One SE Asia, one security doctrine?

One SE Asia, one security doctrine?

An ASEAN-security doctrine for the whole of Southeast Asia may be a matter worth considering, argues Bunn Nagara.

A security doctrine works as a body of guiding principles governing strategic perceptions, embodying political concerns, based on state interests, drawn from realistic choices, and aimed at preserving a certain order conducive to these ends. Since security concerns tend to preserve the status quo, such doctrines serve more to help maintain a preferred order than to create a radically new one.

There are traditionally two kinds of security doctrine: the domestic and the imperial. Domestic or national security doctrines are commonplace, varying in scope and intent, depending on perceived threats -- whether internal or external -- to the state. Imperial security doctrines are a feature of major powers, particularly those intent on policing spheres of influence and thus tend to be prescriptive impositions on other (or otherwise) sovereign states and regions.

The Monroe and Nixon Doctrines are classic examples of the latter. For the countries of ASEAN, typically, national security doctrines have been the norm, especially given their relative insularity, modest resources, and their decades-old battles against insurgent forces.

With limited size, power, influence and interests, neither ASEAN nor any of its constituent states is in any position to adopt an imperial security doctrine. This is as true today as it was before -- and in the foreseeable future, despite the various apparent agglomerations that are said to attend the enlargement of ASEAN membership. Yet, changes in the regional strategic equation are said to exert compelling forces in a new direction.

One essential development is the growing significance of certain ASEAN countries, a development based chiefly but not wholly on economic power. Another important development is the growing significance of ASEAN itself, not simply because of its increasing size but also because of related institutions like AFTA, intra-ASEAN "growth triangles" and ASEAN's leading role in wider groupings like the ASEAN Regional Forum.

While none of this provides any substantive basis for assuming that ASEAN now has or should have an imperial security doctrine, it might suggest that ASEAN may be ready to venture beyond the individual national security doctrines of its constituent states. If necessary, ASEAN could evolve a different variety of security doctrine as an overlay to integrate its various individual national security doctrines.

At this point, it is sometimes said that ASEAN already possesses a security doctrine of its own. References are made to the Zone of Peace, Freedom and Neutrality (ZOPFAN) and the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation (TAC) in Southeast Asia, these being hallmarks of ASEAN as an institution. However, even if the cogency of these charters remains indefinitely, and the ASEAN community of nations becomes synonymous with the Southeast Asian region, it is still questionable whether ZOPFAN or TAC can, singly or together, amount to a regional security doctrine as such.

ZOPFAN is essentially a declaration of an ASEAN state's foreign policy posture in the region, and one which varies in individual interpretation and commitment. While its essentials remain pertinent, some states might be disposed to appreciate the spirit of it less than what a common regional security doctrine deserves.

While TAC is a more detailed document requiring states acceding to ASEAN membership to be signatories, it is no more a doctrine than ZOPFAN. Indeed, while its contents are no less valid today, its official stature within the ASEAN institution could characterize it more as a formality than as an active and decisive body of guiding principles on regional security.

While ASEAN continues to prosper, neither the institution nor Southeast Asia as such can be said to possess a security doctrine common to the member states. This may partly be due to their separate and individual histories, and partly to the fact that given their experience and development, there has been no need and little prospect for a common security doctrine. But have not times changed enough for the region to occasion or necessitate a change in the tempo of its geostrategic development?

Any answer in the affirmative or near-affirmative needs to be carefully qualified. Much of it will involve the relationship between a "security doctrine" as a set of abstractions, reifications and extrapolations, and the reality of security itself. It may not even be necessary to have a security doctrine to be assured of security.

Empirically, it might be argued that states in an identifiable region, particularly those in a regional organization like ASEAN, will evolve the kind of security for their region in their mutual relations through whatever means seem expedient, doctrine or no. The sum total of these measures and their premises may then sketch a semblance of a doctrine, or they might not -- in which case, they need not. Alternatively, a need may be felt for a common security doctrine owing to its perceived intrinsic worth, to which individual sets of national policy on security may then approximate.

Suppose, then, that the states of Southeast Asia and the region as a whole have had adequate security but not a properly constituted regional security doctrine, either because they never needed it or circumstances simply did not occasion it to develop. What would now indicate a need for it, or at least the circumstances allowing for it to develop? Would it then complicate existing relations between states, or serve to improve relations through a greater consensus on perspectives, and facilitate the articulation of a common set of concerns?

Perhaps the single most significant change strategically in recent years has been the collapse of the Soviet Union. While the demise of bipolarism generally exerted greater repercussions in a Europe shaped and colored by the Cold War, the implications of the Soviet implosion combined with certain regional factors have been no less dramatic in East Asia. The socialist states of Indochina have opened up, largely in the direction of ASEAN; China continues to stride forward through economic reform and modernization; trans-Pacific relations center on economics like never before; strategic alliances have become obsolete or questionable; and security cooperation among previous partners is now less of a political given.

Some perceived changes remain mythical: imminent conflict on the Korean peninsula or in the South China Sea is an exaggerated if not speculative prospect; so too is a "China threat" to anyone including Taiwan, so long as foolhardy Taiwanese do not make policy.

The redirection of the Indochinese states towards ASEAN has been most opportune for both clusters of Southeast Asian countries. It has reaffirmed ASEAN as the region's paramount institution, and it has given new prospects for the future of Indochina. It has also renewed a sense of regionalism among the older members, as by transcending Thailand's earlier notions of a suwannaphum (golden peninsula) in which Bangkok would carve out an economic sphere of influence in Indochina.

How the U.S. treats China will be key to much of the new security realities in the Pacific region, with all the inevitable repercussions for Southeast Asia. The U.S.-Japan trade relationship is well-known, limited to specific industries apart from the trade deficit, and mitigated by their security arrangement. The U.S.-China relationship, even where it focuses on economics, can be quite different: much of it is still unknown, China's potential may dwarf Japan's, and Beijing has no political or strategic commonalities with Washington beyond regional peace and stability.

Vietnam has had conflictual brushes with China, with its highly strung relations in the South China Sea being only the latest expression of many long years of territorial and border disputes. That is not the way ASEAN conducts itself, whether with external powers or among member states. The single most notable contribution ASEAN has made and will continue to make to the region is its cultivation of a low-key, yet effectual style of containing conflict, if not also of resolving disputes. This high diplomacy, low-decibel style will serve to inform new members unaccustomed to consensus through consultation, as much as to remind old members of its continuing cogency.

Given the alternatives, such as they are, ASEAN'S more accommodating manner is the more pragmatic option for regional relations and security. This regional "resilience" -- which has seen ASEAN at variance with Western states over Myanmar, and now increasingly over China -- has long been an identifying feature of ASEAN. This resilience should figure prominently in any realistic, non-doctrinaire security doctrine for Southeast Asia.

The addition of a regional security doctrine to existing national security doctrines does not imply a quantitative, but instead a qualitative, change in threat perception in Southeast Asia.

Its essential purpose would be to harmonize the individual national security doctrines of the region, now that ASEAN is being rejuvenated to a fully-fledged regional organization. In this sense, the rationale of an endogenously motivated ASEAN is reaffirmed, by nurturing regional strategic commonalities through accommodating different national concerns within a single regional entity.

As ASEAN completes its third decade, and approaches a new century and millennium with a full regional membership, it may well consider a regional security doctrine to call its own. This will have to complement TAC and ZOPFAN, and spin-offs like the Southeast Asia Nuclear Weapons-Free Zone, as well as the renewed imperatives of stability and prosperity common to all the countries of a modern Southeast Asia.

An ASEAN-type regional security doctrine, if there is to be one, will thus represent a third and new category. It will be something more than the individual national security doctrines that have gone before, and yet nothing like an imperial security doctrine of hegemonistic powers.

Bunn Nagara is a Research Fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore.

Window A: ...ASEAN'S more accommodating manner is the more pragmatic option for regional relations and security. This regional "resilience" -- which has seen ASEAN at variance with Western states over Myanmar, and now increasingly over China -- has long been an identifying feature of ASEAN.

Window B: As ASEAN completes its third decade, and approaches a new century and millennium with a full regional membership, it may well consider a regional security doctrine to call its own.