SINGAPORE PERSPECTIVE

Singapore covers the NATO crisis through three complementary angles in the Straits Times: the threat against Spain, Macron's Athens speech, and Rubio's absence from Iran negotiations. It's the third angle that proves most revealing. The Straits Times details how Rubio, the Secretary of State, skipped the latest rounds of Iran negotiations, the Ukraine discussions, and hasn't visited the Middle East since a brief stop in Israel last October. By comparison, Blinken made 11 foreign trips in four months.

Trump has outsourced diplomacy to Steve Witkoff, a billionaire friend from New York real estate, and his son-in-law Jared Kushner. Witkoff and Kushner are leading talks with Israel, Ukraine, Russia and Iran. An analyst quoted by the Straits Times notes Rubio is 'consumed' by his dual role as Secretary of State and National Security Adviser, but the reality is starker: Trump doesn't trust his own professional diplomatic corps.

For Singapore, a city-state that survives on multilateral architecture, the collapse of America's diplomatic process is an alarm signal. If the world's top power's chief diplomat no longer shows up to negotiations, the entire edifice of treaty-based diplomacy is wobbling. The Straits Times also notes Spain is a 'reliable' NATO member -- an adjective Singapore, a country obsessed with reliability, does not deploy lightly.