Non-Traditional Security and
Multilateralism in AsiaMikaela Ediger
Europe and AsiaJanuary 27, 2014
Sunday, January 26, 14
Overview• Introduction and definitions
• NTS Threats in ASEAN, APT / ARF, APEC
1. infectious diseases2. natural disasters and climate change3. transnational crime4. poverty
• Conclusions
• Future trends
• Questions
Sunday, January 26, 14
Non-traditional security (NTS)
• “...challenges to the survival and well-being of people and states that arise primarily out of nonmilitary sources”
• Non-traditional security (NTS) threats tend to be...
- transnational (neither purely domestic nor purely interstate
- unpredictable and difficult to prevent- transmitted rapidly - can threaten not only state sovereignty or territory,
but peoples’ security within the state
Sunday, January 26, 14
‘Second Generation’ or ‘New’ Regionalism
• “...expanded and multidimensional forms of interstate cooperation and integration, covering a wide range of economic, political, security, and cultural areas”
- deeper economic integration with political elements- multilevel governance- decentralization within states- strong international legal frameworks- cooperation along many dimensions
• 2nd generation regionalism can emerge as a response to globalization crises
• Ex. 1997 Financial Crisis --> 1998 APT formalizes relations with China, Japan, and South Korea --> Chiang Mai Initiative
Sunday, January 26, 14
NTS and Multilateralism• How has responding to non-traditional security
threats encouraged regional multilateralism in Asia?
• encourage member states’ commitment to regional frameworks
• encourage the adoption of more rules-based regimes within regional organizations
‣ This makes for more effective collaboration with outside organizations and coordination of security responses (second generation regionalism)
Sunday, January 26, 14
Infectious Diseases• Regional preparation accelerated after SARS outbreak
• ASEAN: Task Force 2004
• APT: Emerging Diseases Program, Regional Framework for Control and Eradication of Avian Influenza
• EAS: Declaration on Avian Influenza Prevention, Control, and Response
• APEC: US establishes Regional Emerging Diseases Intervention Center, regional meetings to discuss avian
Sunday, January 26, 14
Infectious Diseases• Problems
- not fully implemented as of 2007
- lack of resources allocated to public health at domestic level
- need to improve poor state of health infrastructure in less-developed countries and (initiatives at the regional level can only go so far)
- need comprehensive strategy, with so many actors involved there may be gaps
Sunday, January 26, 14
Natural Disasters• ASEAN
- members contributed resources to victims of 2004 tsunami
- mobilized support from external agencies like the World Bank and Asian Development Bank
• APEC/ ARF
- preparedness initiatives geared towards establishing better early warning system
- simulation exercises to improve mobilization of equipment to provide aid
Sunday, January 26, 14
Natural Disasters• Problems:
- speed of response
- improvements to national capacity and national response plans still needed
- ASEAN should expand its exercises to include countries outside ASEAN
- coordinating all the mechanisms in place with various actors, at ASEAN ARF and APEC level is difficult
Sunday, January 26, 14
Climate Change
• threatens to both state security and human security
• most of the world’s population lives near coasts and many cities will be vulnerable to rising sea levels
• makes natural disasters more frequent and unpredictable
Sunday, January 26, 14
Climate Change• Andrew DeWit: more involvement of militaries,
especially the American military, in humanitarian and disaster relief
• Operation Tomodachi - often the military has the best resources to undertake relief operations of the scale that worsening natural disasters demand
• NGOs, governments and militaries need to develop institutional connections to facilitate military involvement in climate change crises
• using the resources of hard security conflict for soft security collaboration
Sunday, January 26, 14
Transnational Crime• Challenges: corruption, requires extensive sharing of information
• ASEAN:
- regular meeting between members nations’ ministries of home affairs, as well as national chiefs of police
- (+ China) Joint Declaration on Cooperation against transnational crime and drugs 2002
- (+ China) ACCORD - institutional framework against drug trafficking
- (+ U.S.) Declaration on Joint Action to Counter Terrorism 2001
• APT: meeting on Transnational Crime in 2004; a number of smaller institutions established against transnational crime and terrorism
• ARF also holds meetings on counterterrorism
Sunday, January 26, 14
Transnational Crime
• Piracy in the Malacca Strait
- ASEAN’s Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore made a trilateral arrangement for controlling coordinated patrols, and Thailand, the Philippines, and Japan have joined the group’s activities
- example of how a regional institution can facilitate a focused ‘minilateral’ response for a problem affecting some of its members
Sunday, January 26, 14
Poverty
• 1997 Financial Crisis reveals inequality can cause conflict and instability
• Very little provision for social safety nets
• Challenge: addressing the development divide within ASEAN
• ASEAN Social Charter has been suggested to regulate labour standards
Sunday, January 26, 14
Poverty• APT: Chiang Mai Initiative (CMI)
- liquidity support facility
- $75 billion reserve pool
- has become increasingly institutionalized with economic surveillance measures to ensure early response
- mitigates against the threat of another financial crisis
Sunday, January 26, 14
Conclusions
• Ad hoc measures: creeping institutionalism
• Minilaterals geared towards specific threats within regional institutions (ASEAN and APT) are more effective than the more inclusive APEC and ARF
• Surveillance, information sharing, and disaster relief efforts are going beyond ‘consensus building’
Sunday, January 26, 14
Future trends
• development of norms encourages more rules-based frameworks (ex. ASEAN Charter)
• increased intrusiveness on state sovereignty may be tolerated in areas such as transnational crime
• duplication may become a problem
Sunday, January 26, 14
Future trends
• inclusiveness is important - there should be a way for extra-regional powers to get involved
• more robust integration on non-traditional security will require a level of elite consensus on values and norms
• tension between conservatism and noninterference vs. effectively responding to problems that go beyond state borders
Sunday, January 26, 14
Questions
• Does NTS collaboration give rise to ‘creeping institutionalization’, or just a lot of small ad hoc responses? Will future crises result in more integration?
• Could tensions between the ‘Asian’ vs ‘inclusive’ institutions be a positive thing for addressing NTS threats (or will this lead to inefficiency)?
Sunday, January 26, 14
Thanks for listening!
Sunday, January 26, 14
Sources
• Adler, Emanuel and Michael Barnett. 1998. “A Framework for the Study of Security Communities” in Emanuel Adler and Michael Barnett eds, Security Communities. Cambridge University Press, pp.29-65.
• Caballero-Anthony, Mely. “Reshaping the Contours of the Regional Security Architecture”, in Michael Green and Gill Bates (ed.) Asia’s New Multilateralism: Cooperation, Competition and the Search for Community. New York, Columbia University Press, 2009, pp.306-328.
Sunday, January 26, 14