Nurturing security cooperation between Asia, Europe

Nurturing security cooperation between Asia, Europe

Bantarto Bandoro, Editor, The Indonesian Quarterly Centre For
Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Jakarta, bandoro@csis.or.id

Indonesia is to host the fifth Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM)
Foreign Ministers meeting on July 24 and July 25 to address a
variety of international security issues. The meeting will take
place at a time when the countries in the region are tightening
their national security due to the threat of terrorism.

Asia and Europe will face more severe security challenges,
stemming either internally or externally from their respective
regions. ASEM partners are aware of the fact that the challenges
cannot be dealt with effectively -- because they may come out of
a rapidly increasing innovation in communication and information
technology -- unless they, politically and strategically,
collaborate to produce a more coherent strategy.

Recent developments in certain parts of the world are of
obvious concern to ASEM partners and have thus brought security
issues to the forefront of the international agenda. Accordingly,
the Bali meeting is expected to focus on how to generate ASEM in
such a way that it could be instrumental in dealing with the
consequences of global security issues. A more constructive
approach to solving common security issues is perhaps needed if
ASEM is to survive in a globalized world and represent the
interests of global stability.

There are many actual and potential political and security
issues that warrant closer cooperation between Asia and Europe,
such as nuclear proliferation and transnational organized crime.
The meeting, therefore, aims to set a new foundation for
strengthening political and security cooperation.

However, it is also undeniable that political and security
ties linking Asia and Europe are weaker than economic ties. This
is in large part due to the very different security environment
of the two regions and to the different degrees of interaction
between the major powers.

If the Bali meeting is to produce stronger grounds for
developing more effective security cooperation among member
countries in the future, it has to view current security issues
from a fresh angle, concentrating on how Asia and Europe might
cooperate more effectively in dealing with a series of
international security issues.

New security issues -- such as the threat of terrorism,
international drug trafficking, people-smuggling, money
laundering, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and the
UN's security role -- should be discussed during ASEM's fifth
meeting. None of these issues discriminate between national or
regional boundaries.

Developments in other areas also have both direct and indirect
bearing on the security and stability of all the partners of
ASEM. It is important, therefore, that transregional security
cooperation between our two regions be developed and prove its
credibility and reliability in meeting the challenge of events.
The core of transregional security cooperation is definitely a
dialog subject.

Given the increasing importance of current political and
security issues, and because Indonesia is the host of the meeting
and thus in a position to table new common security issues, the
Bali meeting should gear ASEM in such a way that it could lend
itself as a vehicle for security dialog between Asia and Europe
at different levels. ASEM, therefore, should encourage,
coordinate and support the participation of both governmental and
non-governmental institutions in the security dialog.

To further facilitate and enhance the security dialog between
the two regions, the Bali meeting must provide thoughts on how
the ASEM partners could explore ways and means to promote
cooperation and dialog between the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) and
the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

Though the core, scope and spectrum of interests of these two
regional forums are substantially different, there is no reason
they should not collaborate, politically, due to the
indiscriminate effects of global security issues such as
terrorism, drug trafficking and the proliferation of weapons of
mass destruction.

There is no doubt that, due to the emergence of new sources of
global security threats, both Asia and Europe face multiple and
increasingly complex challenges. To meet the challenges
successfully, and in turn commend their solutions to others, Asia
and Europe must initiate major steps collectively or toward each
other.

In its fourth Asia-Europe Summit in Copenhagen in 2002, ASEM
issued a joint declaration on cooperation against international
terrorism, stating, among other things, that acts of
international terrorism constitute one of the most serious
threats to international peace and security. Since the Bali
meeting will be conducted in the midst of the global fight
against terrorism, it is important that such an issue is again
discussed at greater length at such a meeting.

But this is not to suggest that terrorism is the only major
security issue ASEM has to deal with. Other common security
issues should also be touched by transregional security
cooperation.

The Bali meeting is important in itself as it will send out
messages that the two regions should now put themselves in a
longer-term perspective, meaning that both regions share the
responsibility to prevent, through collective efforts, the
possibility of the arrival of new security turbulences. It is
perhaps imperative that Asia and Europe work together to
continually address security issues with urgency.