THE ROLE OF THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY IN REGIONAL SECURITY – INCLUSIVE, MULTI-DIMENSIONAL, AND FLEXIBLE RESPONSE
Good Morning, Ladies and gentlemen.
A process of geopolitical and economic rebalancing is underway.
While the United States will remain the most influential country in the world, it no longer enjoys the same pre-eminence as at the end of the Cold War.
The European Union, Brazil, Russia, India and China are playing a greater role in this emerging 21st Century world.
This current financial crisis is likely to accelerate the transformation of the international system.
The 21st century world – new challenges, new actors
What are the key characteristics of the 21st century world?
First, we are living in an intimately inter-connected world.
The problems faced by nations are highly complex and trans-boundary in nature.
For example, the ongoing financial crisis may have started in the ”rich world”.
But falling global demand for manufactured goods, commodities and services hurt emerging and mature economies alike.
As the real economy is dragged down, job losses mount, impacting the livelihood of people. New stresses and strains will emerge in the political and security arena in a number of countries and regions.
In today’s highly interconnected world, “security” problems are no longer narrowly defined by armed conflict between states.
We are looking at complex challenges to human security arising from natural disasters, health pandemics, climate change, sectarianism, organised crime, access to energy, and mass migrations of people.
And these challenges do not respect borders.
Second, in the 21st century world, it is clear that problems can no longer be solved by a single major power or even a small group of powers acting in concert.
The US, or even the G7 collectively, do not have the means to resolve the current financial crisis by themselves – though it is equally clear that they remain a necessary part of any solution.
The G20 meeting hastily convened in Washington on 15 November 08 is a stark illustration of this new reality.
But it is not clear that even such a forum is necessarily the right one either.
What is clear is that as we emerge from this financial and economic crisis, the current concentration of influence in international financial and economic institutions will need to be rebalanced to reflect the new distribution of economic weight and thought leadership.
This will in turn lead to a longer-term strategic rebalancing as economic performance translates into greater strategic weight at the regional and global levels.
Effective solutions to contemporary security challenges will increasingly require a broader range of actors to be co-opted and engaged.
Only then will we collectively have the capacity, resources, reach, ideas and expertise to resolve these problems.
The policy choices and approach of the new US administration will determine the extent to which the US could continue to play a leadership role.
Smaller states can play a useful part too - their small size allows them to be nimble and adapt more rapidly to take on niche roles.
This new global environment will also be shaped by a more diverse international community which will see increased involvement by stakeholders such as non-governmental organisations, multi-national corporations, and think-tanks.
Strategies for coping with change
How can the international community and regional countries, including these new actors, co-operate to maintain regional security in the face of these challenges? We will need inclusive, multi-dimensional and flexible responses.
Allow me to draw on our recent experience in the Asia-Pacific to illustrate this.
Inclusive international community
First, the changed landscape requires a more inclusive “international community”.
No state or single organisation will have the necessary capabilities to solve all problems.
Broad-based participation and a sense of collective responsibility to bring in all stakeholders are vital.
In the Asia-Pacific region, the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) Regional Forum (or ARF) provides a security framework that brings together the ten South East Asian countries with 17 other stakeholders like the US, the EU, China, India, Russia, Japan, Australia and New Zealand.
The ARF seeks to include all regional states, as well as extra-regional partners, to address regional challenges through confidence building and more recently, practical cooperation.
The Manama Dialogue’s sister forum, the Shangri-la Dialogue has been hosted annually in Singapore 7 times since 2002. The Shangri-la Dialogue provides a platform for open, frank and constructive dialogue to build understanding among both regional and international stakeholders.
For example, at this year’s Shangri-la Dialogue in Singapore, in the immediate aftermath of Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar and the Sichuan earthquake in China, ministers had a robust discussion on the issues surrounding offering and receiving humanitarian assistance.
They were able to agree on a set of principles to guide affected countries, and those countries and international organisations offering assistance.
We hope that as regions mature, they also seek to engage other regions so that we can develop new modes of inter-regional dialogue and cooperation to address common challenges that confront us all.
Frameworks such as the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) and the Forum for East Asia and Latin America Cooperation (FEALAC) are already leading in this direction.
Of particular note, in 2005, Singapore hosted the inaugural Asia-Middle East Dialogue (AMED) to promote mutual understanding and linkages, and to share developmental experiences between the two regions. AMED has progressed well since 2005.
At AMED II hosted by Egypt in Sharm El Sheikh in April this year, there was a strong turnout of ministers and thought-leaders from 24 Asian and 21 Middle Eastern and North African countries, plus the Palestinian Authority. This clearly demonstrated an increased comfort level.
AMED II, with its theme of public-private partnership, also broadened the scope of the dialogue beyond the public sector.
The strong sense of respect between Asia and the Middle East for each others’ cultural and religious heritage, and our historical ties, is the foundation and the key to AMED’s success.
Going forward, AMED can serve as a platform for tangible cooperation, to help countries in our two regions devise appropriate political and economic models to bring progress and development to both our regions.
To further strengthen our economic engagement with the region, Singapore is honoured to be the first country to sign a free-trade agreement with the Gulf Cooperation Council.
The GCC-Singapore Free-Trade Agreement (or the GSFTA), is a comprehensive FTA, covering trade in Goods, Services, Investments, and Government Procurement.
When signed in Doha tomorrow, the GSFTA will mark an important milestone and provide a framework to enhance trade and investments flows.
Multi-dimensional solutions
Second, the complex nature of security challenges in the 21st century means that we need multi-dimensional solutions.
These solutions must not only address the direct security concerns, but also the underlying issues of economic development, cultural and historical realities, and governance.
Let me illustrate this with the example of the conflict in the Indonesian province of Aceh.
Aceh, as you know, is the northern-most province of Indonesia, with a long coastline adjacent to the northern approach to one of the busiest sea-lanes in the world, the Malacca Strait.
The conflict in Aceh involving the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) had been going on for 30 years since it flared up in 1976.
Neither security operations, nor previous negotiations were able to end the conflict.
However, in August 2005, a negotiated settlement, the Helsinki Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), was signed between the two parties, which has held to the present day.
Not only has there been a cessation of violence, a significant degree of political reconciliation has been achieved and elections held.
Unlike the previous attempts at negotiation which focused mainly on the cessation of hostilities, the 2005 Helsinki MoU sought to establish a comprehensive political solution to the conflict through disarmament, demobilisation, and reintegration.
The MoU also addressed the wider pre-cursors to stability, such as the status of Aceh, economic incentives, political participation, governance, legal issues, reconciliation and human rights.
The 26 December 2004 tsunami that devastated Aceh with the loss of some 166,000 lives brought a dose of reality and sense of urgency to the process.
There was an outpouring of grief and a yearning to have a new beginning.
Generous international assistance for reconstruction provided the resources needed to help address the challenges of development and economic re-integration.
Most importantly, both the Indonesian government under the leadership of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and GAM mustered the political courage to make the necessary compromises and work together with former foes.
The international community played a key role.
The Henri Dunant Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue and 2008 Nobel laureate Mr Martti Ahtisaari, the former Finnish President, played a mediating role.
The agreement was overseen by the Aceh Monitoring Mission (AMM), a partnership between the European Union and five ASEAN countries.
The AMM was recognised by all parties as fair and impartial in the exercise of its duties which included full authority to rule on disputes over any alleged MOU violations, and overseeing the demobilisation of GAM and decommissioning of their armaments.
The international dimension - the EU members, provided the extra-regional impartiality and international legitimacy to the AMM; while the ASEAN members provided the understanding of local conditions and cultural issues that helped the AMM win the trust and acceptance of the government and the local people.
Flexible responses
Third and finally, the challenges of the 21st century will require flexible responses from both the international and the regional community.
The time-lines for decision-making have been compressed, and the consequences of hesitation can sometimes be catastrophic.
Capabilities such as anticipation and pattern-recognition, together with firm and decisive political leadership, are important for tackling these complex challenges.
The regional security architecture must have the flexibility to configure functional groupings to respond decisively to specific challenges.
These groupings might initially call upon those countries and organisations who possess the niche capabilities, expertise and resources ready for a decisive response.
Subsequently, they can expand to include other countries that can contribute as the situation develops.
In the case of piracy in the Malacca Strait, the littoral states, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore, embarked on novel forms of multilateral cooperation through the Eyes-in-the-Sky air patrols and the Malacca Strait Sea Patrols.
All three countries deploy their maritime patrol aircraft to monitor the Straits.
To overcome sensitivities associated with sovereignty, personnel from all three littoral states fly onboard each others’ maritime patrol aircraft deployed on such missions.
Incidents are reported to their respective command centres for ships to take action within their own territorial waters.
Littoral states also took action to ensure that staging areas along the coast were eliminated.
The international community and user-states, who are important stakeholders in maritime security, also have a role to play.
User states can engage in information sharing, for example, through the Regional Cooperation Agreement on Combating Piracy and Armed Robbery or RECAAP formed in 2006 in which 14 countries now participate.
They can also engage in capacity building, through processes such as the International Maritime Organisation’s Co-operative Mechanism.
Since the beginning of these initiatives, the number of piracy incidents has declined significantly, from a high of 38 in 2004, to 11 in 2006, and to just 7 last year. In August 2006, the Lloyd Joint War Risk Committee decided to lift the classification of the Malacca Strait as a War Risk Zone, based on its assessment that the Malacca Strait situation had improved, and that the security measures taken by the costal states were effective and long-term in nature.
In May 2009, Singapore will also be opening its Changi C2 Centre that will serve as an important maritime security information node in the region.
Flexibility in modes of response and international cooperation are important facets of our approach to tackling the piracy problem in the Malacca Strait.
There are similarities with the situation in the Gulf of Aden, but also some key differences.
Littoral states would normally be expected to play a key role in curbing piracy.
However, the Somali government clearly lacks the capacity to do so.
The international community has responded quickly to the Somali request for assistance, and UN Security Council Resolution 1838 by contributing a variety of naval forces to combat piracy in the Gulf of Aden, setting up a monitored maritime “highway” for shipping traffic.
While these are welcome moves, the resolution of this problem will require a multi-dimensional response that prevents the pirates from using their land-based support networks, from where they are now operating with impunity.
Conclusion: Crisis as opportunity
Major changes are underway that will reshape the world in the 21st century.
New challenges require flexible and inclusive new structures which can bring on board new stakeholders to provide multi-dimensional responses and solutions.
We now have an opportunity to lay the groundwork for such an architecture.
Part of this groundwork will require countries to embark on greater dialogue, to build understanding and share perspectives that can help us to get a better grasp of the complex problems confronting us, evolve norms of behaviour, develop the habits of cooperation, and brainstorm flexible, multi-dimensional solutions together.
The Manama Dialogue provides an excellent avenue for dialogue and involvement in pursuing regional security in the Middle East, and to network and share ideas with other regions of the world.
I have benefited much from our discussions and interactions over these few days, and would like to end by thanking our hosts for providing us with this opportunity to meet, and for their kind and gracious hospitality.
Thank you.
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