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Centrality and Continuity: ASEAN and Regional Security since 1967

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Abstract

Security has undoubtedly been a central and continuous feature of ASEAN since its establishment. While it has modified its basic thinking on security and adapted elements of the attendant principles, aims and ways of operation to meet changed circumstances, the level of consistency is still readily observable. Centrality of a different sort has been evident, too, during the post-Cold War period. ASEAN has consciously sought to position itself at the heart of the developing security architecture in both East Asia and the wider Asia-Pacific. The Association has been largely successful at limiting competition and preventing inter-state conflict among its members and at fostering a stable regional order in Southeast Asia (and an incipient one outside of the boundaries of Southeast Asia). Broadly speaking, this stability has been aided and abetted by the policies of the major external powers in whose interests it has been, up until now. The extent to which a stable regional order remains in the interests of the major powers will be one of the great questions for the next phase of ASEAN’s life.

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Notes

  1. This is not to say that there was no discussion at its inception, or in the months thereafter, about ASEAN’s possible role in promoting military co-operation among its founding members. “In the early months of 1968 there were several reports that ASEAN leaders favoured some sort of military co-operation in ASEAN, short of a formal military alliance”. By the time of the Association’s first anniversary, though, “opinion had firmed among ASEAN leaders that the prospect of military co-operation in ASEAN should be de-emphasised” ([30], pp. 17–18).

  2. The ASC has, since 2009, become the ASEAN Political-Security Community (APSC) and it is now due to be established by 2015. The five principal components remain the same, however. The means by which they are to be attained are laid out in the APSC Blueprint [17].

  3. The Treaty has also been opened to accession by international organisations and the European Union has acceded to it.

  4. In addition to signing the TAC, Smith (p. 428) notes that at the same time China “agreed to continue to abide” by the SEANWFZ.

  5. The Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights was launched at the 15th ASEAN Summit.

  6. Extreme cases of a failure to uphold human security could leave individual members open to action by the international community. It has been noted that the UN Security Council has now “adopted the doctrine – previously endorsed by the General Assembly at the World Summit in New York in 2005 – that each state has a ‘responsibility to protect’ its own citizens from the most egregious human rights abuses. While under the UN Charter states retain sovereignty to control their own territory, if they fail to protect their own citizens from severe human rights abuses, the international community now has an obligation to intervene through regional bodies and the UN, up to and including the Security Council” ([26], pp. 16–17).

  7. Condoleezza Rice’s decision to miss the ARF meeting again in 2007, it should be noted, did not generate quite the same level of concern [11].

  8. It was precisely because the IISS perceived the role of the ARF to be limited that it decided to set up the Dialogue. In particular, although it was recognised that the ARF “was the main locus for high-level inter-governmental security dialogue in the Asia-Pacific,… it was led by foreign ministers – a fact reflecting the traditional reluctance of its core ASEAN… members to engage in any form of multilateral defence co-operation”. Thus, “there was a glaring need for a forum in which defence ministers could engage in dialogue aimed at building confidence and fostering practical security co-operation” ([25], p. 12). David Capie and Brendan Taylor explore the origins and modalities of the Dialogue in their recent article in The Pacific Review [22].

  9. Communication from Dr. Tim Huxley, Executive Director, IISS-Asia.

  10. Discussion Paper on ‘Review of the ARF’, Draft as of 31 October 2007 (unpublished), pp. 2–3.

  11. Ibid., p. 4.

  12. ADMM-Plus consists of the defence ministers of the ten ASEAN states, plus those from Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand, Russia, South Korea, and the United States.

  13. Author’s observation.

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  1. University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand

    Mark Rolls

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Rolls, M. Centrality and Continuity: ASEAN and Regional Security since 1967. East Asia 29, 127–139 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12140-011-9160-1

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