he reputation of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ non-intrusion practice, in the face of both intra- and inter-state political conflicts, has reached a critical juncture as conflicts within its neighborhood have become increasingly systemic and cyclical. Michael Vatikiotis, senior adviser at the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue and a journalist who has been covering Southeast Asia since 1987, writes that in the region, “behind the smiling mask of tropical abundance, there lurks a reality of perennial threats to stability and survival.” The absence of a dedicated platform for political crisis management has allowed root causes to fester and perpetuate violence and instability. Given these contexts, the urgency for ASEAN to institutionalize a mechanism for political crisis management is evident and obligatory.
Embracing this necessary paradigm shift necessitates the development of a comprehensive framework encompassing robust conflict resolution strategies and a pragmatic ethical humanitarian intervention. The United States and the European Union have a crucial role to play in supporting and contributing to the institutionalization of ASEAN’s political crisis management. By working alongside ASEAN with their expertise and resources, they can help build an effective early warning system, bolster regional stability, and most importantly, strengthen ASEAN’s commitment to multilateralism.
While ASEAN has established various mechanisms that bear some resemblance to political crisis management initiatives, such as the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) and the ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting, their inherent limitations render them ineffective in addressing the root causes of the existing and escalating conflicts in the region.
The ARF has made relevant contributions in the promotion of regional peace and security through confidence-building measures, preventive diplomacy, and conflict resolution. In a similar lens, a joint statement issued on 23 November 2022 by the ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting Plus (ADMM+), emphasized the necessity of improving defense collaborations through confidence-building and preventive diplomacy. Amy Searight, senior adviser and director of the Southeast Asia program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, states that the ADMM+ “has had a remarkable trajectory in advancing multilateral cooperation through strategic dialogue and practical security cooperation in a relatively short period of time.” However, Searight added that while strategic dialogue, confidence-building measures, and multilateral exercises are all valuable tools, they will not suffice.
These mechanisms, albeit well-intentioned, endure fundamental deficiencies that hinder their ability to generate substantial change. They are predominantly non-binding in nature, and lack the necessary teeth to enforce compliance. Moreover, they often exhibit inconsistent levels of commitment due to constrained institutional authority and resources. Consequently, they are reduced to mere palliative measures that only offer temporary respite without addressing the underlying issues, leading to an unfortunate tendency to avoid or deliberately neglect engaging directly with thorny and sensitive political issues. ASEAN’s discernible hesitancy or even outright avoidance of politics is not acceptable. While conflicts and crises often have multiple and inter-related dimensions, politics remains indispensable. In every type of conflict and crisis, contestations over power and representation exist, these are inherently political, and decision-making processes are often done by competition, bargaining, and compromise within a conglomerate of bureaucratic or organizational entities.
In the intricate tapestry of diplomacy and foreign policy, ASEAN’s institutionalization of political crisis management carries significant implications for the region’s stability and progress. As ASEAN contemplates a way forward for its relevance and centrality in the 21st century, it must consider strategic and ethical humanitarian intervention as a fundamental principle. This approach will primarily require ASEAN to negotiate power-sharing arrangements, implement evaluation and monitoring of governance practices, and facilitate reconciliation and restitution processes among its stakeholders. In addition, the conduct of strategic and ethical humanitarian intervention must provide a framework for timely and decisive action when confronted with severe human rights abuses or threats to regional security. This approach ensures that ASEAN’s institutionalization of political crisis management aligns with the broader goals of promoting human dignity and upholding a multilateral and rule-based regional order in Southeast Asia.
A U.S. and EU involvement in ASEAN’s institutionalization of political crisis management can lend vigor and legitimacy to such endeavors. Given their longstanding commitments to regional peace and development cooperation, their involvement would signal a strong endorsement of ASEAN’s efforts to enhance regional stability, decisively address sensitive regional issues, and reinforce ASEAN centrality. This endorsement, moreover, could help garner support from ASEAN member-states and strengthen the international perception of ASEAN as a credible, proactive, and progressively evolving regional organization.
The U.S. and EU have significant geopolitical interests in Southeast Asia. The stability and progress of the region directly impacts global trade and economic security dynamics, and ASEAN is perhaps at present the only regional organization where both the U.S. and EU can depend on optimizing their cooperative security agenda and protecting their geo-economic interests against the backdrop of the Russo-Ukrainian War, North Korea’s volatile behavior and its nuclear threat, and the tension with China concerning trade and global finance, Taiwan, and the territorial dispute in the South China Sea.
The U.S. and EU can jointly provide technical expertise and infrastructure support to develop a robust intelligence gathering and monitoring database and an early warning system in ASEAN. Specifically, an ASEAN peace enforcement organization should be established, its composition derived not from each member-state’s police or military force, but instead principally of interdisciplinary experts and practitioners of conflict forecasting, risk analysis, and emancipatory peacebuilding. Similar to the European Union, a civil protection pool should be formed as ASEAN’s reserve of emergency response teams pre-committed by the member-states for urgent deployment, to focus on the rescue and sustenance of civilians.
While ASEAN has considerably utilized confidence-building, it should now focus on capacity building such as cultural mapping, discourse analysis, monitoring and evaluation protocols, and mediation techniques. These practices will be a significant groundwork to establish an effective and a sustainable peace enforcement and civil protection pool, thus ensuring the conduct of strategic and ethical humanitarian interventions in the region. Since the U.S. and EU, through their international development aid channels and agencies, have an ample network of non-government or civil society organizations and independent think tanks, they can share this network with ASEAN and initiate a series of colloquium to construct the institutional structure and designs of ASEAN’s political crisis management.
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ASEAN’s Political Crisis Management and a Call for U.S.-EU Support
October 2, 2023
ASEAN lacks institutional mechanisms for internal political crisis management, and the lack is being felt as conflicts within its neighborhood become systemic. The U.S. and EU could provide critical support in institutionalizing better systems, writes Jonathan Eli Libut.
T
he reputation of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ non-intrusion practice, in the face of both intra- and inter-state political conflicts, has reached a critical juncture as conflicts within its neighborhood have become increasingly systemic and cyclical. Michael Vatikiotis, senior adviser at the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue and a journalist who has been covering Southeast Asia since 1987, writes that in the region, “behind the smiling mask of tropical abundance, there lurks a reality of perennial threats to stability and survival.” The absence of a dedicated platform for political crisis management has allowed root causes to fester and perpetuate violence and instability. Given these contexts, the urgency for ASEAN to institutionalize a mechanism for political crisis management is evident and obligatory.
Embracing this necessary paradigm shift necessitates the development of a comprehensive framework encompassing robust conflict resolution strategies and a pragmatic ethical humanitarian intervention. The United States and the European Union have a crucial role to play in supporting and contributing to the institutionalization of ASEAN’s political crisis management. By working alongside ASEAN with their expertise and resources, they can help build an effective early warning system, bolster regional stability, and most importantly, strengthen ASEAN’s commitment to multilateralism.
While ASEAN has established various mechanisms that bear some resemblance to political crisis management initiatives, such as the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) and the ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting, their inherent limitations render them ineffective in addressing the root causes of the existing and escalating conflicts in the region.
The ARF has made relevant contributions in the promotion of regional peace and security through confidence-building measures, preventive diplomacy, and conflict resolution. In a similar lens, a joint statement issued on 23 November 2022 by the ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting Plus (ADMM+), emphasized the necessity of improving defense collaborations through confidence-building and preventive diplomacy. Amy Searight, senior adviser and director of the Southeast Asia program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, states that the ADMM+ “has had a remarkable trajectory in advancing multilateral cooperation through strategic dialogue and practical security cooperation in a relatively short period of time.” However, Searight added that while strategic dialogue, confidence-building measures, and multilateral exercises are all valuable tools, they will not suffice.
These mechanisms, albeit well-intentioned, endure fundamental deficiencies that hinder their ability to generate substantial change. They are predominantly non-binding in nature, and lack the necessary teeth to enforce compliance. Moreover, they often exhibit inconsistent levels of commitment due to constrained institutional authority and resources. Consequently, they are reduced to mere palliative measures that only offer temporary respite without addressing the underlying issues, leading to an unfortunate tendency to avoid or deliberately neglect engaging directly with thorny and sensitive political issues. ASEAN’s discernible hesitancy or even outright avoidance of politics is not acceptable. While conflicts and crises often have multiple and inter-related dimensions, politics remains indispensable. In every type of conflict and crisis, contestations over power and representation exist, these are inherently political, and decision-making processes are often done by competition, bargaining, and compromise within a conglomerate of bureaucratic or organizational entities.
In the intricate tapestry of diplomacy and foreign policy, ASEAN’s institutionalization of political crisis management carries significant implications for the region’s stability and progress. As ASEAN contemplates a way forward for its relevance and centrality in the 21st century, it must consider strategic and ethical humanitarian intervention as a fundamental principle. This approach will primarily require ASEAN to negotiate power-sharing arrangements, implement evaluation and monitoring of governance practices, and facilitate reconciliation and restitution processes among its stakeholders. In addition, the conduct of strategic and ethical humanitarian intervention must provide a framework for timely and decisive action when confronted with severe human rights abuses or threats to regional security. This approach ensures that ASEAN’s institutionalization of political crisis management aligns with the broader goals of promoting human dignity and upholding a multilateral and rule-based regional order in Southeast Asia.
A U.S. and EU involvement in ASEAN’s institutionalization of political crisis management can lend vigor and legitimacy to such endeavors. Given their longstanding commitments to regional peace and development cooperation, their involvement would signal a strong endorsement of ASEAN’s efforts to enhance regional stability, decisively address sensitive regional issues, and reinforce ASEAN centrality. This endorsement, moreover, could help garner support from ASEAN member-states and strengthen the international perception of ASEAN as a credible, proactive, and progressively evolving regional organization.
The U.S. and EU have significant geopolitical interests in Southeast Asia. The stability and progress of the region directly impacts global trade and economic security dynamics, and ASEAN is perhaps at present the only regional organization where both the U.S. and EU can depend on optimizing their cooperative security agenda and protecting their geo-economic interests against the backdrop of the Russo-Ukrainian War, North Korea’s volatile behavior and its nuclear threat, and the tension with China concerning trade and global finance, Taiwan, and the territorial dispute in the South China Sea.
The U.S. and EU can jointly provide technical expertise and infrastructure support to develop a robust intelligence gathering and monitoring database and an early warning system in ASEAN. Specifically, an ASEAN peace enforcement organization should be established, its composition derived not from each member-state’s police or military force, but instead principally of interdisciplinary experts and practitioners of conflict forecasting, risk analysis, and emancipatory peacebuilding. Similar to the European Union, a civil protection pool should be formed as ASEAN’s reserve of emergency response teams pre-committed by the member-states for urgent deployment, to focus on the rescue and sustenance of civilians.
While ASEAN has considerably utilized confidence-building, it should now focus on capacity building such as cultural mapping, discourse analysis, monitoring and evaluation protocols, and mediation techniques. These practices will be a significant groundwork to establish an effective and a sustainable peace enforcement and civil protection pool, thus ensuring the conduct of strategic and ethical humanitarian interventions in the region. Since the U.S. and EU, through their international development aid channels and agencies, have an ample network of non-government or civil society organizations and independent think tanks, they can share this network with ASEAN and initiate a series of colloquium to construct the institutional structure and designs of ASEAN’s political crisis management.
