From Europe to the Middle East, wars have come back in a big way across much of the world. Will Asia, no stranger to chaos and conflict in its history, be able to hold the line against that resurgence?The Conflict Trends report released in June by the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) makes for grim reading. It counts 65 state-based conflicts worldwide in 2025 – the highest since records began in 1946 – with 245,000 battle-related deaths, making it the third-deadliest year since 1989, when the Soviet bloc started to unravel.Eight of those conflicts were fought directly between states, twice...