Search

Australia's new government is committed to delivering the next defence white paper in 2015. The two previous white papers took a predominantly risk-management approach to Southeast Asia, generally ignored the strategic opportunities in the region, treated it as a stand-alone region largely unrelated to developments in East Asia and failed to link Australia's policies in Southeast Asia with the broader goal of helping to ensure greater strategic stability in Asia by putting constraints on Chinese assertiveness and encouraging its peaceful rise. After offering a summary of recent Australian defence thinking on Southeast Asia, this paper outlines why managing China is the key variable when it comes to strategic stability in the region. It then examines how China's strategy and behaviour can be shaped and influenced by events and relationships in Southeast Asia, and offers some suggestions as to the role Australia can seek to play in Southeast Asia that relates to Canberra's China-focused objectives and strategic stability in Asia more broadly If that can be achieved in the 2015 defence white paper, Australia - which is often criticized for being preoccupied primarily with managing the relationship with its superpower ally the United States - will demonstrate to itself and Asia that its heavy reliance on the ANZUS treaty is no barrier to strategic creativity in Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Problems of violent youth groups have escalated in Indonesia, following economic recession, unemployment, and weakened state institutions. Young people have beers hit by the lack of income and broken expectations In consequence, youth groups emerge and arrange for members' economic revenue as well as identity creation and confidence. Religion in some cases is used to legitimize violence and to strengthen the boldness of group members. The paper offers a brief overview of gangster (preman) traditions in Indonesia. Empirical findings on violent youth groups in the two selected provinces are presented within a multi-factor analytical framework, where the need for income and identity strengthening, political élite interests, and the lack of law enforcement contribute to explaining criminal and vigilante violence, Interviews with leaders and members of movements engaged in violent actions offer insights into a problem that threatens national security and control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite calls over the years for the Asia-Pacific region, or some subset of it, to develop a regional security regime, no deliberate action to achieve this has been taken. This paper considers the possible ends of a regional security regime and the means towards achieving them. The ends themselves would differ according to whether any regime focused on security, traditionally and narrowly conceived, on comprehensive security or on human security. No matter which approach is taken, if the regime is to be successful in any sense beyond that of rhetoric, some of the region's cherished norms such as non-intervention as that is currently interpreted will have to be at least modified, if not completely scrapped. Even if the region collectively decides it needs a security regime and can agree on its ends, there are many alternative ways of achieving the ends and the processes of working out detailed rules will be difficult and time-consuming. None of this is to say that establishing a regional security regime will be impossible. It is to say that it will involve a lot of work, and a lot of compromise by state policy-makers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reviews recent developments in the southern Thai conflict, noting that following the implementation of tougher security measures in 2007-08, levels of violence declined somewhat before increasing again. In the wake of their failure to find sustainable methods of containing the conflict, the Thai military is now trying to claim that many of the violent incidents in the region are the result of "ordinary" crime. Despite these attempts to discredit the essentially political motives that underpin the violence, the authors argue that the conflict reflects a crisis of state legitimacy in the far south. To date, the Democrat-led government has failed to engage seriously with political solutions to the southern conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For the most part, the theory of security sector governance does not comport with extant Southeast Asian realities owing to its Western assumptions and expectations. Singapore's security sector resembles that of other ASEAN countries in its technocratic, illiberal and comprehensive security-oriented aspects, where governance is exercised solely in a top-down fashion ("governance by national government"). Against this common wisdom, we argue that the Singapore case can, with qualifications, also be understood in terms of both "governance with multiple governments" and "governance without government", categories that better fit Western industrial democracies. For example, growing regionalism in Southeast Asia suggests, not inconceivably, that the future management of the region's security sectors, not least Singapore's, could be a multi-tiered, shared enterprise involving not only national governments, but regional organizations such as ASEAN as well as non-official mechanisms ("governance with multiple governments"). Moreover, the highly professionalized fashion in which Singapore manages its security sector differs markedly from the "new! developmental professionalism" of other ASEAN security sectors. Borrowing from Michel Foucault's ideas of disciplinary intervention and self-formation, we show how Singapore's security is in part reliant on habits and rituals of self-governance among ordinary Sin gaporeans ("governance without government"). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article traces the evolution of the Five Power Defence Arrangements (FPDA) since its establishment in 1971 to the present day. It details the evolution of the FPDA's three main pillars: the Integrated Area Defence System (IADS), the architecture for political-military dialogue, and the exercise programme. In addition, the article tries to place the FPDA in the context of the security roles played by ASEAN, the ARF, intra-regional bilateral military ties, and the defence relationship with United States. It argues that, while the FPDA's role in upholding regional security cannot be equated to the military contribution of the United States, and the grouping certainly faces significant challenges, it nevertheless contributes positively and innovatively to the ability of Malaysia and Singapore to address not only conventional threats, but increasingly asymmetric and non-conventional security challenges as well, thereby contributing to the overall maintenance of regional security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]