Regional Security: legacies and new challenges

Abstract

What exactly is security and how does it come about? Security is not the product of any predictable rules, it depends on individual threat perceptions, it differs greatly according to an actor’s status and position within the international system, and most important, it is subject to interpretation. Historically, security was understood in terms of threats to state sovereignty and territory. During the Cold War and particularly after the Vietnam War, it was generally thought that any further serious armed conflict in Southeast Asia would take place either as the result of conflicts between the great powers or their clients or due to unresolved territorial and border disputes, for example between Malaysia and the Philippines over the status of Sabah. While many territorial conflicts still remain unresolved, the overall security threat to the region has changed substantially since the late 1980s. At the same time, globalization has produced a simultaneous emergence of localization with more emphasis on local issues and revival of traditional local or intra-national conflicts, which had been suppressed by the ideological divide of the Cold War and nuclear deterrence. Such tensions inevitably impact on regional stability. Sorpong Peou’s assessment of some years ago is still valid today:Contemporary security studies on the Asia Pacific region as part of the study of International Relations has become a growth industry since the early 1990s. Although it had previously attracted little theoretical reflection, the region has now forced scholars and policymakers to debate vigorously on the nature and future of its security. They have yet to reach consensus, however, on how to answer the following questions: What is being secured, and against what? Who provides for security? How is security to be achieved?