Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines Security Cooperation in the Celebes Sea

In this thesis, I explore the challenges to and reasons for the current limited trilateral security cooperation among Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines in the Celebes Sea. The study analyzes historical and current events among these countries and relations between them and extra-regional powers. In particular, it examines their unilateral and bilateral policies, their domestic political constraints, and the status of their respective militaries and domestic law enforcement institutions. These nations have been successful in establishing tri-national agreements among each other to enhance security cooperation in the Celebes Sea, however these have lacked sufficient scope and depth to address the current terrorist and piracy threats in the Celebes Sea region. The author finds that this lack of security cooperation is mainly due to these nations' historical mistrust of each other's national interests, domestic political challenges and limited force projection and interagency capabilities. In this thesis, he makes recommendations for U.S. policy and theater engagement planning with these nations.
The original document contains color images.