IR3001 Asian Security

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IR3001Asian Security
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Asian Security

• Background
• Recent colonisation decolonisation
• Vast and diverse territory
• Several new threats
• Numerous traditional security concerns

3
Great powers
Great powers aspiring great power
Nuclear states
Nuclear states nuclear threshold states
3 RSCs South Asia Southeast Asia
Northeast Asia
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Cold War inNortheast Asia

• Until 1960? clear dividing line
• After 1960? China becomes important player
• Regional securitisation of Japan? regional
  dynamics
• Securitisation of divided states? Superpower
  dynamics

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Post-Cold War inNortheast Asia

• Continuity? traditional security geopolitics
• Divisions N-S Korea // China-Taiwan
• US role, particularly US-N Korea
• Japan and neighbours difficult
• Change? moderate co-operation
• Rise of economic issues interdependence
• Stabilisation
• Multilaterilisation
• Challenges? Power transitions
• China-US, Jp-US, NK, democratisation

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Cold War inSoutheast Asia

• Complex security dynamics
• Ideological alignments
• Superpower involvement
• Local rivalries
• Territorial disputes
• Creation of ASEAN (1967)
• Anti-communist
• Containment of Indonesia
• Weak security regime
• From ideological intrastate polarisation to
  ideological interstate polarisation

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Post-Cold War inSoutheast Asia

• Soviet withdrawal ? Chinas rise
• Other winner ASEAN
• Gradual expansion of ASEAN
• ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF, 1993)
• Contain China, include USA, avoid Japans
  rearming
• Co-operative Security arrangement (?collective
  sec.)
• Balance-of-Power considerations

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Cold War inSouth Asia

• Dominated by India-Pakistani conflict, involving
• Military sector
• Political sector
• Societal sector
• Sino-Indian war
• Penetration by CW superpowers

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Post-Cold War inSouth Asia

• Regional dynamics reinforced, not created, by CW
• Pakistani involvement in Afghanistan
• Escalation of Indo-Pakistaniconflict
• Border
• Interference
• Nuclear capability
• Continuity, rather than change!

In a Pakistani weekly a snake from Afghanistan
baring its fangs in Pakistan's North-West
Frontier Province
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Asian Security

• Conclusions
• Different security dynamics in each sub-RSCs
• NEA
• survival of CW division, yet relaxed
• Economy gt Military
• SEA
• Increasing regional institutionalisation
• SA
• Few changes, escalation of rivalry
• Continued presence of BoP considerations