Conflict and security
The nature of Southeast Asian security challenges
National sovereignty is essential in Southeast Asian security discourse
Authors:
J. Rüland
Publisher:
International Peace Research Institute, Oslo , 2005
This paper argues that there is a convergence of security challenges among Southeast Asian countries, although differences in scope and approaches remain. The paper underscores that Southeast Asia is increasingly confronted with non-conventional security risks, emanating from international terrorism and organised crime, separatism, irregular migration and economic crisis.
The paper finds the following:
- mechanisms of cooperative security have never been used to settle security problems
- some of the new security issues are closely intertwined and hence aggravate the risks as well as impede solutions
- Southeast Asian governments subscribe hesitantly to the new cooperative security approaches
- the likelihood of inter-state wars in Southeast Asia is greatly diminished, although territorial disputes are still an issue
- Southeast Asia is mainly threatened by nuclear proliferation outside the region
- after September 11, 2001, South Asia came into the focus of US anti-terrorism strategies
- the increased US presence in the region triggered balancing moves by Asian great powers and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) itself
- despite Islamic revivalism, Southeast Asian Islam is still highly diverse and on the whole more tolerant than in the Middle East
- fragile democratisation poses security risks - even the countries that have experienced democratic transition are categorised as 'defective democracies'
- despite the establishment of an ASEAN Task Force on Social Safety Nets, social security nets as manifestations of human security are still in their infancy
- national sovereignty is still the most essential value in Southeast Asian security discourse.
