Asean has long been dominated by the stronger economies of Singapore, Vietnam and Thailand, but with Vietnam's stability troubled by local corruption and global meltdowns, Indonesia is proving itself a potential leader for long-term growth.
To maintain their focus on retaining domestic stability, troubled African nations will therefore need to transfer responsibility for regional security to transnational organizations and institutions that are African, not foreign.
Now, with the Taliban out of power, "Osama," the first film produced in Afghanistan since they took over in 1996, arrives to nudge us back into a state of alertness, and also, as remnants of the ousted regime continue to menace that nation's peace and stability, to trouble our sleep and our consciences as well.
Mr. Draghi should prefer this to buying Spanish or Italian bonds because, if either country got into trouble, the stability fund, not the E.C.B., would take the first losses.
To me, it makes a lot more sense to use our hard-earned cash to build the health and stability of nations in trouble around the world than it does to underwrite sending American men and women in the military to those nations only to bring some of them home in body bags or missing body parts.
It also remains a favourite of key international donors, despite concerns over human rights, as a bastion of stability in an otherwise troubled region.
Mr Essebsi has cast himself as a statesman in the mould of Bourguiba, promising stability to a country troubled by Islamic extremism and high unemployment.
The presidential race lays bare today's volatile Egypt: a battleground between ascending Islamists and the remnants of a regime seeking to conjure a sense of stability in a land troubled by crime and economic turmoil.
Now that the nuclear marathon is over, encouraging hopes for a better relationship with its old American enemy, Iran is projecting itself as an island of stability in a sea of trouble and demanding to be treated as an equal.
Because China is now so important to the global economy and to global political stability, the possibility of economic trouble is starting to draw serious attention among economists and China specialists.
