ASEAN formula could work elsewhere: Experts

ASEAN formula could work elsewhere: Experts

JAKARTA (JP): After its successful adoption by the Association
of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the concept of "regional
resilience" should now be touted as a possible paradigm for
regional security arrangements in other parts of the world,
Indonesian experts said yesterday.

"ASEAN's track record proves that the regional resilience
concept has been able to sustain peace and stability conducive to
impressive economic growth during the last two decades," Rear
Admiral R.M. Sunardi, an expert staff member on foreign affairs
to the ministry of defense and security, said yesterday.

Speaking at a seminar on Indonesian and Canadian perspectives
on the evolving security situation in the Asia-Pacific region,
Sunardi said the ASEAN concept should be applied as the new
paradigm for conflict resolution.

"Regional resilience is diametrically opposed to the use of
power in solving problems and antagonisms," he told the seminar
at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies.

ASEAN, established in 1967, is comprised of Brunei, Indonesia,
Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand.

The group has eschewed regional security cooperation
arrangements, opting instead for the regional resilience concept,
under which the security of the region is said to be best served
if each nation enhances its own national resilience.

Originally developed by Indonesia, the regional resilience
concept also entails a commitment to the well-being of the group
and meaningful interaction amongst the members. It also calls on
the association to adapt to the changes of the strategic
environment.

Sunardi said that in the post-Cold War era, a balance of
interests is more important than a balance of power.

"Since regional resilience has the spirit of togetherness as
its core, the evolutionary emergence of a security community is
very natural even without being proclaimed as such," he said

Approach

For this reason, this concept could be adopted by other sub-
regions and adjusted to fit their particular dynamics, he added.

Apart from the concept of regional resilience, Sunardi
advocated the fundamental approach of sub-regionalism to contain
potential security conflicts in various parts of the world.

"Any security must be sub-regional," he said, arguing that
countries in a particular sub-region should be responsible for
their own conflict resolution measures.

At the same seminar, political scientist J. Soedjati
Djiwandono also encouraged the regionalism or sub-regionalism
approach.

He extolled ASEAN's success as evidence of its effectiveness,
and pointed out that despite the existence of differences, member
states have maintained valuable cooperation with each other.

"Without ASEAN, such disputes would have readily come into the
open and some may even have developed into armed conflicts," he
said.

Soedjati said that regional cooperation allowed countries to
find more common interests and problems than a wider grouping
would and thus helped to dampen conflicts in the bilateral
relationship of member states involved in that cooperation.

Soedjati said that regional organizations had a better chance
of working out conflicts because the demise of the Cold War meant
the end of intervention and instigation by the big powers.

He warned that big powers were now far less interested in
helping to seek solutions to regional problems.

But if countries can successfully maintain peace in their own
regions then, Soedjati believes, they will grow in their
importance to the great powers and thus "become subjects in their
own right, rather than objects, in international politics." (mds)