filmed live in front of an audience of young leaders curated with the National Youth Council — Mahbubani ranges across the Iran-Israel war and the misreading of Persian civilisational logic, the structural weaknesses of multilateral institutions and who is actually responsible for them, the enduring miracle of ASEAN in the world's most diverse region, and the iron law of geopolitics that makes the US-China contest essentially mechanical. He closes with a characteristically optimistic verdict on Singapore's place in history and what the next generation of leaders must understand to navigate the crossfire that is coming.Chapters0:00 Trailer1:08 Introduction1:42 Singapore's Sixty Years of Peace3:05 The MacDonald House Incident5:00 How Singapore Repaired Relations With Indonesia7:46 The Iran-Israel War8:48 How Israel Sold Trump a Quick War11:27 Why Iran Didn't Surrender12:26 The Strait of Hormuz as a Weapon14:38 Gaza and the Two-State Solution16:00 How Gaza Damaged the West's Standing18:26 Israel's Military Dominance Won't Last Forever21:09 How Young Singaporeans Should Read the Crisis21:42 Don't Get Emotional — Get Rational23:24 Who Actually Weakened the UN24:09 The Hypocrisy of Western Complaints About the UN29:30 How Singapore Can Use Multilateral Platforms31:56 The Iron Law of US-China Competition33:57 How China Found Its Weapon36:02 ASEAN's Imperfections — and Why That's Fine39:37 ASEAN Outgrew the EU42:09 Q&A43:17 The Case for the UN Veto45:15 Why the UK Should Give Its Seat to India47:30 Sunrise vs Sunset Organisations — BRICS and the G752:15 ASEAN's Limits — and Its Quiet Power56:02 The Long-Term Fallout From the Iran War58:20 Is International Law a Sunrise or Sunset Trend?1:02:46 Singapore's Founding Realist Principle1:04:32 The Malacca Toll, the UAE, and the GCC1:09:32 One Piece of Advice for Young Leaders1:10:04 The Singapore Miracle in World History1:13:00 Prepare for the Crossfire1:13:51 ClosingThis is Episode 84 of The Front Row Podcast. Full transcripts are at ykeith.com/tag/podcast/Join the conversation in the comments, or find us here:Instagram: instagram.com/frontrow.65LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/keith-yapWebsite: ykeith.comEmail: [email protected]