ASEAN Approaches to Managing Regional Security

  • Gina Rivas Pattugalan

Abstract

The ASEAN is one of the regional organizations whose usefulness have outlived the Cold War. By investing in institutions and developing norms, its member-states have overcome obstacles to regional political stability and cooperation in the old order. With the demise of bipolarity and the emergence of a more complex post- Cold War security environment, however, ASEAN faces the twin challenges of remaining a relevant and formidable regional actor and fostering a wider regionalism beyond the confines of Southeast Asia. In this new regional security configuration, the association needs to expand regional security dialogue to include actors in the wider Asia-Pacific through the ASEAN Regional Forum; broaden the application of its code of conduct, the TACSEA, to cover the entire Southeast Asian region, transform Southeast Asia into a nuclear-weapons-free zone as well as a zone of peace, freedom and neutrality and get the cooperation of countries with nuclear capabilities, and pursue a self-reliant and collective military pressure.
Published
2008-06-05