The Role of Regional
Organizations: Are Views Changing?
Amitav
Acharya
Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies
Nanyang
Technological University
Paper Prepared for the Pacific Symposium, 2004, National
Defense University, Washington, D.C.
22-23 April 2004
The question: “regional organizations: are views changing?”, cannot be addressed without looking at whether regional
organizations in Asia are themselves changing in
response to new challenges. This paper offers an overview of recent directions
taken by regional organizations in the Asia Pacific that might reshape and
enhance their contribution to regional order. It discusses four such
developments: the ASEAN Security Community (ASC) concept, the ASEAN Regional
Forum’s (ARF) shift from inter-state to transnational issues, the emergence of
a possible security role for the Asia Pacific Economic
Cooperation (APEC), and finally, the ASEAN Plus Three (APT) concept and its as
yet uncertain role in East Asian security affairs. Overall, this paper finds that
shifts in the role of regional organizations brought about by such events as
the Asian economic crisis or the 9/11 attacks have been path dependent, rather
than path-breaking. Hence, the new directions in Asian regional institutions do
not fundamentally alter the security dynamic of the region, but they do suggest
the need to rethink the framework used to evaluate their record beyond the
confines of realism and institutionalism. While realists dismiss the role of
regional organizations and institutionalists judge
them largely in terms if expected utility, the current initiatives undertaken
by regional organizations are not likely to dispel realist pessimism. Nor would
they offer a fundamental change in the way regional organizations operate. Yet,
the very fact that most states in the region have turned to regional
organizations as one (if not the only way) of the ways of responding to new
challenges suggests a number of factors at work, not the least strategic
uncertainty, behind the continued relevance of regionalism, in spite of
constraints imposed by lack of resources, persistent rivalries, and limited or
uncertain political will.
The ASEAN Security Community Concept
The proposal by Indonesia
in 2003 to create an ASEAN security community (ASC) was motivated by two
factors. The first was the need to rejuvenate ASEAN after the setback it had
suffered in the wake of the Asian economic crisis in 1997. A second motive was Jakarta’s
desire, as it assumed the chairmanship of the ASEAN Standing Committee, to reaffirm
its commitment to ASEAN, which had been subject to doubt by its neighbours since the downfall of Suharto.
The ASEAN Summit in Bali in 2003
endorsed the concept as part of what is officially known as the Bali Concord
II. Several observations about the language of the Bali Concord II are
noteworthy. First, this is a very conservative document, in the sense that
there is no significant movement beyond existing norms and approaches. The
framework for security cooperation is firmly embedded in ASEAN’s existing
norms. Thus, the document stresses peaceful settlement of
intra-regional differences (“members
shall rely exclusively on peaceful processes in the settlement of
intra-regional differences”); confirms the salience of non-interference:
(“Member Countries shall exercise their
rights to lead their national existence free from outside interference in their
internal affairs”); affirms ASEAN’s traditional reluctance to develop
multilateral military cooperation: (“recognizing
the sovereign right of the member countries to pursue their individual foreign
policies and defense arrangements”); and restates ASEAN’s fundamental
principles: (“The ASEAN Security Community shall abide by the UN Charter and
other principles of international law and uphold ASEAN’s principles of
non-interference, consensus-based decision-making, national and regional
resilience, respect for national sovereignty, the renunciation of the threat or
the use of force, and peaceful settlement of differences and disputes.”) It also endorses “existing ASEAN political instruments such as the Declaration on ZOPFAN,
the TAC, and the SEANWFZ Treaty shall continue to play a pivotal role in the
area of confidence building measures, preventive diplomacy and the approaches
to conflict resolution.”
The document does
identify some new areas of cooperation, especially terrorism and maritime
security. “Maritime issues and concerns are transboundary
in nature, and therefore shall be addressed regionally in holistic, integrated
and comprehensive manner. Maritime cooperation between and among ASEAN member
countries shall contribute to the evolution of the ASEAN Security Community.”
As regards terrorism, it calls for “strengthening national and regional
capacities to counter terrorism, drug trafficking, trafficking in persons and
other transnational crimes; and shall work to ensure that the Southeast Asian
Region remains free of all weapons of mass destruction.” It calls on ASEAN
members to “explore innovative ways to increase its security and establish
modalities for the ASEAN Security Community, which include, inter alia, the following elements: norms-setting, conflict
prevention, approaches to conflict resolution, and post-conflict peace
building.”
The ASC is a truncated version of the original Indonesia
proposal, which had urged AESAN to develop a variety of new institutions to
promote security and defence cooperation. In the
words of a paper submitted by the Indonesian Foreign Ministry to the ASEAN
Ministerial Meeting in Cambodia in 2003, (The DEPLU paper), “explore innovative
way into conflict resolution, for sharpening ASEAN cooperation in human
security and defence cooperation, for building
national and regional capacity in dealing with internal conflicts, and for
building a more integrated security and defence
institution which include among others ASEAN Police and “Defence
Minister Meeting” (APDMM) and ASEAN Centre for Cooperation on Non-Conventional
Issues, “ASEAN Center for Combating Terrorism”, ASEAN Center for Peace Keeping
Training.”
Most of these proposals drew upon a concept paper by Indonesian scholar Rizal Sukma, who, in addition to
the above proposals, had also called for an ASEAN Maritime Surveillance Centre.
While ASEAN’s adherence to non-interference might be the
main reason why the Indonesian proposals did not find full acceptance in the
Bali Concord II, another less obvious reason is that they rekindled suspicions
as to Jakarta’s intentions, by reminding fellow ASEAN members such as Singapore
of Jakarta’s aborted attempt to push for defence
cooperation before the first Bali summit in 1976. In this sense, the ghost of Bali
I haunted progress at Bali II. Then, Jakarta
has proposed a package of measures, including intelligence-sharing, joint
military exercises. In the end, The Declaration of ASEAN Concord issued at Bali
left security cooperation outside the ASEAN framework.
The ASEAN Regional Forum: From “Regional Matters to Global Issues”
The ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), the principal multilateral
security organization in the Asia Pacific region, is now a decade old. With a
membership that comprises all the major powers of the contemporary
international system, the ARF is neither a collective security forum in the
sense of the UN; nor is it a collective defence
grouping in the manner of NATO. Instead, the ARF is founded on the principle of
cooperative security, with its primary role being confidence building through
dialogue and socialization. Its agenda was defined at the 1995 meeting in Brunei,
which called for a 3 step approach: confidence-building, preventive diplomacy
and “elaboration of approaches to conflicts.” Since then, the ARF has moved
slowly and cautiously in pursuing this agenda. Its confidence-building measures
consist primarily of non-legalistic, non-intrusive, and non-binding measures,
such as voluntary statements on national defence
postures, meetings among heads of national defence
institutions, and exchanges of personnel in key security areas. Its preventive
diplomacy agenda has been marked by debate over sovereignty and non-interference.
As a result, the ARF’s preventive diplomacy role
excludes intra-state conflicts, and it is yet to develop a role in
dispute-settlement and conflict resolution.
The 9/11 terrorist attacks led the ARF to shift its focused
form conventional inter-state confidence-building issues to cooperation against
transnational issues. At its annual ministerial meeting on 30th
July, 2002 the ARF adopted a series of measures targeting terrorist financing.
These measures included: freezing
terrorist assets; implementation of international standards; international
cooperation on the exchange of information and outreach; technical assistance;
and compliance and reporting. The ARF alos formed an
Inter-Sessional Group ISG on counter- Terrorism and
Translational Crime (co-chaired by Malaysia
and US). ARF meeting in Cambodia
held on 17 June 2003 added
another transnational challenge: maritime security. Reflecting this new focus, Singapore
Foreign Minister Jayakumar urged the ARF to “go
beyond regional matters to global issues.” “Previously, the ARF was mostly
preoccupied with country or region-specific issues such as territorial disputes
in the South China Sea…[now it has to handle] issues which are less
country-specific and more global and transnational in nature.”
In Cambodia,
the ARF adopted several measures in the area of maritime security, including:
increased contacts among personnel, information sharing, anti-piracy exercises,
and regional training in anti-piracy. It also adopted new measures that would
enable members to control movement of extremists across borders through
improved capacity to detect forged passports, tighten immigration procedures
and share immigration data with each other. But as before, none of these step
call for retreat from the principle of non-interference, which remains the
bedrock of the ARF’s approach to security
cooperation.
The ARF has played no significant role in handling the
crisis in the Korean Peninsula
since North Korea
had been admitted to the grouping. This remains unchanged even after North
Korea disclosed its nuclear weapons
development programme. At the Cambodia meeting, US
Secretary of State Colin Powell “bumped into” the North Korean representative
(who happened to be an ambassador-at-large, as Pyongyang would not send its
Foreign Minister) and held a 3 or 5 minute (reports of the duration are
conflicting) conversation, the first meeting between Powell and a North Korean
official since the nuclear crisis in the Korean peninsula unfolded in 2003.
Powell urged North Korea
to accept multilateral discussions. In so far vas proliferation of weapons of
mass destruction was concerned, said Powell, “no issue is of greater urgency to
us than North Korea’s
nuclear weapon’s program.” (Agence France
Press, 19 June 2003, LexisNexis ™ Academic)
The ARF Chairman’s statement which called for the denuclearization of
the Korean peninsula, for Pyongyang to reverse its decision to withdraw from
the Non-Proliferatin Treaty, and endorsed both
inter-Korean dialogues as well as multilateral talks involving the US and China
provoked a bitter denunciation from North Korea, which said that the statement
on North Korea resulted was adopted “forcibly” due to American “unilateral
pressure” and “constitutes a denial of the principles of the ARF activities
such as the respect for sovereignty, non-interference, impartiality and
consensus, the principles of which have been maintained for the last 10 years.”
Moreover, the issue of Burma
is continuing to be a controversial point for the ARF. Indicative of this was
the fact that the criticism of Burma by Colin Powell at the 2003 ARF meeting
was not shared by ASEAN, even though ASEAN itself had issued an unprecedented
call to “Myanmar to resume its efforts
of national reconciliation and dialogue among all parties concerned leading to
a peaceful transition to democracy” and taken note of “assurances” given by
Burma that for an “early lifting of restrictions placed on Daw
Aung San Suu Kyi and the NLD members.”
Despite being criticized for its weak and informal
institutional structure, the ARF has not undertaken any significant new
institutionalization. At the Cambodia
meeting, the Chair acknowledged that the ARF had remained a “consultative and
cooperative forum and was moving only at a pace “comfortable to all.”
Additionally, the issue of membership expansion is proving to be controversial.
In Cambodia, India
blocked a consensus move by ASEAN to induct Pakistan
into the grouping.
Two new ideas may influence the ARF’s
future security role. One is a Chinese proposal for the ARF to hold a “Security
Policy Conference…to be attended mainly by military personnel.” The timing of
the conference is unclear at this point, and this move by China
could be a response to the annual Shangri-la Dialogue, a conclave of defence ministers organized by the International Institute
for Strategic Studies, which China
has refused to send its own defence minister because
of the participation by Taiwanese delegates. A second idea is for an ARF summit
to be held back-to-back with the annual APEC Summit. The proposal was supposed
to have come from ASEAN, but is yet to be seriously pursued.
Like ASEAN itself, APEC, created in 1989, was also severely
weakened by the 1997 crisis. It has seen its trade liberalization agenda
overshadowed by the proliferation of bilateral trade deals. The continuing
exclusion of India
is another limitation of APEC, given India’s
economic potential and its growing commercial and strategic links with the
Asian Pacific region. APEC has sensibly turned its attention to promoting a
human security agenda and fighting terrorism on the economic front. APEC is the
only Asia Pacific organization to provide for a heads of government summit.
Over the past years, this has proven to be a timely and important venue for
consultations to address urgent regional security issues, such as East
Timor (in 1999) and terrorism (in 2001, and 2003).
Against this backdrop, it is not surprising that some
policy-makers and analysts have suggested a move by APEC to discuss security
issues and develop a role in the management of regional order. This builds on
earlier suggestions, especially by U.S. Defence
Secretary William Perry at the 1995 APEC Osaka Leaders’ Meeting that the
grouping might usefully discuss regional security issues. In October 2003, the
U.S. National Security Adviser, Condoleezza
Rice argued: “Just eight years
ago, the U.S. tentatively proposed that APEC some day take on more of a
security role and was roundly criticized for trying to move the forum beyond
its traditional economic focus. Today, there is a clear consensus that
prosperity requires security, and behind that principle lies
evidence of pragmatic cooperation among states to get the job done.”
Condoleezza Rice, “Our Asia Strategy”, Wall Street Journal (24
October 2003).
Indeed, the 9/11 tragedy has already pushed APEC in that
direction. At the APEC Leader’s Meeting in Shanghai held on 21st
October, 2001, the leaders agreed on several measures, including cooperation
in enhancing security at customs, limiting the fallout from terrorist attacks;
enhance ports, aircraft and aircraft security; strengthening Apec activities in the area of
critical sector protection, including telecommunications, transportation,
health and energy. At the Leaders Meeting in Los Cabos, Mexico,
in October 2002, they endorsed the Energy Security Initiative, declared support
for an APEC Action Plan on Combating and Financing Terrorism, and an APEC Cybersecurity Strategy and measures to protect tourism. The
meeting also issued a “Statement on North Korea”
which urged Pyongyang to give up
its nuclear weapons programs. In Bangkok at the 2003 Leaders’ Meeting, APEC
recognized the danger posed by “terrorists’ acquisition and use of Man-Portable
Air Defense Systems (MANPADS) against international aviation” and thus to take
measures such as domestic export controls on MANPADS, secure stockpiles, take
domestic action to regulate production, transfer, and brokering, ban transfers
to non-state end-users, and exchange information in support of these efforts.
Other recent APEC initiatives that has security implications
include the creation of an Energy Working Group as part of the APEC Energy
Security Initiative, participation by APEC Working Groups in sealane security measures such as Sea Lane Disruption
Simulation Exercise, the Secure Trade in the APEC Region (STAR) initiative
which addresses issues relating to maritime security, aviation security,
passenger processing, technology for security enhancement, capacity building, project
planning and financing, and supply chain security. Most importantly, APEC has
created a Counter-Terrorism Task Force to oversee the implementation of the
various initiatives from the Leaders’ Meeting such as The Statement on Fighting
Terrorism and Promoting Growth.
But a full-fledged role for APEC in regional security issues
faces several constraints. In the past, especially before 9/11, critics of APEC’s security role such as Noordin Sopiee have argued
that such a role would lack support among members, would be constrained by the
lack of participation of non-members such as Russia (and India); and would
engage members such as Chile, Mexico and Peru who are really not relevant to
East Asian security. Other arguments against APEC”s
security role have included concerns that it might undermine the ARF; overwhelm
APEC’s already crowded agenda, and divert APEC from
its core concerns such as sectoral trade
liberalization. A security role would confirm misgivings about APEC’s real purpose (strategic), invite opposition from China
given Taiwan’s
involvement in APEC. While 1997 crisis already led APEC to lose focus on
economic issues and 9/11 introduced new urgency to security issues, some of the
old obstacles, such as Chinese objection, conflict with the ARF’s
role, non-participation of India,
an APEC non-member, remain.
Finally, the idea that adding security issues to APEC’s agenda would make China
and the United States
uncomfortable and was contrary to the wishes of most APEC members would be
undermined when, post September 11, leading players
within APEC perceived that they could use the institution to pursue their new
security agendas.
The ASEAN Plus Three framework is a
new concept that emerged partly in response to the Asia
economic crisis of 1997 and the failure of existing regional organizations to
respond effectively to this crisis. The APT’s
membership is limited to the 10 ASEAN members and three Northeast Asian
countries, Japan,
China and South
Korea. As such, it challenges the
neo-liberal and largely utilitarian view of regionalism represented by APEC. As
an East Asian framework, it is more attuned to its members’ sense of regional
identity than either APEC or the ARF.
In a recent paper, John Ravenhill
has discounted many of these objections.
Referring to the objections above, he argues that the presence of central and
South American countries is no impediment, since APEC’s
Bogor
principle allows it to pursue a policy goal without the support or involvement
of all the members. He also contends that China’s
objections about Taiwanese involvement in APEC though important has to be seen
in the context that China
also does not allow discuss of Taiwan
in the ARF, where Taiwan
is not a member. Finally, Ravenhill argues that the
ARF is equally heterogeneous; and that having a high profile security issue
will reenergize APEC and make it more effective.
ASEAN Plus Three: Does Regional Identity Matter?
The ASEAN Plus Three framework
emerged partly in response to the Asia economic crisis
of 1997 and the failure of existing regional organizations to respond
effectively to this crisis. In an important sense, however, its origins lie in
the Malaysian proposal for an East Asian Economic Grouping/Caucus mooted in
1990 by then Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammed. The APT’s membership is limited to the 10 ASEAN members and
three Northeast Asian countries, Japan,
China and South
Korea. As such, it challenges the
neo-liberal and largely utilitarian view of regionalism represented by APEC. As
an East Asian framework, it is more attuned to its members’ sense of regional
identity than either APEC or the ARF.
This by itself does not ensure the APT’s
success, however. The APT’s major role could be in
enhancing the economic security of the region through monetary and financial
cooperation. Another potential benefit could be to lay the foundations for a
Northeast Asian subregional grouping, thereby
complementing ASEAN.
But the further success would require overcoming
Sino-Japanese competition for influence in East Asia,
and its ability to provide concrete solutions to regional problems that have
eluded the other regional groups. APT is no more likely to overcome the barrier
of noninterference. Moreover, some East Asian nations doubt the wisdom of a
regional economic and security grouping that excludes the United
States, and other Asia-Pacific players such
as Canada, Australia
and New Zealand.
The APT is a potentially significant development in Asia’s
security architecture, because of the key role of China.
Through the APT, China
has an unprecedented opportunity to shape the agenda of East Asian security
cooperation, perhaps supplanting a weakened ASEAN that is at the same time
increasingly dependent on China’s
markets. China’s
growing involvement in multilateralism is a welcome development, and vindicates
the strategy of China’s
neighbours and policy advocates who saw engaging China
through multilateral institutions as a superior approach to regional order than
containing China.
China has been
able to use multilateralism as a means to dampen the talk about a “China
threat” and discredit containment. In return, ASEAN has gained Chinese pledge
not to use force in the Spratlys and its accession to
the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation. But worries remains
whether China
will turn its engagement in regional institutions into a lever for regional
dominance. Any temptation, which may be natural for a rising power, to use the
APT to isolate the US
in regional security affairs and dominate ASEAN will undo China’s
diplomatic gains, spur ASEAN’s opposition and Japanese counter-balancing, and
doom the APT.
But history is not in
favor of the emergence of China
as a regional hegemon. As the fate of Japan’s
pre-war efforts for a Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere, the American
sponsored SEATO, and the Soviet Union’s Doctrine of
Collective Security in the 1970s, demonstrate, Asia has
traditionally rejected any putative multilateral security structure which is
dominated, or seen to be dominated, by any single power. China’s
dominance of a broad regional security architecture remains subject to
countervailing roles by the US,
India, Japan
and ASEAN. China
can hardly exercise such dominance without undermining the legitimacy of its
own protestations against US
interference in its internal affairs, whether its “peaceful evolution” or Taiwan.
Outlook for
Regional Organizations
The foregoing shows quite clearly that purpose and role of
key Asia Pacific regional organizations are changing. Existing regional
organizations, such as ASEAN, as well as newer ones such as APEC and ARF, are
taking on new tasks and roles (APEC). And totally new institutions are
emerging. But the key question is: do these changes warrant a shift in the
prevailing understanding of regional organizations and their role in promoting
security?
The momentum and enthusiasm for regionalism evident during
the early 1990s have given way to pessimism and even cynicism. A common basis
of these criticisms, whether exaggerated or not, is weak leadership (especially
by ASEAN), weak institutionalization, and the continued or increased reliance
of regional actors on alternative approaches, such as balance of power
mechanisms or bilateral alliances and trading arrangements. Regionalism is seen
at best as an adjunct to bilateralism and power politics, at worst as a
dysfunctional mode of interaction that impedes progress towards a genuine
regional community based on post-Westphalian
principles and approaches to transnational problem solving. Indeed, the
resilience of America’s
post-war bilateral collective defence arrangements
may be contrasted with the weakness of the region’s fledgling multilateral
cooperative security experiments.
Going by conventional realist and institutionalist
yardsticks, the shifts in the role of regional institutions may not be the
cause for much optimism. Institutionalists would
judge the new roles and initiatives in terms of their utility or expected
utility. This calls for pessimism; the new initiatives undertaken by Asian
groups in addressing the security challenges of the post-1997 and post-9/11 era
are limited. Utility calculations linked to domestic interests (such as those
favoring liberalization) are of course a key factor in the case of economic
regionalism, such as the ASEAN Free Trade Area (now re-envisaged as an ASEAN
Economic Community). But they are less salient when it comes to security
regionalism, although one cannot rigidly separate economic considerations from
the desire for security regionalism.
Realists would be even more dismissive of regional
organizations; for them, they are little more than adjuncts to power politics.
Yet, if regional organizations are so flawed, and their benefits so limited,
why do so many states in the region seek membership in them and do not withdraw
when the expected benefits of membership are not forthcoming. This cannot be
simply a matter of membership having little or no cost; for small states like
Cambodia and Laos, membership in ASEAN and attendance in its 300 plus annual
meetings is costly. Moreover, there is no sovereign state in Asia
which has deliberately stayed away from or boycotted these regional
organizations, not even North Korea
or Burma.
So what motivates states to accept regionalism despite its
limitations? One key factor is the “habit of cooperation” developed around
ASEAN, which continues to exert an appeal which cannot be explained if one was
looking simply at the material benefits of cooperation. Second, regional
organizations do help preserve international norms at the regional level at a
time when they are becoming unfashionable at the global level. One good example
of this would be the non-interference norm, which continues to be the bedrock
of Asian regional groups even when it has become increasingly discredited at
the international level. Without this norm, it would be hard to explain China’s
turn to regionalism. Third, regional organizations offer a certain degree of
legitimacy and respectability to states and regimes which have been at the
receiving end of criticism and pressure from the international community for
their unsavory domestic practices. Burma
falls squarely into this category. Fourth, regional organizations offer an
avenue for states to pursue distinctive foreign policy goals which may reflect
their political and ideological orientations. Witness for example Malaysia’s
dogged pursuit of the EAEC concept, which reflected the ideological
underpinnings of Mahathirism.
Most importantly, the desire to participate in regional
groupings is driven not so much by their expected utility, but by the fear of
the unexpected. Asian regionalism today, as in the past, is an insurance
against strategic uncertainty. A good example is the turn to regionalism in the
1990s which was driven by concerns about a possible US
military withdrawal from the region. While this is no longer an issue, concerns
about China’s
rising power and role remains a powerful source of strategic uncertainty which
drives regionalism today. Moreover, terrorism, infectious disease and sudden
economic downturns have introduced other elements of uncertainty in the
regional security outlook.
Such uncertainty about existing and dominant security
structures also remains a crucial determinant of regionalism. While in the
early 1990s, the emergence of a variety of multilateral security dialogues and
institutions offered the promise to dilute, if not altogether supplant, the
centrality of America’s
bilateral security arrangements, the Asian economic crisis that begun in
mid-1997 put paid to that expectation. On face of it, bilateral security
arrangements in Asia seem to have done a better job in
adapting to the post-Cold War and post-September 11 challenges than the
region’s multilateral security institutions. The US-Japan alliance has been
revitalized against the rise of China
and then readjusted to meet the requirements of the war on terror. This and the
US-Australia alliance have been used to support America’s
interventions in Afghanistan
and Iraq. The US
has enhanced its bilateral security cooperation with Singapore,
securing greater access to military facilities there. Thailand
and the Philippines
have been accorded major non-NATO ally status by the Bush administration.
But it will be a mistake to write off regionalism completely
or regard it as a spent force. Multilateralism does offer important benefits,
including, as noted, the engagement of China.
The fact that the US
favors multilateral approaches when such approaches suit its strategic
objectives is not an indictment of multilateralism, because such situations are
hardly exceptional in international politics. Despite the limitations of
multilateralism, however, a security order relying primarily on balancing
mechanisms need not be East Asia’s destiny. The
long-term outlook for America’s
bilateral alliances remains uncertain. There are serious uncertainties over the
future of the US-South Korean alliance, much of it due to growing domestic
opposition in South Korea
to Washington’s hardline stance towards North
Korea. Similarly, the revival of the
US-Philippines defence relationship is a move that
may not necessarily survive the current preoccupation of both governments with
terrorism in the south. Domestic opinion in the Philippines
remains predisposed against too close a security nexus between Washington
and Philippine security agencies. The US-Australia alliance remains robust, but
Howard’s desired role as something of a local American “deputy sheriff” has not
endeared him to the region and has alienated segments of domestic Australian
public opinion which may now back a Labor alternative.
It is also important to note that America’s
bilateral alliances have thrived by being adaptive. One aspect of this
adaptation is their willingness to become more inclusive, and thereby narrow
the political gap between bilateralism and multilateralism. For example, bilateral exercises involving
the US and
formal treaty allies such as Thailand
(Cobra Gold) now routinely include third country participation and observation.
Bilateral structures operating under multilateral norms of transparency and
inclusiveness may be one of the more important developments in the emerging
Asian security order.