Major inter-state conflict is not an imminent concern in the southern part of the Asia Pacific. Since the late 1990s, however, economic recession, social dislocation (including ethnic and religious conflict) and political turbulence have undermined the stability of many states in Southeast Asia and the Southwest Pacific. Australia and other stakeholders in the region’s security, notably Japan and the United States, have been particularly concerned over Indonesia’s protracted multi-dimensional crisis, the long-running Muslim separatist insurgency in the southern Philippines, Myanmar’s domestic travails, the fragility of newly independent East Timor, and the near-collapse of state institutions in the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea.
Important consequences of the widespread weakness of regional states include an escalation in piracy in Southeast Asian waters and the emergence of a pan-regional terrorist network, Jemaah Islamiah, that has been linked with al-Qaeda.
Meanwhile, more traditional sources of insecurity in the region have persisted. Tensions between certain Southeast Asian states have failed to recede, and a new small-scale arms race has become evident with the revival of defence spending and arms procurement since 2001. Such tensions, along with apprehensions over the growing economic power, military capacity and diplomatic assertiveness of China, and doubts over the ability of the regional grouping ASEAN to function as an effective security organisation, have encouraged some regional states to intensify their security relations with the United States to provide reassurance in an increasingly uncertain regional strategic environment.
The Institute’s research on the region is directed by Dr Tim Huxley, the IISS Senior Fellow for Asia Pacific Security and Editor, Adelphi Papers, and supported by its Singapore-based Asia office and by collaboration with research institutes in Southeast Asia. Research focuses on: the security implications of domestic developments in regional states (and particularly Indonesia); Islamic terrorism throughout the region and counter- terrorist measures; defence policies and military procurement programmes in South-East Asia and Australia; the security roles of ASEAN and other regional institutions; and regional states™ security relations with extra-regional powers.
Recent relevant publications on Southeast Asia include:
Adelphi Paper
Survival
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