Introduction: Evolution of the Security Dilemma

Abstract

The 1990s has proven to be a decade of great change for the members of the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN). The beginning of the 1990s brought fears that ASEAN would be unable to adjust to the new post-Cold War era. In 1989 the then Foreign Minister of Singapore, Wong Kan Seng warned, ‘the continued relevance of the organisation, post-Cambodia, cannot be taken for granted’, and that ASEAN would need ‘new rallying points or risk drifting apart to the detriment of regional cooperation and bilateral relationships’.¹ The combination of weapons procurements by the ASEAN members; the thawing of territorial disputes frozen during the Cold War; the emergence of China as a regional hegemon; and the prevalence of ethnic tensions throughout the region, all indicated that Southeast Asia was entering a period of uncertainty at best and rising tension at worst. Yet prior to the economic crisis of the late 1990s ASEAN was touted as a success story. The association had not only managed to avoid drifting apart, but with the accession of Vietnam in 1995, Burma and Laos in 1997 and Cambodia in 1999 its membership increased to include all the states of Southeast Asia — the goal of an ASEAN-Ten has been achieved.