A Critical Review of "Regional Order by Means? Examining The Rise of Defense Diplomacy in Southeast Asia"
A Critical Review of "Regional Order by Means? Examining The Rise of Defense Diplomacy in Southeast Asia"
A Critical Review of "Regional Order by Means? Examining The Rise of Defense Diplomacy in Southeast Asia"
Rizky Setiawan
1. Introduction
In the article by Evan Laksamana (2012) entitled “Regional Order by Means? Examining
The Rise of Defense Diplomacy in Southeast Asia”, he examines the excuses as well as the
implementation of defense security which seems increasingly significant for the last decade in
Southeast Asia. This study also critically examines the relation amongst ASEAN, ARF, and
Indonesia’s bilateral defense diplomacy. Furthermore, this study consists three school of thoughts
regarding the uptrend of defense diplomacy, they are:
According to David Capie in his paper entitled “Structures, Shocks and Norm Change:
Explaining the Late Rise of Asia’s Defence Diplomacy”, he depicts that the Asia’s multilateral
diplomacy in defense subject can be called as a slow-movement forms compare to the others of
institutionalized security discourse as well as the explanation of recent growth. He found that the
critical the stress of “catalyctic role” of external shocks or changes in power distribution are
underdetermining.
He also explains the variable in which related to the late of multilateral defense diplomacy
in Asia is because this major factors. Firstly, the instrumental and normative explanation where
the imbalance of threats that impacts many Southeast Asia states during Cold War persecution.
For instance, many Southeast Asia region, including Indonesia, were occupied by the state-
making and internal security problem than the changing security order in each region.
David also analyze that due the dramatic external shocks or changes in the balance of
power or threat, the Asia’s multilateral defense diplomacy can be defined as an incremental
process where formed a pivotal ways by Southeast Asia pre-existing institutions.
Therefore, in this paper, the writer wants to critically review the result of a research article
by Evan in “Regional Order by Means? Examining The Rise of Defense Diplomacy in Southeast
Asia” in order to obtain such a knowledge regarding the defense diplomacy in specific region of
Southeast Asia and fulfilling the academic inquiries.
2. Discussion
2.1 Defense Diplomacy and Southeast Asia Security
Speaking of general, the defense diplomacy has been becoming the most-
discussed occasion in many discourses. Since the sophisticated policy related to war, the
threat towards the implementation of army force to grasp such foreign-policy aims has
become a mandatory regulations that occurs in worldwide system. Specifically, “gunboat
diplomacy” is the terms for historical occasion by Japan which convinced the Tokugawa
Shogunate to be opened in free-market with the power state such as USA.
On the other hand, the case of South China Sea reminded many states to the
relevance of army force to rely on foreign policy to be more objective. However, there is
an anomaly in post-Cold War era due to the heat of competitiveness between USA and
Uni Soviet. Hence, the new form of defense policy arises and become a common
discussion amongst defense ministry in each states. For instance, inter alia is the form of
various bilateral and multilateral diplomacy which involved many entity like senior
military defense officer and civilian defense officials, the exchange of army force, ship
visits, the propose of military tools and aids, and so on.
By the new form of regional order, in Southeast Asia, the policymakers strive to
uphold some sort of order such as :
1) Maintaining the ASEAN’s centrality in each region’s relation
2) Lessen the likelihood of open warfare or conflicts among each states in
Southeast Asian
3) Maintaining the beneficial relation in mutual ways with extraregional powers
4) Fully supported such in economically aspect that affected in enhancing GDP
of one region.
There are numerous cases related to the activities of multilateral diplomacy which
have occurred in 1994 to 2009.
There are 270 documents that has been produced and found in which shown the
strategic orientation of Southeast Asia’s multilateral defense diplomacy, according to the
survey from University of Indonesia. These documents consist of presidency statements,
the form of declarations joint, action planning, annual reports and so on.
One of the instance case emerged from maritime domain, the issues of piracy,
illegal fishing, and across the border with no communication have coalesced with the rise
of demand for marine resources as well as energy. This case can be caused by an
unidentified border or historical animosities among regional states to fully evaporate and
contest its boundaries. As a consequence, regional states must to respond by empowering
the littoral security via the acquisition of maritime army guard like employed the aircraft
sea-control, boat, or offshore patrol vessels.
Climate strike and the changes of dynamic relation could possibly exacerbate a
line of conflict. The researchers have found that the climate strike leads to the
vulnerability to the transnational threats, such as piracy or well-organized perpetrator,
illicit trafficking, illegal migration, and so on.
One study examined that the vast majority of population in Indonesia, Malaysia,
Philippines, Thailand, Cambodia, and Singapore frankly expressed their support to a
democratic political system. Under these conditions, conventional security problem are
significantly rise to be likely a prominent foreign-policy agenda for those states due to
their respective population are pushing the governments to extremely pay attention
towards these sort of issues.
The establishment of APCS has led ASEAN Security Community Plan of Action
far-focused on relation in such different field of subject such as political development
(human rights, promotion, and so on), conflict prevention, forming and spreading the
norms (code which has conducted in South China Sea), military cooperation, and so on.
In Indonesia, the context of defense diplomacy implies the leading agency from
Indonesian Defense Force (TNI) or the Ministry of Defense (MoD). The role of military
institution have been existed since the New Order era (1966-1998), where the defense
force dominated and involved in making the policy. However, in these days, the military
forces are no longer contributed to the foreign-policy decision, they only play a role as an
ad-hoc diplomats within bilateral and multilateral defense diplomacy.
3. Conclusion
To sum up, it is apparent from the author aims which wanted to discuss the three
arguments, they are:
1. The article has provided a broad regional overview of the trends, issues, and
mechanisms of Southeast Asia’s defense diplomacy and unpacked their complexity.
2. The article has sought to examine the problem and trends in Southeast Asian defense
diplomacy and unpack their complexities.
3. The impact of China’s rise has attributed to the rise of ARF’s multilateral defense
diplomacy simultaneously.
REFERENCES
Capie, D. (2013). Structures, shocks and norm change: Explaining the late rise of Asia’s defence
diplomacy. Contemporary Southeast Asia, 35(1), 1–26. https://doi.org/10.1355/cs35-1a
David Baldwin, 1997 in Joshua Praditya, Security in Indonesia , ( Depok: Nadi Pustaka, 2016), p.
3.
Gumay, R. N. S., Octavian, A., & Swastanto, Y. (2018). Defense Diplomacy Implementation: the
Synergy of Indonesia and Australia in Dealing With Illegal Immigrants in the Sea Border.
Jurnal Pertahanan & Bela Negara, 8(1), 63–92. https://doi.org/10.33172/jpbh.v8i1.278
Laksmana, E. A. (2012). Regional order by other means? examining the rise of defense
diplomacy in southeast Asia. Asian Security, 8(3), 251–270.
https://doi.org/10.1080/14799855.2012.723920