Southeast Asia's naval forces

Abstract

Southeast Asian states face an unprecedented range of maritime security challenges, but the new naval capabilities that they are attempting to develop – at great cost – are not always relevant to the most acute threats. These are increasingly generated by non-state actors, rather than rival states. To respond to these concerns effectively, some Southeast Asian states might need to invest less in developing capabilities based on large, guided-missile equipped warships and submarines and more in coast-guard type forces equipped with large numbers of relatively inexpensive patrol vessels.