Dr John Chipman, Director-General and Chief Executive, IISS
I should note that the government of Australia has sent its defence minister to nine successive Shangri-La dialogues and it is with special pleasure that we receive for the first time Senator Faulkner.
Senator John Faulkner, Minister for Defence, Australia
Thank you chair, ministerial colleagues. Ladies and gentlemen, in the years following World War II, as the world entered the nuclear age, nations grappled with the now very clear realisation that there was no longer any possible security in isolation. International conflict had acquired global implications. For the first time it was possible that unrestrained war waged by a single nation could destroy us all. Every nation wishing to secure peace and prosperity for its citizens had to be engaged in the constant, ongoing process of maintaining international peace and security in concert and cooperation with its neighbours and allies.
Bilateral and multilateral relationships, alliances and partnerships are all intrinsic parts of this process. Bilateral relationships build trust and create momentum for lasting multilateral outcomes. These links provide and promote peace, mutual understanding and practical security cooperation. As new non‑conventional security challenges emerge and older conventional security challenges persist, the emergence of relationships we share and the organisations we uphold become greater. From Australia’s perspective our alliances and partnerships in the Asia‑Pacific region help to reduce the potential for threats to emerge, assist in building confidence and transparency and provide a means for us to work together when the need arises.
All the countries attending this Dialogue have a network of relationships with regional and global partners. All these interconnecting networks bring stability to our security environment, creating trust and familiarity between our individual defence forces. These partnerships and relationships support the development of enhanced security cooperation including exercises, information exchanges, personnel exchanges and high‑level visits in key areas such as maritime security, international law, counter-terrorism and non-proliferation. These relationships also provide the basis for our defence forces to work together in areas of mutual benefit such as maritime security, humanitarian assistance, disaster relief and peacekeeping.
In considering Asia‑Pacific security today, I will touch on just four different aspects of alliances and partnerships: a quiet regional success, the Five Power Defence Arrangements (FPDA); a critical stabiliser in our region in the Unites States; new challenges on the Korean Peninsula; and the importance of multilateralism in ensuring regional stability.
We can see the strength and potential of multilateral relationships in our region through the extraordinary success of the Five Power Defence Arrangements, which came into force in 1971, between Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, New Zealand and, of course, the United Kingdom. It followed the 1968 announcement that the UK would withdraw its UK military forces east of Suez. Regional insecurity, particularly remembering this followed the period of Konfrontasi, meant that regional nations needed some form of security assurances to help build confidence and stability.
The FPDA was initially conceived as a transitional agreement to provide for the defence of Malaysia and Singapore until these new states could fend for themselves. For a transitional arrangement, the FPDA has endured. Next year will see its 40th anniversary. But since its birth as a set of assurances to Singapore and Malaysia, it is clear that the FPDA now operates at a whole new level. Singapore and Malaysia now have very capable defence forces. In keeping step with them and the changing security structure of the region, the FPDA has continued to evolve. This transformation has been supported by a robust consultative structure, a standing multilateral military arrangement, and a comprehensive exercise programme.
The Five Power Defence Arrangements currently play multiple roles that contribute to regional stability. Perhaps the most important over the past few decades is that it has built confidence between all of its members, particularly Malaysia and Singapore. More importantly, it has developed understanding, commonality and interoperability between our defence forces. This rich history of engagement has provided a foundation that has allowed member countries to work together to enhance security, ranging from assistance to East Timor, responding to natural disasters and now working together in Afghanistan.
For many of us in this region the United States is a key alliance partner. In the Asia‑Pacific region the United States has formal security alliances with Australia, Thailand, the Philippines, the Republic of Korea and Japan, as well as security partnerships with many other nations represented here today. These treaty level agreements are built on our shared outlook and our interest in regional peace and stability. This network of alliances anchors the United States in the region and has contributed substantially to the stability and prosperity from which we have all benefited over the decades. The presence of the United States in our region has been a principal stabilising factor for a generation.
In addition to the stabilising role of the US alliance network, Australia’s view is that the countries of the region should also develop an architecture to meet our challenges, and to use it cooperatively to shape our collective future.
As yet there is no single institution in the Asia‑Pacific region with a membership and mandate to comprehensively address both economic and strategic challenges.
As the Australian prime minister said in his keynote address at this Dialogue last year, an Asia‑Pacific community could be seen as a natural broadening of the processes of confidence, security and community-building led by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). ASEAN highlights the importance of developing the right institutions at the right time. It has been crucial in the transformation of Southeast Asia from a region of strategic conflict into one of cooperation, consensus and partnership.
Australia believes the time has now come to extend the vision that drove the formation of ASEAN to the wider Asia‑Pacific region. We welcome the active discussion now under way in ASEAN and across the region to renew and strengthen regional architecture.
Australia has recently been very involved in discussions on the region’s future architecture. In the face of strategic uncertainty, rapid economic and political change and new, non‑conventional security challenges, a stronger, regional security architecture is essential to enhance stability and build trust between nations. We believe that this is essential to Australia’s security and the security of all of us.
The regional groupings and institutions already in place are making valuable contributions and will continue to anchor our efforts to deepen dialogue and cooperation. ASEAN has made a powerful contribution to establishing stable relations between Southeast Asian countries and should remain at the core of any future regional structure. Australia is, however, keen to see the evolution and development of mechanisms that are able to address not just economic and political challenges, but also security challenges.
In the defence context, we are therefore strongly supportive of the ASEAN Defence Ministers Meeting ‘plus’. This forum has great potential to enhance the quality of defence and security interaction across the Asia‑Pacific and will see personal relationships continue to develop with counterparts. Indeed, the real value of such forums is the opportunity to talk both formally and informally about the security challenges we face now and not only those that we confront now, but the ones that we will confront in the future. Such meetings provide a means to avoid misunderstandings, to build confidence and trust, and to enable countries to work together in areas where there is mutual interest and benefit.
A contemporary example of the strength and importance of the international relationships in our region concerns one of the other nations represented on this panel, the Republic of Korea (ROK). The support and assistance provided to our South Korean friends by many allies and partners was important in the investigation into the sinking of the ROK’s Navy Corvette Cheonan, which tragically resulted in the loss of life of 46 sailors.
In response to this deplorable act, South Korea took the very sensible approach of establishing a thorough and transparent investigation. As tensions were high, seeking international participation in the investigation was the best way forward. Along with our US, UK, Swedish and Canadian friends, Australia was happy to provide relevant technical expertise to assist those investigations. Ours was a small, but as we have heard from our South Korean friends, valued contribution. It is also a contribution that I would hope other countries represented here would consider, to assist a friend in responding to a critical security situation.
And this situation is critical. This act was a flagrant violation of the 1953 Korean Armistice Agreement and the United Nations Charter. This matter must be addressed by the United Nations Security Council to ensure an appropriate global response to this situation. Australia will continue to support strongly the South Korean government as it deals with this provocation.
Just a few years after the United Nations was created, Australia’s then Minister for External Affairs and UN President in 1948, Doc Evatt, presciently remarked, ‘Much hard work is necessary, and always will be.’ The men and women of Evatt’s generation who set out to create an organisation that would make sure the world did not again slide into global, catastrophic conflict brought extraordinary quantities of creativity, pragmatism, optimism and patience to the task. They accepted that peace was not something to be achieved and then ignored, but the product of a constant process of building and renewal. They knew, also, that there was no alternative that would not lead to disaster.
I believe we can be as creative and as patient as our predecessors, as resourceful and resolute in revitalising and reinvigorating our institutions and creating new ones, preparing ourselves to face and overcome the challenges ahead.
