The ASEAN Regional Forum

📖 The Scoop

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations Regional Forum (ARF), first held in July 1994 in Bangkok, Thailand, is a unique, Asian-led experiment in multilateral security in Asia. It took shape at a time when the United States seemed to have withdrawn from its leading role in regional and world security, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region. In fact, according to quotes attributed to a senior Chinese leader by former Assistant Secretary of Defense Charles Freeman, despite assurances from Washington, the perception in Asia is that the United States would never trade one of its cities (Los Angeles was the city in question) for the goal of securing peace for one of its friends in Asia.1 The ARF has been cast in theoretical language as an example of multipolarity and interdependence in the post-Cold War world. It has been compared and contrasted by some analysts with the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE). The member nations of the Association for Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), however, work hard to avoid comparisons with CSCE and see the situation in the Asia-Pacific region somewhat differently.2 For them, the fundamental goal for regional cooperation is to create stability. The ARF concentrates on confidence-building measures and conflict avoidance. ASEAN leaders want to foster economic growth in a region with some tensions but no major conflicts, a region with the highest economic growth rate in the world. The CSCE and the 1975 Helsinki agreement, on the other hand, were instruments primarily developed to manage a specific, volatile, East-West conflict-- that between the countries comprising the Warsaw Pact (with its Soviet leadership) and NATO. The CSCE goal was to "set the final seal on the map of Europe as drawn at Yalta."3 ASEAN member states have worked hard to avoid that parallel. This monograph explores the genesis of the ARF and discusses how perceptions of a U.S. withdrawal from the Asia-Pacific security scene affected the ASEAN states. The author argues that the ARF emerged as a regional solution to deal with potential threats. In conclusion, he discusses the ARF's future as ASEAN struggles to maintain the initiative in the forum. For ASEAN, the key to the ARF's raison d'etre is in dialogue to "avoid the potential for regional conflicts in the Asia Pacific."4 ASEAN members emphasize that the ARF is a "discussion of security matters, and not a common defense."5 When all is said and done, the impetus for the ARF and an Asian regional security dialogue is very different from that of the European situation. The CSCE came into being to moderate the threat of aggression between powers that were deeply hostile--the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact, and the United States and its NATO allies. The ARF's genesis is the opposite. The ARF was born because of the perceived weakness or withdrawal of a power that before had provided the security umbrella for Asia--the United States.

Genre: Political Science / Political Freedom (fancy, right?)