Break-out group 1
Climate change and Asia-Pacific security
Saturday 31 May 2008, 3.00 pm
CHAIR
Alexander Nicoll
Director of Editorial, IISS
OPENING REMARKS
Dr Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury
Honourable Adviser for Foreign Affairs (Foreign Minister), Bangladesh
Peter Varghese
Director-General, Office of National Assessments (ONA), Australia
Yuriko Koike
Member, House of Representatives; former Minister of Defense, Japan
There was a strong feeling that the effects of climate change on security would be significant and that the urgency of the problem was not sufficiently recognised. It was also suggested that the climate-change issue required strong leadership from the United Nations, and that a High Representative should be appointed. According to one military delegate, time had run out for discussion: as the effects of climate change for the next 30 years were already fixed, policy action and coordination were essential. Delegates believed global warming would exacerbate development problems and cause tensions over, for example, water supplies and migration. There was also a strong feeling that governments needed to channel more resources into related science and technologies.
However, the debate revealed that the issue took on many forms depending on the perspective of the viewer, with some delegates choosing to focus more on issues of food and energy security. There were also differing views on how to tackle climate change, with some delegates suggesting that the present international emphasis on emissions cuts was too great and that, for example, renewable and nuclear energy should receive more attention.
Break-out group 2
An arms race in the Asia-Pacific?
Saturday 31 May 2008, 3.00 pm
CHAIR
Dr Tim Huxley
Executive Director, IISS-Asia
OPENING REMARKS
Admiral Sureesh Mehta
Chairman, Chiefs of Staff Committee and Chief of Naval Staff, India
Admiral Timothy J. Keating
Commander, Pacific Command, US
Koutaro Tamura
Member, House of Councillors; Member, Research Committee on International Affairs, Japan
It was noted that a number of states in the region were increasing their defence spending and undertaking large-scale military procurement programmes. In many cases, Asia-Pacific armed forces were acquiring equipment – such as long-range strike aircraft and submarines – that could be classed as ‘offensive’. There appeared to be a reactive quality to the military programmes of some combinations of states. However, there was broad consensus within the group that regional states were not involved in an arms race, which would imply an ‘aggressive build-up with malicious intent’, as one participant put it. Because their economies were expanding rapidly, states were able to spend more on their armed forces even though the proportion of GDP spent on defence remained constant or declined. Often, economic expansion also meant that states had more to protect, particularly in terms of maritime interests. It was also evident that spending more on defence and buying major military platforms did not necessarily translate into more effective military capabilities.
Nevertheless, it could legitimately be asked at what stage military modernisation might destabilise regional security and effectively become an arms race, particularly if governments respond to their armed forces’ fears of ‘falling behind’ in technological terms. The group heard that as economies in the region grew, as the capacities of Asia-Pacific states – and particularly China – to project military power expanded further, as the relative military strength of the United States in the region declined, and as new security challenges emerged (such as inter-state tensions over access to food, energy and water supplies), improving states’ transparency with regard to their strategic intentions and further developing habits of military cooperation would become more important than ever as a means of constraining military competition and preventing inordinate future increases in defence spending.
Break-out group 3
How successful is counter-terrorism in the Asia-Pacific?
Saturday 31 May 2008, 3.00 pm
CHAIR
Nigel Inkster
Director of Transnational Threats and Political Risk, IISS
OPENING REMARKS
Rohitha Bogollagama
Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sri Lanka
General Tariq Majid
Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, Pakistan
General Alexander B. Yano
Chief of Staff, Armed Forces of the Philippines
Lieutenant-General Karl W. Eikenberry
US Army and Deputy Chairman, Military Committee, NATO
Few countries in the Asia-Pacific region had been completely untouched by terrorism over the past eight years and even those unaffected by terrorism had experienced problems with radicalisation. In terms of response, the picture was mixed: in East and Southeast Asia, there had been a notable reduction of threat, whereas in South Asia levels of threat appeared to be rising, with the attendant risk that the threat would migrate to other regions. The problem was particularly acute in the tribal areas of Pakistan, where an overly kinetic approach and a lack of counter-radicalisation policies had made matters worse.
Where terrorism was linked with insurgency, military forces had to be deployed and had in most cases followed a classic counter-insurgency model. The role of the military was to establish security and clear the way for economic development and civilian administration. Armed forces were no substitute for the latter, although they might initially have to perform some civilian functions. Former insurgents who were willing to reconcile with governments should be permitted a role and given a stake in society, as had for example happened in Sri Lanka, where a former LTTE member now governed a region.
Pressure for quick results needed to be resisted and expectations kept realistic. At the same time, those engaged in counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency had to be ready to sustain their commitment. This was a particular issue in Afghanistan, where a combination of national caveats and a lack of operational coherence raised the spectre of strategic failure.
Break-out group 4
Strategies for resolving proliferation challenges
Saturday 31 May 2008, 5.00 pm
CHAIR
Mark Fitzpatrick
Senior Fellow for Non-proliferation, IISS
OPENING REMARKS
Francis Delon
Secretary-General for National Defence, France
Richard L. Armitage
President, Armitage International; former Deputy Secretary of State, US
Professor C. Raja Mohan
Professor, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
While acknowledging the central role of the United States, participants noted that success in stopping proliferation will require collective action, as in the case of the Six-Party Talks on denuclearising the Korean Peninsula, UN Security Council action to persuade Iran to suspend uranium enrichment and expansion of the Proliferation Security Initiative to improve collective interdiction capabilities. IAEA inspection and enforcement mechanisms must be strengthened and must benefit from greater intelligence sharing from member states. Export controls on dual-use goods and reinforced controls on financial flows were also advocated, with greater accountability for the supply side of black-market transactions. Effective non-
proliferation will also require the nuclear-weapons states to demonstrate a commitment to disarmament, especially to avoid failure at the 2010 NPT Review Conference.
It was noted that nuclear-energy cooperation with developing countries that are fully transparent and respect NPT obligations sends a useful political message, particularly in drawing a contrast with Iran. Support was also offered for proposals to guarantee the supply of reactor fuel, free of political pressure. A regional approach was suggested for grandfathering India into the non-proliferation regime. The prescription to ‘think regionally’ would also see Saudi Arabia brought into the debate over Iran. With regard to both Iran and North Korea, concerns were raised that both the US and China may be giving greater emphasis to capping and containment strategies rather than to denuclearisation as the goal.
Break-out group 5
The emerging regional security architecture
Saturday 31 May 2008, 5.00 pm
CHAIR
Adam Ward
Executive Director, IISS-US
OPENING REMARKS
Jamyandorj Batkhuyag
Minister for Defence, Mongolia
John McKinnon
Secretary of Defence, New Zealand
Chiang Chie Foo
Permanent Secretary (Defence and Prime Minister’s Office), Singapore
Joseph Lieberman
Member of the Senate, US
The Shangri-La Dialogue, being the only venue in which defence ministers of the region and key outside powers convene, is itself a major contribution to the security architecture of Asia-Pacific. Discussion about how a wider architecture might evolve or be built, and of how its various components should be ordered and relate to each other, has been a principal topic at the summits over the last seven years.
In the break-out group there was recognition of the desirability of fostering a greater sense of a collective regional security community and more effective mechanisms for anticipating and resolving security problems. At the same time, there was a measure of scepticism about having too grand a design: the sub-regional security dynamics of the Asia-Pacific were seen as too variegated and dissimilar to allow for centralised structures, and the lack of agreement among the great powers of the region about the dimensions, characteristics and operating procedures of a future regional security architecture were too pronounced to allow for linear progress towards a certain goal. Nor would the smaller states of the region under these circumstances care to attach themselves to one model to the detriment of another. Chinese efforts at community building in East Asia were seen as reassuring by some, and by others as a method of excluding the United States from regional affairs. American bilateral alliances were regarded by Washington and its partners as a flying buttress of a regional architecture, and by the Chinese as inconsistent with the multilateralist principles on which that architecture should be founded. In these circumstances, the most likely and desirable outcome, it was felt, would be a series of tiered, overlapping and interlocking structures. Here the Shangri-La Dialogue and the ASEAN Regional Forum would operate as principal high-level venues for discussion of regional security affairs, identification of policy prescriptions and development of new habits of practical cooperation in matters of defence. Other components, with narrower remits and varying forms of membership, would then serve an operationalising function.
Break-out group 6
Maritime disputes in the Asia-Pacific
Saturday 31 May 2008, 5.00 pm
CHAIR
Rahul Roy-Chaudhury
Senior Fellow for South Asia, IISS
OPENING REMARKS
Admiral Takashi Saito
Chief of Staff, Joint Staff Office, Self-Defense Forces, Japan
Rear Admiral Tyrone Pile
Commander, Maritime Forces Pacific, Canada
Yu Hong
Counsellor and Director, Department of Asian Affairs, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, China
The group heard that maritime stability in the Asia-Pacific region was affected by the depletion of living and non-living marine resources, overlapping claims and counter-claims over island territories and continental shelves, differing interpretations of the law of the sea, the threat of maritime terrorism and excessive naval activity. Other key issues of concern included piracy and armed robbery attacks, marine pollution, and receding ice caps and consequent sea-level rises. As energy demand and economic dependency on the sea grew, maritime transportation would become more important.
Although piracy may have diminished in the Strait of Malacca, this was not the case off the Somalian coast. Yet the capabilities of naval forces to deal with these contingencies differed greatly. There was no regional naval force with a law-enforcement mandate, although the importance of these issues was gradually being understood. This was in marked contrast to the activist role of naval powers in the Indian Ocean. Approaches to dispute resolution also differed, with Northeast Asian states disinclined to submit disputes for third-party settlement, in marked contrast to Southeast Asia, where there had recently been some success in this area.
As the ocean was a common asset, maritime stability was an essential requirement. Regional interactions were the key to move from confrontation to cooperation. These could be undertaken through the strengthening of regional maritime dialogue, the promotion of a common mechanism for maritime stability, the implementation of confidence-building measures, visits by naval vessels and the peaceful resolution of conflicts. Capacity building, information sharing and the strengthening of international environmental regulation at sea were also required. What was most needed, arguably, was a far more enlightened view of how we viewed the sustainability of oceans.
