Regional Security Cooperation Research Articles

Perspectives on Australian foreign policy, 2004

The most fundamental challenges facing Australian foreign policy in 2005 are much the same as those of 2004. Centrally, these include Australia's continued role in Iraq; its approach to the 'war on terror'; its response to the possible development of WMDs in countries such as Iran and particularly North Korea; its position on the broader regional security dynamics in east Asia, specifically the question of China's role in the evolving balance of power; its response to multi-lateral cooperation and trans-national issues; and its involvement in regional security, economic and political cooperation and architecture. In all these issues, the extent of primacy given to the US alliance is crucial. This is self-evident in the case of Iraq, the war on terror and Australia's approach to other rogue, or 'axis of evil', states. It is also particularly apparent in the case of China's role in regional security dynamics of east Asia, especially regarding Australia's interests in encouraging the US to seek the 'peaceful integration of China into the global system'. While less self-evident, the primacy of the US alliance is no less of a factor in making sense of Australia's approach to various trans-national issues, including the Kyoto Protocol on climate change. Finally, as the preceding discussion has noted, Australia's relationship with the US has had and will continue to have a demonstrable effect on Australia's regional engagement, for all the government's rhetoric about the false dichotomy of history and geography. Fundamentally, then, the central question for Australian foreign policy in 2005 is: will Australia's foreign affairs continue to be approached with the imperative of supporting the United States as the central determinant of what constitutes the 'national interest'?

The Relevance of the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) for Regional Security in the Asia‑ Pacific

Introduction This article uses the term institution as defined by James G. March and Johan P. Olsen: a general way, an 'institution' can be viewed as a relatively stable collection of practices and rules defining appropriate behaviour for specific groups of actors in specific situations. (March and Olsen 1998, p. 948). Against this backdrop, security institutions are institutions that have an impact on the special field of security (Keck 1997, p. 35). Haftendorn (1997, p. 16) points out the following impacts that make security institutions relevant: * Like all institutions security institutions have the general function of influencing the action of their members towards continuing cooperation by installing accepted rules of behaviour despite competing interests. * In addition, security institutions have the specific function of facilitating cooperation among their members in the provision of security, that is, territorial integrity, political self-determination and economic well-being, against any military threat. Applying these conditions the ARF, we will examine its suitability foster regional security cooperation determine its relevance. According Haftendorn, national security is defined in the dimensions of territory, sovereignty and economy. The explicit notion of military threat as the main danger national security is very important because it rules out the far broader notion of comprehensive security (Dewitt 1994, p. 9), whose operationalization lies outside the scope of this article. As any institution will only be relevant if it does not harm the core interests of its member-states too much in an overall cost-benefit calculation, (1) this analysis of the relevance of the ARF first has examine whether the interests of its central members are opposed the ARF's agenda and raison d'etre. The three most powerful national actors (United States, People's Republic of China, and Japan) and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) all have an interest in supporting the ARF. Because both China and the ASEAN states fear that foreign investment might shy away from their economies if there is regional instability, they favour an environment that is as peaceful and calculable as possible. Furthermore, China has participate in the ARF because it cannot risk confirming the anxieties of its neighbours, who might gang up in a regional institution against the country (Leifer 1996, p. 29; Foot 1998, p. 439; Umbach 2002, p. 254). China hoped overcome its international isolation after 1989 by joining international fora like the ARF (Johnston 1999, p. 296). For Japan the ARF is a possible way to deepen its political relationship with ASEAN [...] and solidify its strategic position toward China. Such a strategy is an insurance policy, supplementary the U.S.-Japanese alliance, in case China changes into an actual adversary (Kawasaki 1997, p. 490). Second, a multilateral framework is the sole possibility for Japan gain more political leverage in East Asia as its militant past still limits Japan's room for manoeuvre. Third, it is in Japan's interest have a multilateral structure in place address the Korean and the Taiwan conflicts in its vicinity. The United States was willing embrace the forum as soon as it became clear that the ARF would not affect its close alliances with South Korea and Japan (Wanandi 1998, p. 59). To integrate these two key allies into a common cooperative framework was a major incentive for the United States support the ARF (Leifer 1996, p. 28). Both do not have a habit of easy cooperation due their past conflicts and existing territorial disputes. Furthermore, the ARF was seen as a good way ease the worries of many governments in the region that the United States would withdraw troops (Takur 1998, p. 12) and therefore increase the strategic standing of China in the region (Gob and Acharya 2003, p. …

Security in South Eastern Europe: the war crimes legacy

The war crimes legacy remains the chief obstacle to progress in international in international and regional security cooperation and integration in South East Europe. Tackling it is the sine qua non for partnership and association with NATO and the EU. Dealing with the issue is vital to the development of healthy and prosperous democratic polities in the region. The Prosecution at UN International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague has been weak in the symbolic Milosevic case, which does nothing to increase confidence about cooperation. Despite this, the war crimes issue is vital to security sector reform – without addressing it, there cannot be reform and without reform there can be no significant progress regarding NATO and the EU. While the legacy was strongest in Belgrade and problems were greatest there, both Zagreb and Pristina have kept Belgrade company in protecting war crimes suspects and not cooperating fully with The Hague. At the same times, attempts to tackle the legacy were hesitant and weak. The prospects for each of them would be better when they realised that its real interest was in being different from and better than the others, rather another problem case, where the authorities could not, or would not, confront the war crimes legacy.

The future of regional security cooperation, and Korea’s role

The future of regional security cooperation, and Korea’s role

Regionalism, Regional Structures and Security Management in Central Asia

The security dimension of regionalism and regional structures in Central Asia and Azerbaijan has been limited by Russia's influence as a regional hegemon, aswell as by various other constraints specific to the region and the local states. Moreover, as a peripheral zone in the world system, Central Eurasia has not shown much evidence of regionalization as a process. But in response to the proximity of hegemonic power the smaller states have tried to adopt bandwagoning and balancing strategies in regional formats. Although their fixation on ‘regime security’ has encouraged them to accommodate Russia through CIS structures, this is changing as new bilateral security relationships develop with the United States. The Russian-sponsored Collective Security Treaty Organization is unable to address the most serious challenges for regional security management in Central Asia. Yet the local states have been unable on their own to establish a regional security consensus and to institutionalize cooperation on that basis. The diffuse GUUAM grouping (Georgia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan and Moldova) has not offered a basis for selfsustaining regional security cooperation. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization has created a venue to engage China in the security dialogue on Central Asia, particularly over counterterrorism, but has otherwise failed to tackle security challenges among and within the Central Asian states. Overall, the current focus of these states and their sponsors on bilateral relations to provide security assistance continues to displace security-related regionalism.

Coast Guards and Regional Security Cooperation

(2002). Coast Guards and Regional Security Cooperation. Maritime Studies: Vol. 2002, No. 127, pp. 10-16.

Security Cooperation Issues in the Western Hemisphere

Building regional security cooperation in the Western Hemisphere is not a strictly short-term, unilateral or bilateral defense effort. Regional security will only result from a long-term, cooperative, multilateral civil-military effort. A viable framework for success includes the need to advance hemispheric understanding of the security concerns of each country and those that the region as a whole faces (for example, the internal and external threat(s) to security). Finally, these issues and associated recommendations demand a carefully staffed and phased regional security plan of action, with measurable short- and long-term objectives to validate its planning and implementation. The basic directions for a regional security plan, as identified at the Miami conference, are as follow.

The lure of regional security arrangements: The United States and regional security cooperation in Asia and Europe

The lure of regional security arrangements: The United States and regional security cooperation in Asia and Europe

Canada's Functional Isolationism

HELPING TO CONTAIN AND TO REVERSE THE PROCESS OF 'HORIZONTAL' proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) is the most important security challenge facing Canada and the world community. Twenty-first century international security relations should comprise four elements: international security community-building through redistributive assistance; and the widespread inhibition and elimination of military capabilities for aggressive warfare under an ever-widening regime of verified self-restraint; ever more reliable arms control and disarmament verification that leads quickly towards disassembled 'virtual' nuclear arsenals; and, finally broadly collaborative, collective security enforcement of the world's emerging anti-WMD norms.The threat of WMD can be tamed only through co-operative international measures. A closer, more intimate security relationship with the United States is inescapable - but that alone may deter responsible, out-ward-looking military reform in Ottawa. A Canadian retreat into hemispheric isolation militarily would only support those conservative forces in the United States who argue for American strategic disengagement from the world's troubles. Deciding to try to do something useful and responsible about proliferation and the rising risk of the use of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons would be a large and innovative step for any Canadian government. It would require farsighted political leadership able to develop a national consensus on political and strategic objectives. Clear goals for stability enhancement would have to be related to plausible and collectively affordable foreign aid and military capability. The temptation to yield to domestic political inertia and short-term economic self-interest is powerful. Without skilled, strategically sensitive leadership to explain how an active Canadian role might help to achieve radically improved international security, public support for military spending will remain low.(f.1)Canada's population is half that of Britain, France, or Italy, and more than one and one-half that of Australia. It is almost three times that of Belgium, and more than 20 per cent larger than that of the four Scandinavian countries combined. In 1996 Canada's gross domestic product (GDP) was still larger than China's and India's and over half the size of faltering Russia's. Per-capita income is among the highest in the world. Thus, an easily accessible tax base has long been available for spending much more on international security than recent governments have been willing to contemplate. Negotiating the landmines ban, discouraging trade in small arms, promoting the United Nations arms register are all worthwhile, popular activities that polish the national self-image. But they should all be supplements to, not substitutes for, a proportionately equitable commitment of resources to the management and prevention of international conflict - and thus the containment of the WMD threat.Future American governments will not 'police the world' alone. For almost fifty years the Soviet threat compelled disproportionate military expenditures and sacrifice by the United States. That world is gone. Only by enmeshing the capabilities of the United States and other leading powers in a co-operative security management regime where the burdens are widely shared does the world community have any plausible hope of avoiding warfare involving nuclear or other WMD.Canadian international security policy does not require much innovation to justify force expansion and improvement. Over the past decade Ottawa helped pioneer the notion of co-operative security that involves substituting multilateral security dialogue, confidence-building measures, regional security co-operation, defence policy transparency, and so forth for traditional approaches based on narrow conceptions of national self-interest. By promoting alternatives to security through unilateral military build-up, co-operative security offered the hope of ameliorating or even ending the classic 'security dilemma' (wherein the efforts of individual states to improve their military security threatened neighbouring states, thereby triggering arms races, mutual suspicion, and often conflict). …

Security status: Explaining regional security cooperation and its limits in the middle east

(1998). Security status: Explaining regional security cooperation and its limits in the middle east. Security Studies: Vol. 8, No. 1, pp. 204-238.

Threats and developments in the Middle East

With most countries in the Middle East in possession of middle or long range ballistic missiles, the region is one of the most vulnerable to threat in the world. Israel's’ strategic capabilities and air dominance have been a decisive factor in determining the responses of its Arab neighbours, who have sought to counter Israel's perceived monopoly with increased weapons acquisition. The proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, as well as conventional missile technology, characterises the deep instability of the region. Here Dr Abdullah Toukan addresses the main issues of threat in the region, looking at deterrence and arms control, the role of the peace process and developments to counter Theatre Ballistic Missiles. He concludes that the key to defence against such threats lies in regional and transnational security cooperation exclusive of confrontation and escalation.

A Framework for Regional Security Cooperation in Asia

A Framework for Regional Security Cooperation in Asia

A Framework for Regional Security Cooperation in Asia

A Framework for Regional Security Cooperation in Asia

International Roundtable on "Prospects for Regional Security Cooperation in Southeast Asia in the 1990's"

International Roundtable on "Prospects for Regional Security Cooperation in Southeast Asia in the 1990's"

Beyond Tok Win: The Papua New Guinea Intervention in Vanuatu, 1980

PAPUA NEW GUINEA'S MILITARY action in Vanuatu in 1980 was a unique example of successful third world regional security cooperation. Yet the operation gave rise to mixed reactions in the South Pacific which have had an enduring effect on regional relationships. Domestic politics in Papua New Guinea also became heavily engaged in the issue with criticism of Prime Minister Sir Julius Chan's handling of the crisis coming from elements within his own coalition as well as from the parliamentary opposition. To its supporters, both within Papua New Guinea and in the region as a whole, the intervention was an affirmation of third world solidarity in the face of neo-colonialist manipulation. In this view the revolt on Espiritu Santo, Vanuatu's largest island-the result of connivance by foreign financial interests and European settlers and evidently tolerated by the colonial authorities-demanded decisive action. To its opponents, however, it was an unnecessarily drastic response to a minor and negotiable internal problem-or even, more ominously, a sign of Papua New Guinea's emerging ambition for regional dominance. The relative merits and demerits of local peacekeeping and collective security over extra-regional intervention, particularly in the third world setting, had been little tested prior to 1980. The only major undertaking with a significantly regional dimension had been the United Nations operation in the Congo in the early 1960s. Some aspects of the Congo crisis bore similarities to that in Vanuatu, although of course on a vastly different scale. Independence had been accompanied by the secession of an important part of the national territory (Katanga) and the rebellion was supported by both European settlers and outside financial interests. Similarly too, the position of the metropole (Belgium) was, to say the least, ambivalent. The Congo operation was seen by its UN planners as essentially a pan-African one. Problems of military discipline and divergent political objectives as well as the inevitable importation of cold war tensions did not, however, make it a particularly attractive model on which to base future