Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
Abstract:
The late Michael Leifer's association with an insecurity-focused realist approach to international affairs and his work on Southeast Asian regionalism inspire this question: How have the Asian financial crisis and the 'war on terror' affected the plausibility of insecurity-concerned realism compared with other ways of approaching regionalism in Southeast Asia?
This report deals exclusively with the European Union and the People's Republic of China (PRC, also known as China) and not with a broader range of issues, such as, for instance, the impact of an embargo lift on the Asia-Pacific balance of power or on the Trans-Atlantic relations. The concerns of countries, such as Australia, Japan, South Korea and, undoubtedly, Taiwan are a very important issue. However, this report sets out to deal exclusively with the EU-China issue. Nevertheless, one can say that, for instance, the delivery of the airborne early-warning and control system (AWACS) to China would considerably change the balance of power in the Asia- Pacific region and exacerbate already strained Trans-Atlantic relations. The US will face the serious dilemma of how to deal with the EU over such deliveries to China, since the EU is their partner and not a subordinate as Israel is, for instance.
Topic:
Security and Markets
Political Geography:
Japan, China, Europe, Asia, South Korea, and Australia
Global Facilitation Network for Security Sector Reform
Abstract:
The Global Facilitation Network (GFN) for Security Sector Reform (SSR) facilitated a symposium in Bangkok from 21-22 September 2004. The purpose of the symposium was to carry out an assessment of the potential of existing and future networks for the promotion and support of Security Sector Reform agendas in Asia. The symposium aimed to encourage a wider debate on SSR by exploring and promoting existing regional networks. Participants attended from a range of many South and South East Asian countries including Bangladesh, East Timor, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam. International experts from Germany, the UK, Switzerland Ghana, and Nigeria also attended, in order to encourage a south-south dialogue and to share experiences from other continents. This diversity of knowledge resulted in enriched debate at a regional level. Experiences were shared and analysed by more than fifty participants from senior positions in academia, politics, military, police, civil society, donor organisations, and the media.
Topic:
Security, Regional Cooperation, and Governance
Political Geography:
Pakistan, South Asia, Indonesia, Malaysia, India, Asia, Nepal, Ghana, and Southeast Asia
Global Facilitation Network for Security Sector Reform
Abstract:
The Security Sector Reform Whitehall Policy Seminar is held each year for practitioners and policymakers to discuss HMG's SSR Strategy and ways in which the strategy should evolve to address current realities. The forum brings together representatives from all Whitehall departments with an interest in security. External guests such as academics, members of non-governmental organizations and local representatives from regions where HMG SSR programmes are ongoing are also invited.
Tracing the political history of the global concept of 'security' through a variety of national and regional inflections in Indonesia, this paper argues for the analytical usefulness of the concept of 'vernacular security'. Entailed in this is a proposal to treat the concept of security as a socially situated and discursively defined category that needs a politically contextualised explication rather than as an analytical category that needs refined definition and consistent use.
The basic arguments of this paper are, first, that the current US-missile defense, being operative from fall 2004, is based upon the former experiences with missile defense, second, that missile defense closely associated with weapons of mass destruction has gained the highest priority in American national security policy due to the 9.11 attacks, and third, that the superior argument for establishing an American missile defense is to maintain global, long term political-strategic superiority.
Topic:
International Relations, Security, and Weapons of Mass Destruction
The paper analyses critically the threat perceptions of the West, and especially the United States, regarding ballistic missiles and weapons of mass destruction in the hands of Asian states. Reviewing Southwest, South and Northeast Asia it finds these regions to be more stable as commonly assumed and little evidence to support the assumption that the states in these regions are undeterrable. A deployment by the United States of ballistic missile defences is thus found to be both superfluous and possibly destabilising. However, a mobile boost-phase defence is found to be less potentially destabilising than other missile defence "architectures".
In thinking about the future direction of the alliance between the United States and South Korea, one needs to start in the past. For in this case, the past is truly prologue. More than a decade ago, as President George H.W. Bush came into office, structural changes in the security landscape of Asia were becoming manifest. The Cold War was winding down. Congress and the American public were looking for returns on the “peace dividend.” There was a clear expectation that cuts would be coming across the board — and in Asia, these cuts would begin with the Korean Peninsula.
Topic:
Security and Government
Political Geography:
United States, Israel, Asia, South Korea, and Korea
After the collapse of the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) faced a strategic challenge: how to shape the post-Communist reform process in Central and Eastern Europe in ways that would foster stability and allow for cooperation on common security problems. NATO created the North Atlantic Cooperation Council (NACC) in December 1991 to promote dialogue on common security concerns with these countries and the former Soviet Union. The NACC dialogue bridged the former East-West divide and illuminated opportunities for practical cooperation. The council also helped Central and East European politicians understand that defense requirements are best rooted in democratic politics and that national security encompassed civil emergency planning and a broader range of concerns, not just the military.
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
In the first paragraphs of their declaration at the Evian Summit in early June 2003, the G8 leaders stated, .We recognize that proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and their means of delivery poses a growing danger to us all. Together with the spread of international terrorism, it is the pre-eminent threat to international security.
Topic:
Security, Arms Control and Proliferation, and Weapons of Mass Destruction