This article is character of Conceptualization of “ Maritime Security ” in Southeast Asia, a series of analyses produced by experts convened by the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies .
Despite its growing prominence in international relations and extraneous policy converse, there is no normally accepted definition for nautical security.1 Among Southeast Asia ’ s key coastal states, only the governments of the Philippines and Thailand have officially defined nautical security. Both of those definitions are exceptionally broad, embracing national goals oriented toward the base hit, security, and socio-economic development of their nautical space. The surveys of Brunei, Indonesia, Singapore, and Vietnam found general consensus regarding similarly broad understandings of what terror responses fit into the domain of nautical security .
One way to understand these conceptualizations is to view them as the maritime elements of the national resilience approaches to security that are common among southeast asian states. The national resilience concept fuses the protective covering of reign against the influence of foreign states with the strengthen of the express ’ mho economic, social, and political fabric.2 It connects economic and sociable development goals with inner and external security action to create a condition where national ability addresses all threats to the integrity of the nation-state.3 At the regional level, the national resilience has both internal and external implications as national governments are expected to “ promote domestic constancy on a comprehensive examination basis sol that the resultant plug states can withstand internal and external stresses and therefore contribute to the attainment of regional resilience in Southeast Asia. ” 4
Maritime security only entered Southeast Asia ’ south policy vocabulary in the 1990s, moving from the Track II community into official policy discourse. The proceedings from a 1991 conference on nautical change convened by the australian Chief of Naval staff illustrate the early stages of this development. Papers delivered by senior naval officers from Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, Australia, India, and the United States discus concerns regarding the maritime environment, external security, sea lines of communication, craft, law of the sea, befoulment prevention, information rally, naval security system, national sovereign territorial integrity, maritime commerce, and maritime manpower development.5 however, these combined papers only use the condition “ maritime security ” : once, when indonesian Commodore I.G. Artjana wrote that cooperation between Southeast Asian states is, “ contributing toward global maritime security. ” 6 In contrast, the paper delivered by a fastness of the period ’ s maritime-oriented Track II circuit, J.N. Mak, discussed the Royal Malaysian Navy ’ sulfur feat to balance its “ nautical security ” and “ nautical refutation ” missions in subscribe of Malaysia ’ s home resilience.7 Mak ’ s appraisal reflected western approaches to divide maritime missions that had found their way into regional academic discussions that did not necessarily comport with the application of maritime office by Southeast asian states.8

Reading: Evolving Conceptualizations of Maritime Security in Southeast Asia | Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative

As shown in Jay Batongbacal ’ second analysis, in 1994 “ maritime security ” was incorporated into the Philippines National Maritime Policy, possibly the inaugural use of the term in a Southeast asian national policy. This policy was an authoritative element of the Ramos government ’ s comprehensive examination security strategy and was designed to cement the Philippines ’ situation on archipelagic waters as the 1982 UNCLOS entered into force.9 The reason that this document served as the bridge carrying the terminus from Track II to official hold forth correlates to the fact the filipino politics outsourced the draft of the policy to a group of academics. The resultant definition encompassed military defense, police activities, and socio-economic development in the nation ’ s maritime space .
According to Dita Liliansa ’ s inquiry, the 1994 Chairman ’ s Statement of the First Meeting of the ASEAN Regional Forum contains the beginning use of the term maritime security in ASEAN-related documents even though ASEAN policy discourse had been focusing on concerns such as unsolved nautical borders, armed robbery at sea, smuggle, and drug traffic. Going forward, the documents produced by ASEAN and ASEAN-related bodies show that the bodies involving non-ASEAN members are more progressive on nautical security issues and more likely to use the term earlier. The likely reflects the fact that in the post-Cold War era the security of regional sealanes was a key intersection of Southeast asian and extra-regional partners ’ security concerns. The ambiguous nature of “ maritime security ” enabled the consensus-based organization to approve its use whereas more accurate terms would have likely been disappointing to at least one member state .
As the twentieth hundred gave way to the twenty-first, a series of events reordered Southeast asian states ’ threat perceptions and placed nautical security at the top of their agendas. Around the Sulu Sea, the Abu Sayyaf group ’ sulfur operations included amphibious raids such as the 1995 attack on the town of Ipil that took about one hundred lives, and the loanblend terror/criminal group conducted a hanker chain of kidnap-for-ransom attacks against vessel and coastal communities. In Indonesia, sectarian violence spilled into the maritime domain as fighters traveled by ships between islands and modest craft became both targets and the means of attack.10 Mass casualty bombings of ferries such as Our Lady Mediatrix ( 2000 ), Kalifornia ( 2001 ), and Superferry 14 ( 2004 ) took hundreds more lives in the Philippines and Indonesia. Al-Qaeda ’ south attacks on USS Cole ( 2000 ) and MV Limburg ( 2002 ) took invest beyond Southeast Asia but increased concerns that the regional terrorist affiliates might conduct like operations in critical sea lanes. Those concerns were underscored by Singaporean authorities ’ discovery of plots for Jemaah Islamiyah cells to attack visiting american english warships and other maritime targets.11
In the lapp period, rising rates of armed looting in the Straits of Malacca and Singapore spurred expanding police enforcement actions and the development of international cooperative mechanisms such as the Strait of Malacca Patrols and the Regional Cooperation Agreement on Combating Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships in Asia ( ReCAAP ). As counter-terrorism and nautical security emerged as the issues dominating regional security hold forth, states prioritized maritime security action both to simultaneously safeguard their people, protect economic activities, and anticipate electric potential alien intervention.12
The first conventional ASEAN instrumental role to use the term “ maritime security system ” is the 2003 Bali Concord II. By naming nautical security a coarse ASEAN refer and specifically placing nautical cooperation among the aspirations of the ASEAN Security Community, this agreement placed nautical security formally at the heart of the ASEAN agenda for comprehensive examination security, “ which goes beyond the requirements of traditional security but besides takes into account non-traditional aspects vital to regional and national resilience, such as the economic, socio-cultural, and environmental dimensions of development. ” 13 By the end of the decade, the term “ maritime security ” had found its way to the center of the regional policy vocabulary, and had become a regularly recurring sport of senior political leaders ’ statements and national policy documents. These usages systematically frame nautical security as both countering the threats posed by non-state actors and sustaining state sovereign rights at sea .
Southeast Asia ’ s primary extra-regional players besides began embracing “ nautical security ” as a frame concept during the early 2000s. In the immediate post-9/11 earned run average, the United States launched the Proliferation Security Initiative and Container Security Initiative, two important elements of President Bush ’ s Southeast Asia agenda. Both resided under a nautical security conceptual umbrella. In 2003 and 2004, the Regional Maritime Security Initiative clumsily attempted to unify respective projects to improve regional capacity and cooperation action against non-state nautical threats. After Malaysia and Indonesia obstreperously objected to the program by sharing their concerns regarding U.S. intent to violate their sovereignty, the name was swiftly taken out of use, though most of the programs under its umbrella continued. The virtual outcomes of the initiatives were generally welcomed thus long as they respected regional sensitivities.14
Japan become involved in international maritime security by mobilizing diplomatic and seashore guard resources to aid Southeast Asia with the ocean looting problem of the early 2000s and the 2007 Basic Act on Ocean Policy laid out its national nautical security policy. The 2008 Mumbai terror attack served as a catalyst transforming indian perceptions of maritime security similar to the american 9/11 experience. In 2009 the Guide to australian Maritime Security Arrangements ( GAMSA ) was inaugural published by Australia as an overarch document for versatile government agencies that would provide a comprehensive approach to a broad range of nautical threats under the broad umbrella of nautical security.15
Southeast Asia ’ s conceptualization of “ nautical security ” increasingly took on inter-state elements during the 2000s as relations with China became more antagonistic concerning the territorial disputes with some ASEAN members. For model, in 2009, diplomatic tensions escalated when China responded to a Malaysian-Vietnamese joint submission to the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf to extend their continental shelves beyond the standard two hundred nautical miles and in the inflame of the USNS Impeccable incident. As state competition ramped up in the South China Sea, the United States increasingly used maritime security system as a concept that had less to do with countering non-state actors and more as a euphemism for “ holding the line ” against rising chinese naval power. Unlike the 2003-4 Regional Maritime Security Dialogue which had focused on terrorists and criminals, the Maritime Security Initiative at the 2015 Shangri-la Dialogue was focused on inter-state competition. The perceived euphemistic value was clearly reflected in the fact that Maritime Security Initiative was the diplomatic nickname applied to funds in the first place authorized by Congress as the “ South China Sea Initiative. ” 16
In contrast to the extra-regional powers ’ tend into great power competition, Southeast Asian states ’ concerns have grown with obedience to both express and non-state nautical threats. Socio-economic development besides remains a central part of nautical security concepts. For example, while chinese actions in the South China Sea have been of capital concern, the domestic and inner pressures associated with IUU Fishing have besides been essential drivers of regional maritime security action. Maritime security is institutionalized in the 2025 ASEAN Political-Security Community Blueprint, and it is increasingly discussed in organizations and meetings chartered under the ASEAN Economic Community and ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community .
[ 1 ] Christian Bueger, “ What is maritime security ?, ” Marine Policy 53 ( 2015 ) : 159. [ 2 ] Michael Leifer, Dictionary of the Modern Politics of South-east Asia ( London : Routledge, 1995 ), 183. [ 3 ] Ralf Emmers, “ Comprehensive security and resilience in Southeast Asia : ASEAN ’ s approach to Terrorism, The Pacific Review, Vol. 22, No. 2, May 2009, 161.

Evolving Conceptualizations of Maritime Security in Southeast Asia | Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative

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