Tag Archive for: Southeast Asia

Penny Wong: ASEAN is critical for Australia’s security

Australia and other regional nations must rely more heavily on ASEAN to reduce the dangerous tensions among an increasingly powerful China, Japan, Russia and the US, Labor’s foreign affairs spokeswoman, Penny Wong, has warned.

In a major speech at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore, Senator Wong said the Association of Southeast Asian Nations has blessed Australia with an unexpected but valuable political buffer. ‘With its diversity and heterogeneity, ASEAN has enhanced Australian security.’

If ASEAN were to dissolve, one of the biggest losers would be Australia, and if it were to do well, Australians would be among its biggest beneficiaries, she said. ‘ASEAN’, she noted, ‘is the lynchpin in Asia’s role in a globalised economic world, and has a growing role in the maintenance of the global economic system and the rules that support it.’

Senator Wong said the 10 nations of ASEAN bring a diversity of languages and cultures that the naysayers claim doom it to weakness and irrelevance. But that has made it a trusted and neutral political platform with a deep reservoir of support in Australia. ‘The most important contribution that ASEAN can make to the region’s stability and prosperity in contemporary circumstances is to ensure that its institutions and operating systems are working effectively and to reinforce the external linkages it already has in place.’

ASEAN already supports the two key institutions for addressing regional security issues—the ASEAN Regional Forum and the East Asia Summit, Senator Wong said. ‘These, I think, are of critical importance, because they bring all the key protagonists into a common conversation about and pursuit of regional stability and security. I suggest that there is enormous benefit in all of us talking to China, Japan, Russia and the US rather than simply talking about them.

‘And this is what ASEAN provides—a neutral but engaged forum for ventilating concerns and hopes about peace and prosperity in the region.’

Senator Wong said there was no disputing that the international rules-based system is under its greatest stress since World War II. She emphasised the centrality of ASEAN in delivering long-term peace and prosperity in Asia, and the priority a Labor government would give to working with the organisation to make the most of the region’s collective future in a time of disruption.

President Donald Trump has declared that the post-war international order is ‘not working at all’ and his administration’s national security strategy calls for a fundamental US policy rethink. ‘At the centre of this rethink is a rejection of the assumption that “engagement with rivals and their inclusion in international institutions and global commerce would turn them into benign actors and trustworthy partners”’, Senator Wong said.

It is in the interests of all Southeast Asian nations that the US remains strategically engaged with the region, Senator Wong said.

Crises, conflicts and humanitarian catastrophes such as the Suez crisis in 1956, the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, Konfrontasi, the Vietnam War, the Cambodian genocide, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Iraq War, the civil wars and genocides in Africa, and the ongoing political instability, repression and armed violence in a number of the south American republics have tested the system and demanded skilled diplomacy in pursuit of their resolution. But the global community has managed them within the rules-based system. ‘There has been no “break-out”, as it were.’

‘What we are facing now is quite different from the kind of discontinuity with which our international system has long been familiar’, Senator Wong said. ‘Indeed, it would be fair to say we are witnessing a period characterised by widespread disruption, by which I mean a breakdown in the global order as President Trump’s remarks might suggest.’

That disruption is being driven by a range of structural factors, including economic and social inequality, refugee flows from civil war and societal breakdown, consequent ethnic tension in neighbouring countries, the reappearance of nationalism and racism, and the alarming re-emergence of national politics driven by ideology rather than good policy, she said.

China’s Belt and Road Initiative was a game-changer, Senator Wong said. ‘It employs economic power as an expression of strategic power, linking a new community of nations as both contributors to and beneficiaries of China’s remarkable growth. It is a radically different approach to the assertion of power. Can the BRI be engaged with in a way that ensures that it is beneficial and constructive, and that it enhances prosperity, stability and security? This is a tricky question, given how little any of us really knows about the BRI, its detailed purposes and its operating rules.

‘It is imperative, however, that we come to terms with the disruption that the BRI represents. How we all respond to the disruption represented by the BRI will stand us in good stead when we need to respond to an even greater disruption—the recombination of economic and military power when China builds its military forces to reflect its economic power and status. That will really give us something to think about.’

Without rules that provide the global community with an operating system, the powerful invariably trample the weak, Senator Wong said. ‘And it remains self-evident that nations of the stature and status of China and the US will be both rule-makers and rule-takers.

‘This, it seems to me, is quite reasonable. What is not reasonable is for those nations that might be dissatisfied with the current order to change the rules unilaterally, to impose their will rather than reach a negotiated position that meets the needs of all parties.’

Indonesia: strategic threat or strategic partner?

Does Indonesia pose a strategic risk for Australia? The answer might be ‘no’ if one looks at the recently released Australian foreign policy white paper. It argues that Indonesia—along with Japan, India and South Korea—is an ‘Indo-Pacific democracy’ that is bilaterally and regionally important to Australia. Australia, it says, will therefore ‘work closely with Indonesia in regional and international forums to support and protect a rules-based regional order’.

The premise that Indonesia and Australia can leverage their relationship into a strategic partnership with regional effects perhaps follows the vision in the 2016 defence white paper. That document shifted the bilateral tone away from the traditional security ambivalence into a partnership based on shared geo-economic and maritime interests.

Nonetheless, parts of the Australian strategic community still consider Indonesia a possible strategic risk. One example is a recent ASPI report, Australia’s management of strategic risk in the new era, by Paul Dibb and Richard Brabin-Smith. The report wasn’t about Indonesia as much as it was about China. It focused on key warning indicators and defence capabilities Canberra should consider, as ‘a major power threat’ can’t be ruled out.

The issue with Indonesia was ‘whether Islamic extremism is entering the mainstream of Indonesian politics, and so eventually posing a direct threat to Indonesia’s domestic stability and having implications for’ Australia. If Indonesia becomes ‘some sort of aggressive Islamist extremist state’, the authors argue, it could pose ‘a fundamental threat to Australia’s security’. After all, Indonesia’s growing economy would ‘give it the option of developing much more serious military capabilities’.

Concerns over Indonesia’s strategic trajectory are certainly not new; they go back to the 1960s and 1970s. But today, the argument that Indonesia could pose strategic risks for Australia (in the way Dibb and Brabin-Smith conceive it) is fundamentally flawed because it’s based on problematic assumptions, not sound or systematic analysis.

First, the ‘Islamist extremist state’ argument assumes that (1) the ‘mainstreaming’ of Islamic extremism will lead to a ‘takeover’, (2) the process of such a takeover will lead to ‘domestic instability’, and (3) such a state will be ‘hostile’ towards or perhaps intent on attacking Australia.

Putting aside the fact that none of the key terms (such as mainstreaming extremism or instability) are properly defined, these assumptions rely on a logic whereby the entry of Islamic extremism into mainstream politics automatically leads to ‘takeover’ and ‘hostility’. Given that logic’s complexities, the analysis should be empirically supported rather than conjectured through assumptions.

Further, the assumptions aren’t about contested strategic interests if an ‘Islamic extremist state’ arises or about whether Indonesia has the requisite offensive capabilities or hostile intentions. Instead, they’re about Indonesia being ‘different’, whether defined by religion (Islamic) or regime type (non-liberal democracy). Assuming that a different Indonesia will pose a strategic risk just because it’s different sidelines any effort to understand the country on its own terms—a hallmark of strategic analysis driven by ethnocentricity.

One could misinterpret such analysis as a variation of the erroneous myth that Islam as a religion or Islamic societies are inherently or irrationally hostile towards a ‘liberal Western’ state like Australia. While I don’t believe that’s what Dibb and Brabin-Smith are arguing, without a clear elaboration one could misread it as such.

Second, the argument that economic growth leads to improved and offensive military capabilities assumes that (1) defence planning is externally oriented and ‘rational’ (that is, a threat-based, value-maximising assessment of the strategic environment and goals within existing constraints), and (2) Indonesia could be threatening because its intentions could change overnight.

Indonesia’s economic growth has indeed been correlated with the rise of its defence spending (roughly US$6–8 billion in recent years). But most of that money (around 65% to 75%) goes to personnel in the form of salaries, education and other benefits. Indonesia spends only around US$1–2 billion annually on procurement (divided equally among the three services).

Indonesia also faces numerous challenges to modernising its defence forces. Planning has been erratic and subject to bureaucratic politics and civil–military contestations. The operational readiness of most of its ships and aircraft is currently in doubt too. Overall, Indonesia doesn’t have the offensive capabilities to attack Australia to begin with, nor does it plan to acquire them.

The question of intentions, on the other hand, is always elusive. But Indonesia’s military has always been strategically defensive—major military exercises, along with doctrinal developments since the 1990s, can attest to that.

Even the examples invoked to paint Indonesia as a possible ‘threat’—the 1960s West Irian campaign and Konfrontasi, as well as the 1975 Timor invasion—were driven by domestic concerns rather than regional expansionism. Politically, Indonesian elites often express annoyance about and a lack of trust in Australia’s intentions. But except for the occasional political scandals, Jakarta hasn’t seemed to care much about Australia in recent years.

Perhaps Dibb and Brabin-Smith’s arguments are based on worst-case forecasting, which makes sense given Australia and Indonesia’s turbulent bilateral history. But the assumptions that spring from such a premise could crowd out efforts to better see Indonesia in its own terms. If so, perhaps Ken Booth is right: worst-case forecasting is to strategic analysis what the ‘god of the gaps’ is to theology—it fills in for what we don’t understand.

Emerging areas of terrorism in Southeast Asia

Terrorism-related deaths fell in 2016 according to the Institute for Economics and Peace’s 2017 Global Terrorism Index. It’s the second year in a row that deaths caused by terrorist acts declined. But while the number of deaths has fallen, the spread of attacks has increased. For possibly the first time in history, two out of three countries in the world have experienced a terrorist attack. The spread of terrorism has been partly driven by the increasing reach of radical Islamist extremism, in particular the meteoric rise of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

In 2016, the radical group recorded its deadliest year to date, killing over 9,000 people. Most of those deaths occurred in Iraq. However, since 2014 the group has also been responsible for a dramatic increase in deaths in developed countries. In 2016, ISIL and its offshoots were operating in 28 countries, more than double the number in 2015.

The spread of ISIL’s reach is noteworthy because it defies a broader, more positive trend globally. The Global Terrorism Index shows that the number of deaths from terrorist acts has now fallen by 22% from the peak in 2014. Three of the four deadliest terrorist groups—al-Qaeda, the Taliban and Boko Haram—were collectively responsible for 6,000 fewer deaths in 2016 than in 2015. However, not only did the number of deaths attributed to ISIL and its affiliated groups increase, the group also expanded its reach, including into Southeast Asia.

In 2016, a video emerged featuring pledges to ISIL from affiliated militants in Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines. The video signalled the group’s intention to expand into Southeast Asia and it designated an emir in the Philippines. In May this year, ISIL-affiliated militants captured the Filipino city of Marawi. In the ensuing battles with the militants, 603 Filipino soldiers were killed between 30 May and 29 August (see the graph below). Filipino forces only recaptured the city last month.

Marawi City: ISIL civilian and military deaths, 2017

The territorial gains that ISIL made in Iraq and Syria before its recent military defeat in both countries owed more to the collapse of the state, coupled with ISIL’s military organisation, than to strategic brilliance. However, it showed that from ISIL’s genesis, the group has sought to exploit vulnerable areas to establish territorial dominance. Once it loses territory, as it has in Iraq and Syria, it appears to revert to a more ‘conventional’ insurgency involving terrorist attacks against civilians.

The capture of Marawi by ISIL-affiliated militants demonstrates the real potential for other pockets of insurgency to emerge across the region. Like the leftist Soviet-backed groups that spread in the 1960s and 1970s, ISIL has proven successful in aligning local causes with its international agenda. There’s a long history of perceived persecution across Southeast Asia that ISIL could exploit, including campaigns allegedly targeting Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslims, Thailand’s Malay Muslims and China’s Uyghur Muslims.

The plight of the Rohingya has been well documented recently. The alleged burning of their villages has forced many to flee to refugee camps in neighbouring Bangladesh. The Myanmar government has been accused of conducting state-sponsored political terrorism. The 2017 Global Terrorism Index highlights the strong link between political terror and terrorism. Counterterrorism scholars have also repeatedly warned that repressive counterterrorism measures could motivate Muslim fighters from ISIL or other groups to aid their Rohingya Muslim brothers.

Similarly, for many decades Malay Muslim groups have been in conflict with the Thai government in the country’s southernmost provinces. The conflict has been fuelled by the predominantly Buddhist government’s assimilation policies, which are perceived as targeting the ethnically and religiously distinct Malay Muslims. The insurgency has recently taken on an increasingly religious dimension that has raised fears that the movement’s calls for independence could be hijacked by non-local Islamist extremists.

In China, nearly 400 people have been killed in 93 terrorist attacks attributed to Uyghur separatists in the past 10 years. According to the Global Terrorism Database, more than 60% of the attacks occurred in Xinjiang. Beijing has long suppressed any calls for independence in the resource-rich province. ISIL has already shown interest in drawing Uyghur ambitions into its global agenda. Early this year, ethnic Uyghurs who had travelled to Syria to join ISIL released a video declaring war with China.

As ISIL’s core diminishes, it’s possible that the group will expand into other regions. Analysis shows that ISIL prioritises politically unstable regions that have porous borders and lack educational and economic opportunities. ISIL has shown that it can make quick gains in such areas, and improve its ability to recruit, by providing resources and expertise. For example, ISIL’s central headquarters in Iraq provided nearly US$600,000 to fund operations in Marawi. Those resources helped militants become more organised and skilled in urban combat tactics. Intercepted messages also show a sophisticated command structure in the region.

Such successes encourage foreign fighters, including those fleeing Iraq and Syria, to travel to other regions where ISIL has greater influence. That idea has already been advocated by ISIL, which released a seven-minute video in August this year asking for fighters to join ISIL in Southeast Asia. In the Philippines, some 20 Indonesian fighters have joined ISIL-affiliated groups in Mindanao.

This analysis highlights the need for Southeast Asia nations and the global community to develop long-term strategies for dealing with the spread of terrorism. That includes focusing on reducing political terror and counterterrorism measures that may inadvertently increase the risk of terrorism. This imperative is all the more pressing given the spread of terrorism across the world and the internationalisation of ongoing conflicts through ISIL.

Developing East Asia: the risks of a prolonged economic slowdown

The developing economies of East Asia have enjoyed more than 40 years of growth, except for a brief crisis at the end of the last century. But the single-minded pursuit of economic growth at all costs has created a dangerously unstable monoculture.

East Asians have seen civil liberties such as the right to strike and protest curtailed because it might deter investors. Their habitat has been degraded as power plants and chemical factories have prioritised profits over the environment. And some have seen their democracies hijacked in the name of development by strongmen such as Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Sen.

The exclusive focus on pursuing growth has bleached the region’s rich tapestry of ideas, culture and environment to create a landscape that at times can seem to be little more than a glorified industrial park with national flags.

This is particularly evident in politics. The region gave the world some of the great philosopher-politicians of the post-colonial era: Indonesia’s Sukarno and the non-aligned movement, the pursuit of peaceful coexistence amid profound ideological disagreements by China’s Zhou Enlai, and the unshakable belief of Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew that the city-state could be transformed into a gleaming first-world technopolis.

Some were wrong, and many were ruthless, but the men and women who rebuilt East Asia after the defeat of colonialism exemplified holistic and coherent views of a developing society.

The vision of too many of their successors has shrivelled to a single point: economic growth. In the democracies, electoral campaigns tend to hinge on promises to enable growth more effectively than political rivals, while the autocracies have dropped even the pretence of egalitarianism and redefined social progress as the process of getting rich.

This narrow reliance on growth is a concern because in the current environment governments are unlikely to be able to deliver on their promises. Growth within East Asia is slowing—particularly in China, the fountainhead of regional prosperity. China says its economy grew by 6.7% last year, the slowest rate in more than 25 years, but analysts regard that as optimistic. Developing East Asia as a whole grew by 6.3% in 2016, its sixth straight year of declining growth, and 2 percentage points below its 10-year average.

If growth were to shrink further, the supply chains that once spread the fruits of prosperity could become shock-transmission mechanisms—hawsers capable of dragging countries into conflict when the cycle reverses.

The lingering causes of friction in East Asia—border issues between countries and longstanding ethnic, religious and social tensions within countries—have never disappeared. They have at best been papered over by the shared imperative of growth.

Many of the national and international institutions that could have provided a brake on any descent into conflict have been hollowed out in the name of growth. Across the region, the mechanics of democracy, the independence of the judiciary, freedom of speech and the impartiality of the police, all of which should have roles in mediating between peoples and governments, have been degraded.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which might have provided a robust regional forum for discussing international disputes, has had its inadequacies cruelly exposed by its paralysis over the challenges posed by the South China Sea disputes.

These developments would be worrying enough if they were happening in isolation, but they aren’t. Two major challenges add to regional instability.

America’s ambivalence about its role in Asia has generated a miasma of uncertainty that is creating its own damaging dynamics. Countries unsure of US protection are rearming, and alliances and alignments that have stood for decades are being called into question. China, which has a long history of underestimating regional reactions to its expansionism, is feeling more confident about throwing its weight around.

The second shift comes from the impact of events in the Middle East. The Islamic State group seems on the verge of collapse, but when that happens the problem of terrorism will metastasise worldwide. International focus has been on the problem of returning fighters, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. There will be thousands of young militants who can’t return to their home countries and could end up hiding in the jungles of Southeast Asia, committed, well trained and with little to lose.

Religiously tinged conflicts or proto-conflicts in Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, the southern Philippines, southern Thailand and Xinjiang will provide natural focal points for their anger. Terrorism on its own may not pose an existential threat to any nation in East Asia, but a particularly egregious act of slaughter could trigger a vicious cycle of overreaction that already weakened institutions will struggle to stop.

As they are configured, East Asia’s governments are ill-prepared for a sustained period of slow economic growth. Unless they can develop a broader vision of a shared future that is less reliant on growth as the key measure of success, their legitimacy will continue to be eroded, leaving them vulnerable to populist challenges from within and external shocks from terrorist attacks or predatory neighbours.

ASPI suggests

Welcome back to ASPI suggests. This week’s unsolicited advice is to never use all your A-material on the first try—just in case you’re invited to perform once again.

On Monday, North Korea test-launched a second intercontinental ballistic missile, just three weeks after the first. I’m not going to delve into the technical aspects here—but you should. Suffice it to say that the missile demonstrated two things: longer range and technical improvements. Expert commentary has paid special attention to the re-entry vehicle, which may have been experimentally light, which probably explains the longer range (thankfully, that part makes sense to those of us with a science education that only goes to high-school physics).

The fallout (pun intended) has been extensive: South Korea’s new president, Moon Jae-in, has reversed his position on the deployment of an American THAAD missile defence system on South Korean soil. Moon suspended the deployment of THAAD back in early June as part of a concerted effort to strike a softer tone on relations with North Korea and repair the relationship with Beijing. But Monday’s launch brings the total number of North Korean missile tests this year to 12, which makes a pretty credible case for missile defence. And it’s not just the South Koreans talking about ballistic missile defence—it’s us, too (this Strategist piece from early July is a great way to read yourself in).

There’s some fresh analysis on the Hermit Kingdom coming out, too. Carnegie’s Jon Wolfsthal is saying we should ‘give up on denuclearizing North Korea’ and focus on deterrence. And a piece at 38 North says we should be cautious about contemplating ‘regime change’ in North Korea, citing a better-the-devil-you-know line of reasoning. That’s certainly more sophisticated analysis than we’re seeing from Philippines president Duterte, who called Kim Jong-un a ‘chubby’ SOB this week.

In other Southeast Asia news, this coming Tuesday is the 50th anniversary of ASEAN (how’s that for a segue?). You’re going to see plenty of content here at The Strategist on that subject, but it’s a good opportunity to share some recent news and analysis about our near neighbours.

Continuing violence in Mindanao is driving regional collaboration on ISIS-linked extremism; Attorney-General George Brandis met with representatives from Indonesia, Brunei, Malaysia, New Zealand and the Philippines to discuss a variety of terrorism-related matters last weekend, with a special focus on managing the return of foreign fighters from the Middle East.

Meanwhile, Singapore has opened a new military training facility, the Island Defense Training Institute, which will focus on homeland defence and island defence—clearly a convergence of priorities for the island nation. The Singaporeans have also recently wrapped up a big joint land exercise with the US Army, Tiger Balm 2017 (make your own jokes, if you so desire).

Last on the ASEAN side of things, US secretary of state Rex Tillerson will be arriving in the region this weekend, and you can get a good summary of the likely outcomes at The Diplomat, courtesy of Prashanth Parameswaran.

For your weekly research and long-read fixes, may I suggest a six-part series from Brookings about the current challenges to the US foreign aid program. The briefs cover multiple angles, including the trials of delivering foreign aid to violent regions, multilateral cooperation, and the potential impacts of Donald Trump’s ‘America First’ policy.

There’s also a compelling essay in the Financial Times, called ‘Syria: a tale of three cities’, which looks at the impacts of the ongoing civil war on the cities’ populations. If you need a lighthearted read this week (maybe immediately after reading that Syria piece), check out the story of how Pakistan’s now-ex-PM, Nawaz Sharif, was caught lying thanks to a Microsoft font.

Podcasts

This week’s CSIS Smart Women, Smart Power podcast features a discussion with AT&T vice president Jill Singer about ‘the internet of things’, privacy and policy. (That’s the kind of discussion we at ASPI are trying to help foster in Australia, too: we hosted NSA director Admiral Mike Rogers on Monday night and launched a new publication on big data in national security this week). If you’re still interested in the nitty-gritty of cyber norms after the above, look no further than The Strategy Bridge for some analysis of the Ise-Shima variety.

Did you know the International Spy Museum has a podcast? It’s aptly named Spycast. The latest episode is an interview with former CIA analyst and author Melvin Goodman about his life in intelligence and his most recent book, A whistleblower at the CIA.

Video

This one’s not exactly a video, but an interactive introduction to game theory that you can play in your web browser. The creators recommend setting aside about 30 minutes to get the full experience.

Who has honestly never wanted to be an action hero? How can we then blame Turkmenistan’s president Gurbanguly Berdymukhametov for taking the opportunity to have a video made of him shooting targets and calling in helicopter strikes? If the intro looks familiar, that’s because an opposition website edited in scenes from the classic 1985 Schwarzenegger action flick Commando. (3 mins)

Events

Sydney: The Lowy Institute will host an evening discussion on 14 August with Prime Minister Monasseh Sogavare of Solomon Islands on the legacy of RAMSI and the future of Solomon Islands.

Multiple locations: It’s not often we share an event exclusively for high-schoolers, but I’m sure many Strategist readers have teenage children who love everything to do with space. While the events don’t start until mid-September, expect registrations for the UN Youth Australia Space Summit across the country to fill up quickly (students years 9–12).

Illegal fishing in Southeast Asia: a multibillion-dollar trade with catastrophic consequences

Illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing remains a perennial problem in Southeast Asia. While it’s a region-wide phenomenon, it has been particularly pronounced in two areas. The first is the Gulf of Thailand, where the overall catch per unit effort has plummeted by 86% since 1966, making those waters among the most overfished on the planet. The second is Indonesia, which is estimated to lose nearly A$4 billion a year to illegal fishing. The most frequent violators are from China, Thailand and Vietnam, and countering their activities has now been cast as a national security priority by the Joko Widodo administration.

This ‘black industry’ ranges from small-scale violations by local artisanal fishermen to mass illicit enterprises conducted by large-scale open factory trawlers. It includes any of the following (PDF): operating in another state’s territorial waters without an access agreement (poaching), falsifying catch documents, using illegal methods or gear, harvesting protected species, fishing in restricted zones, contravening closed-area or closed-season stipulations, and transshipping at sea to avoid landing a haul in the same country where it was fished.

The drivers for IUU in Southeast Asia are multifaceted. Perhaps one of the more important causal factors is the weak fishing regulations of many states in the region. Certain destructive practices are not considered illegal and fish caught by pirate vessels can be landed licitly in those states’ waters. Thailand is a prominent case in point. The country’s Fisheries Act requires fishermen to be caught in the act of illegal fishing or other violations for the evidence to stand up in court.

There’s also a dearth of scientific knowledge in Southeast Asia to inform the development of sound exploitation management models. That’s particularly true of statistical information on existing fish stocks, the lack of which has severely impeded the ability of coastal authorities to make informed decisions on sustainable and responsible fishing practices.

A further consideration is the difficulty of regulating flags of convenience, which are routinely used to disguise illicit industrial trawlers. Registration in states such as Panama, Liberia, Honduras and Belize is generally simple and inexpensive and has directly contributed to ‘flag hopping’—a practice whereby ships regularly change flags to make it more difficult for inspection and control services to keep track of them.

Finally, consumer demand in Asia, Europe and North America for seafood—especially tuna, cod, mackerel and squid—is driving rampant overfishing of those stocks. Declining supplies have led to a progressive rise in market prices, which has further motivated the desire to poach. Unfortunately, there’s a high degree of ignorance about the adverse impact of such actions. Across the region, a growing number of artisanal fishermen are resorting to illegal gear, such as micro-mesh nets, to make up for reduced catches, which in turn has further reduced the size of already dwindling populations.

IUU has negatively affected Southeast Asia in several ways. Annually it costs the region billions of dollars, accounting for more than 2.5 million tonnes of fish a year, or as much as a third of the regional catch (compared to just 9% in the northwest Atlantic).

IUU also has deleterious environmental consequences. The intensive use of drift nets has been particularly harmful, causing major damage to fragile coastal and marine ecosystems by reducing the topography of the seabed to a smooth, flat muddy surface. Thailand’s underwater grass system has been severely degraded by that type of bottom trawling, threatening the habitat of some 149 fish species. The routine employment of dynamite and/or cyanide to flush out fish has been just as ruinous and is thought to be responsible for destroying as much as 70% of Indonesia’s coral reefs.

Sociopolitically, IUU has contributed to poverty in coastal communities, forcing artisanal fishermen who can no longer afford to make an honest living to adopt illicit practices themselves. Often they cross over and poach in foreign waters, complicating and straining relations between neighboring states—something that has been especially evident in the countries bordering the Gulf of Thailand.

Geostrategically, Chinese IUU has heightened the risk of interstate conflict in Southeast Asia. Helped by generous subsidies on fuel and shipbuilding from Beijing, Chinese fishermen are now traveling further from their own waters to illicitly land viable catches. Much of that poaching is taking place in resource-rich areas in which maritime disputes are already at flashpoint among claimant states. The spectre of a confrontation at sea escalating into a crisis remains—and, indeed, has arguably already happened in clashes that have taken place in the contested islands of the South China Sea.

Overfishing in the Gulf of Thailand has also generated economic pressures that fuel the continued use of slave labor. Exhausted fish stocks mean that vessels are staying at sea longer and going further afield for ever-diminishing returns. In turn, operators are using human trafficking networks to lure people with false offers of paid employment in factories, only to abduct them and force them to crew ships for months at a time for little or no money. The practice of transshipment at sea—whereby large cargo vessels resupply fishing boats and pick up their catches—exacerbates the problem, allowing commercial fishing trawlers to stay out at sea indefinitely and turning those boats into de facto floating prisons for abused workers.

50 years of ASEAN: Australian membership

Image courtesy of Flickr user Quincie Gaile Delfin.

The evolution of Australia’s thinking about ASEAN has gathered enough pace that it’s now possible to propose a new Oz passion and purpose. Instead of constant pledges of engagement and partnership, Australia’s future in Southeast Asia lies in joining ASEAN.

In musing about the headaches confronting ‘our region’, Malcolm Turnbull certainly thinks ASEAN is part of the answer. Australia’s interest is closer strategic alignment with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and ever greater economic integration—the ten-nation grouping now represents about 15% of total trade. ASEAN is our third largest trading partner, after China and the European Union.

Next March, with Sydney Harbour as the glittering setting, Australia has the chance to get ambitious about its place in ‘our region’, as the Prime Minister hosts the Australia–ASEAN summit, the first on Oz soil. The summit is the moment to launch the long conversation about Australia joining ASEAN.

The imminent DFAT Foreign Policy White Paper will have lots of lovely language about ever-closer engagement with all aspects of the ASEAN Community. The Sydney summit can give that engagement an aim and a timeline. Australia should reach for membership of the Community in 2024, the 50th anniversary of Australia becoming the first ASEAN dialogue partner.

If Australia reaches for it, New Zealand will want in as well. So this would be a joint Oz-Kiwi quest. When this column started talking about Oz-Kiwi membership of ASEAN, I suggested reaching a half-in point in 2024—observer status—as the entry point for eventual full membership.

Some ASEAN oracles think this far too cautious. Singapore’s Kishore Mahbubani says observer status is no big deal—the real challenge Australia faces is a ‘fundamental change in mindset’. Mahbubani thinks hard geopolitics will trump Oz cultural identity and an Australian turn to ASEAN is inevitable. A former Secretary-General of ASEAN, Ong Keng Yong, says rather than pursing the observer route, a more elegant solution is to create a new category of partner/member for Australia and New Zealand. Such a new form of ASEAN membership would side-step the geographic veto (aren’t in Southeast Asia, can’t be part of ASEAN).

The imprecision about the final form makes this fine summit fodder. Australia and ASEAN pledge to seek new levels of togetherness then spend the next seven years working out how to do it. Seven years makes it close enough to be real, but far enough into the future for leaders to leave the detail for later. Here’s the definition of a summit announcement: symbolism now, substance later.

Turnbull declares the Sydney summit an ‘historic and unprecedented opportunity to strengthen Australia’s strategic partnership with ASEAN and deliver tangible economic and security benefits to Australia’. Time, then, to make history. In the way of such gatherings of the great, leaders can do good by gathering together existing trends and giving them a big shove-along.

Coming just after ASEAN’s 50th birthday, the Sydney summit will drip with symbolism. And it’ll have the chance to build substance—not least because there’s lots that Australia and ASEAN agree on. And plenty of fears they share.

Australia and ASEAN are in heartfelt agreement that they must never have to choose between China and the US. Yet the size of the geo-economic prizes and the pressure of the geo-political puzzles keep building. In claiming no need to choose—in the frantic denial that it’s even an issue—ASEAN and Oz confront a version of Trotsky’s maxim: ‘You may not be interested in the dialectic, but the dialectic is interested in you’.

Summits seldom solve anything. But sitting with a chilly, clear view at the top of the mountain, leaders can agree interests, align national approaches and even sketch ways forward. Summits get to first base when they do no harm. They get towards the second and third levels of achievement if they actually tackle the big topics. Communiqués are always an attempt to sketch the future, as much as a record of compromises paraded as agreement.

In Sydney, the Oz-ASEAN Business Summit can do—well, business—and the Counter-Terrorism Conference will confront the nightmare gripping polities everywhere. Up the metaphorical mountain, the leaders at their dual summit-retreat can have a meeting of minds that ranges over Asia’s tectonic strategic trends, the meaning of ASEAN’s Community, and what Australia (plus New Zealand) could bring to Southeast Asia’s future.

The mountaintop agenda was offered in the final pages of Turnbull’s Shangri-La speech in Singapore. After kicking China with shrill vigour and dancing carefully around Donald Trump’s Hunger Games realpolitik, Turnbull examined the import of his declaration: ‘In this brave new world we cannot rely on great powers to safeguard our interests.’

The middle powers will have to do it instead, as Turnbull offered an ASEAN-flavoured vision of a region where the habits of cooperation and transparent rules trump force and coercion. Any Oz PM playing back to ASEAN its habits of mind about finding regional solutions to regional problems is going to get lots in return. In marking ASEAN’s 50th birthday, Turnbull lauded the Association’s past strategic success as a formula for the future:

‘We support a strong, united ASEAN that continues to convene and strengthen organisations such as the East Asia Summit, the region’s only leaders-led forum that can help manage the region’s strategic risks. And we support an ASEAN that remains committed to liberal economic values.’

Do more than support. Join. At the Sydney summit, Australia has the chance to move beyond engagement to commitment.

The Counterterrorism Yearbook 2017: is terrorism an existential threat?

Image courtesy of Flickr user Al Jazeera English.

It’s often been claimed that terrorism doesn’t present an existential threat to the survival of the nation-state. Former vice president of the United States, Joe Biden, took this view, which he claimed helped to keep a sense of ‘proportionality’ about American CT responses:

‘… terrorism is a real threat, but it’s not an existential threat to the existence of the democratic country of the United States of America. Terrorism can cause real problems. It can undermine confidence. It can kill relatively large numbers of people. But terrorism is not an existential threat.’

Two arguments can be put against Biden’s view. The first is that widespread fear of terrorism certainly contributed to system-changing political movements in 2016 that called into question the viability of some long-cherished institutions, such as the EU and the EU’s Schengen border-free area.

Terrorism has contributed to the rise of populist political movements in France, Germany and other European countries, which may further undermine the EU and bring an end to relatively liberal policies on accepting refugees, close previously uncontrolled borders and weaken multiculturalism. Although hardly the sole, or even a main cause, fear of terrorism boosted Donald Trump’s election campaign and was surely an existential threat to the electoral prospects of the US Democratic Party’s candidate, Hillary Clinton.

In the Middle East and North Africa, terrorism has certainly become an existential threat to the balance of power that used to prevail in the region. It has led to the destruction of Syria, Iraq and Yemen and continued to put a number of established regimes under threat. Terrorism has been used as a rationale for governments in Turkey, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere to become internally more repressive and is being used by a number of countries as a proxy means to weaken external rivals.

A second argument against Biden’s view is that western governments should still worry about the possibility that terrorist groups will seek access to weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). There’s some limited evidence to suggest that IS has tried to use WMD agents where it can. An artillery round containing mustard gas was fired onto the Qayyara air base south of Mosul in September 2016. What limited evidence there is of WMD attacks using mustard gas or chlorine in Iraq and Syria shows that the effect is limited, although terrible for the individuals involved.

US concern about the potential for nuclear terrorism remains substantial, although it’s based more on a theoretical possibility than on strong evidence of terror groups trying to develop such capabilities. At the fourth and possibly last Nuclear Security Summit held in Washington DC in April 2016, the summit communiqué said that ‘the threat of nuclear and radiological terrorism remains one of the greatest challenges to international security and the threat is constantly evolving.’ It’s a threat that particularly galvanises India, whose leaders worry that ‘insider threats’ in the Pakistan military might see a nuclear weapon transferred to terrorist organisations threatening India.

For all of the concerns in senior political circles, if a radiological dirty bomb were detonated in a US city, Joe Biden’s claim would still hold that such an attack wasn’t a threat to the American system of government. Then again, President Trump is now in the Oval Office. We shouldn’t underestimate the system-changing power of terrorism and the fear of mass-casualty attacks. The implication behind dismissing terrorism as not being an existential threat is that societies may just have to accept that some level of risk is inevitable. That’s an unproductive way of thinking about CT and one that may well have contributed to the Obama administration’s drift on this issue towards the end of its second term.

The arrival of the Trump administration and the half-completed fight to retake Mosul provide two natural reasons for CT policymakers to pause briefly and reflect on what the priorities should be for 2017. The first task, surely, is to redevelop a sense of common purpose among the Western and Middle Eastern partners in the military campaign against IS.

The US remains the decisive military force in the campaign, and President Trump’s appetite for a more aggressive fight in Iraq and Syria will set the momentum for operations. Consolidating Iraq’s hold over all of Mosul will be an early critical task, followed by the need to destroy pockets of IS support in other parts of central and western Iraq. Syria is no closer to any viable peaceful solution and, regrettably, violence there will continue.

The next high-priority task will be to prepare for what looks to be a much more distributed and traditional CT fight around the world, from Paris to the Sulu Sea. The IS network remains intact, is quite sophisticated, is good at developing local support and has a large cohort of fighters who have been through a hardening experience in Iraq and Syria. Putting this diaspora down will be the major focus of CT in 2017.

By comparison with many countries, Australia’s domestic position is good. As the Prime Minister frequently says, our police and security agencies are among the best in the world, our geography gives us some protection, and successive governments have worked hard to have the necessary laws and regulations in place to support modern CT practices.

None of this offers room for complacency. We’ll need to redouble our efforts in CT cooperation with the countries of Southeast Asia, and we’re likely to be called on to do more rather than less with our military presence in the Middle East. For CT operators and policymakers, 2017 will be a demanding year.

The changing face of maritime terrorism

Maritime terrorism has reared its ugly head again—this time in Southeast Asia where a Vietnamese cargo ship was attacked by supposed members of the dreaded Filipino terrorist outfit, Abu Sayyaf. Days later, Jürgen Kantner, a German national captured off the coast of southern Philippines in November 2016, was beheaded by members of the same group, sparking international outrage and all-round condemnation.

These incidents come only a month after Houthi militants—another vicious band of ralicalised mercenaries in Yemen—carried out an attack on a Saudi Arabian navy vessel, killing two service personnel and injuring many others. The Saudi warship is supposed to have had over 150 sailors and officers onboard, as well as a combat helicopter at the time of the attack, which US military experts concluded involved the use of a small unmanned remote-controlled attack boat.

The latest incidents in the waters off the Philippines reveal another pattern. According to media reports, the strike on the Vietnamese cargo ship wasn’t meant so much to cause death and injury, as it was aimed at capturing hostages. While only one crew member was killed in the attack, six others were abducted, in a manner similar to recent attacks by ISIS-affiliated groups in Southeast Asia. As the beheading of Mr Kantner demonstrates, militants are increasingly prone to using hostages as bargaining chips to extract concessions out of regional governments. Abu Sayyaf, one of the most significant terror organisations in Southeast Asia to have pledged allegiance to the Islamic State (IS), is said to hold over 27 people, including many Malaysians, Indonesians, and Vietnamese. Alarmed Filipino officials are now warning of a Somalia-type situation in the Southeast Asian littorals.

West of the Malacca, Indian observers too worry over the possibility of a similar terror tactic at sea. After the 26/11 attacks, India’s maritime agencies have been on high alert looking for signs of another terrorist infiltration into Indian waters. Last week, reports surfaced that there had been a sudden rise in the number of abandoned Pakistani fishing boats in the Rann of Kutch region, causing many to speculate a sustained bid by Pakistan-based terror groups to cross-over into Indian Territory. Some of these, Indian analysts surmise, could well be connected to the Islamic State.

An IS-inspired maritime terror attack on the Indian seas might seem far-fetched, but isn’t beyond the realm of conception. India’s security managers are being forced to confront the possibility of a terrorist attack on Indian ports on the west coast, and even cruise ships on the high seas. As IS-motivated attacks in Asian waters rise, analysts say the number of reported violations of India’s territorial seas by smaller boats and crafts continues to be high.

There’s also the possibility that militant cadres could use new methods to strike maritime military facilities. One such tactic could be the targeting of maritime infrastructure, in particular naval operational and residential complexes, and logistical hubs. In December 2015, Australian police arrested two young men in Sydney for planning an attack on a maritime facility. The troublemakers are said to have been radicalised and were attempting to carry out strikes on multiple targets in the Woolloomooloo naval base in Sydney, home to Australia’s principle naval assets. A few days earlier, there was a bomb blast at a mosque in a naval base in Dhaka, Bangladesh that killed two people and injured many more.

Since the early 2000s, when a series of terror attacks riled the waters of Asia, regional maritime forces have been on high alert. The most famous of those was the attack on the USS Cole on October 12, 2000 that killed 17 sailors. That was a follow-up to a failed attack on the USS Sullivan that’s supposed to have hardened the resolve of al-Qaeda to launch a successful attack on a US warship. It was carried out by a small boat in harbour and considered by far the biggest breach of security on a commissioned US warship. It was shortly followed by the attack on the MV Limburg in 2002, which left the supertanker blazing off the Yemeni coast.

It’s the Pakistan Navy’s (PN) vulnerability to maritime terror, however, that most worries Indian watchers. In July 2015, radicalised elements of the PN colluded with al-Qaeda to give effect to a diabolical plan to forcibly take-over two Pakistani warships in Karachi Harbor. The plan—foiled only on the nick of time—was to use the hijacked ships to carry out attacks on US and Indian naval warships. So rattled was the Indian navy after that incident that it ramped up security measures in the Arabian Sea, instituting special security procedures to deal with a threat of terror related violence at sea.

The most high-profile attack on a naval facility was the strike on PNS Mehran, a premier Pakistani naval base at Karachi, where a group of well-trained militants carried out a full-fledged military assault, killing scores of people and inflicting severe damage on Pakistani military assets.

Analysts surmise a future terror hit on a port facility could well involve a lone wolf. Over the years, terrorists have shown themselves to be remarkably enterprising in planning attacks and it’s entirely possible for radicalised individuals to carry out a covert strike. Cargo containers arriving from ships, some say, offer the perfect opportunity to terrorists to carry out an attack on a port facility. A jihadi inside a container could detonate a vast quality of explosive or a low-grade nuclear device. In premier container and trans-shipment ports across the Indian Ocean and Pacific, port authorities follow a layered risk-based approach to security where specific kinds of cargo is comprehensively scanned.

Unfortunately, regional maritime forces seem not to have kept pace with the evolving threat. Little has been done to develop a comprehensive doctrine or even a coherent plan to guard against a terror strike at sea, or stop militant infiltration from the sea. Instead, precious time has been wasted developing measures that are either too costly to implement or logistically unfeasible.

 

The chicken or the egg? Peace and reform in Myanmar

Image courtesy of Flickr user ciaranj75

Myanmar’s transition to fully-fledged democracy is going to be a slow one. While Aung San Suu Kyi’s popular with the international community, her NLD government has a lot on its plate. Regional and international investors have their eyes on Myanmar’s resource-rich hinterland, and the easing of sanctions promises much for a population racked by decades of repression and civil war. Despite those brighter economic prospects, the NLD has made it clear that peace negotiations and ‘national reconciliation’ are a priority.

The ‘21st Century Panglong’ conference—drawing its name from the 1947 Panglong agreement concluded by Suu Kyi’s late father, General Aung San—looks to bring together people from Myanmar’s various ethnic groups to discuss peace and the future of the union. The conference’s scheduled for late August, but the government faces several hurdles in the lead up to negotiations.

First, the government’s and ethnic minority groups’ expectations diverge over the content of the conference. Under the 1947 agreement, the frontier areas—those on the fringes of central Myanmar with large ethnic-minority populations—were guaranteed ‘full autonomy in internal administration’ (in principle), financial autonomy, and ‘rights and privilege which are regarded as fundamental in democratic countries’.

It’s clear from meetings between various leaders of armed ethnic groups that they believe the 1947 agreement should serve as the blueprint for further negotiations. Ethnic leaders from the Kachin and Shan states met in June, concluding that ‘because there was the 1947 Panglong, there is the Union. If we are not going to honor it, the Union will only fall apart.’ From 26–30 July, leaders from major armed ethnic groups met in Mai Ja Yang , Kachin State to discuss a blueprint for a federated union.

On the government side, it’s less clear that actors within the establishment (read: the military) are willing to compromise on a federal union. Successful negotiations will require cooperation from the Burmese military (the tatmadaw), who might have stepped back from the front ranks of government but remain deeply entrenched in power. Under the 2008 constitution, the military’s guaranteed the head appointments for the ministries of Defence, Home Affairs, and Border Affairs, as well as 25% of seats in the lower and upper houses of the national legislature, the Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (a share large enough to wield a veto over proposed changes to the constitution). Part of the tatmadaw’s reluctance to consider a federal union stems from its fear that armed groups would have free reign to serve as security forces in each region, weakening the military’s power in the frontiers significantly and exposing border areas to further Chinese and Thai influence.

But it’s more than differing aspirations driving the parties apart. The NLD’s second hurdle is ongoing tatmadaw offensives and divisions between various armed ethnic groups. While the international community sees the charismatic Aung San Suu Kyi leading Myanmar’s peace process, offensives continue despite the signing of the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement. Human rights abuses are also still occurring. The military’s grip on power means holding members of the tatmadaw accountable for their actions is a huge challenge for the NLD government.

There’s also an ongoing struggle for ethnic groups to present a united front for negotiations. Fighting continues in northern Shan state between the Ta’ang National Liberation Army and the Shan State Army-South, and several armed groups prefer to negotiate with the NLD bilaterally.

Lastly, the government’s reluctance to acknowledge the history of Myanmar’s various ethnic groups is a roadblock in any negotiations. After the death of Aung San and the 1962 coup, many in the military feared ethnic groups would attempt to secede and began to impose their will on the ethnic peoples of the Union. For many of Myanmar’s ethnic groups, that meant years of brutal repression and a ‘Burmanisation’ program synonymous with cultural genocide. The teaching of ethnic languages was banned and segments of the population were forcibly relocated. In a city as ethnically diverse and vibrant as Kengtung, signs of Burmanisation and cultural suppression remain visible.

Without acknowledging the diverse history of the region and successive attempts to suppress ethnic culture, the government and ethnic groups are likely to be talking past each other come August.

Those hurdles mean that changes are going to be difficult to implement from within. Reform of the tatmadaw and the drafting of a new constitution are both essential for real democratic change and a lasting peace. And those are areas where the international community has limited sway.

Further, a history of external support for various armed ethnic groups—including Chinese support for the United Wa State Army, who, at an estimated 20,000 plus, are Myanmar’s largest non-state armed group—means Myanmar’s neighbours wield significant influence. In order to succeed, the ‘21st Century Panglong’ conference will need their support along with that of the wider international community.

Though Myanmar has taken steps in the right direction, it’s worth remembering democratic transitions don’t happen overnight. Suu Kyi and the NLD face a military establishment well-acquainted with power and resistant to reform. The NLD can’t do everything at once. Prioritising peace is a logical first-step, but it’s also one that’s difficult to put forward without constitutional change and widespread reform. One can only hope the ‘21st Century Panglong’ lives up to its name.