The asia pacific security lexicon

The Lexicon originated from a Canadian project to assist China’s participation in multilateral security institutions, which dated back to China’s entry into the ASEAN Regional Forum ARF

The ASIA-PACIFIC SECURITY LEXICON

Tai Lieu Chat Luong

Asian Studies, Singapor

The Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS) was established as

an autonomous organization in 1968 It is a regional researchcentre for scholars and other specialists concerned with modernSoutheast Asia, particularly the many-faceted problems of stabilityand security, economic development, and political and social change.The Institute’s research programmes are the Regional EconomicStudies (RES, including ASEAN and APEC), Regional Strategic andPolitical Studies (RSPS), and Regional Social and Cultural Studies(RSCS)

The Institute is governed by a twenty-two-member Board ofTrustees comprising nominees from the Singapore Government, theNational University of Singapore, the various Chambers ofCommerce, and professional and civic organizations An ExecutiveCommittee oversees day-to-day operations; it is chaired by theDirector, the Institute’s chief academic and administrative officer

First published in Singapore in 2002 by

Institute of Southeast Asian Studies

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All rights reserved No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored

in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic,

mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior

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© 2002 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

First reprint 2002

The responsibility for facts and opinions in this publication rests exclusively

with the authors and their interpretations do not necessarily reflect the

views or the policy of the Institute or its supporters.

ISEAS Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

Capie, David.

The Asia-Pacific security lexicon / David Capie and Paul Evans.

(Issues in Southeast Asian security)

ISBN 981-230-149-6 (soft cover)

ISBN 981-230-150-X (hard cover)

Printed in Singapore by Seng Lee Press Pte Ltd.

© 2002 Institute of Southeast

v

Abbreviations vii

Authors xi

Introduction 1

Ad Hoc Multilateralism 11

The “ASEAN Way” 14

Balance of Power 28

Bilateralism 39

Coercive Diplomacy 43

Cold War Mentality 45

Collective Defence 48

Collective Security 53

Common Security 59

Comprehensive Security 64

Concert of Powers 76

Concerted Unilateralism 82

Confidence-Building Measures 84

Confidence- and Security-Building Measures 89

Constructive Intervention 92

Co-operative Security 98

Engagement 108

Ad Hoc Engagement

Comprehensive Engagement

Conditional Engagement

Constructive Engagement

Asian Studies, Singapor

Co-operative Engagement

Deep Engagement

Preventive Engagement

Realistic Engagement

Selective Engagement

Flexible Consensus 136

Human Security 139

Humanitarian Intervention 147

Middle Power 161

Multilateralism 165

Mutual Security 171

New Security Approach 175

Open Regionalism 179

Preventive Diplomacy 185

Security Community 198

Security Pluralism 207

Track One 209

Track One-and-a-Half 211

Track Two 213

Track Three 217

Transparency 220

Trust-Building Measures 222

vi The Asia-Pacific Security Lexicon

© 2002 Institute of Southeast

vii

Asian Studies, Singapor

viii The Asia-Pacific Security Lexicon

Asian Studies, Singapor

David Capie is a Post-doctoral Research Fellow at the Institute ofInternational Relations in the Liu Centre for the Study of GlobalIssues, the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada

Paul Evans is Professor and Director of the Program on Canada-AsiaPolicy Studies and cross-appointed at the Institute of Asian Researchand the Liu Centre for the Study of Global Issues, the University ofBritish Columbia, Vancouver, Canada

xi

Amitav Acharya, David Capie, and Paul Evans

The Pacific Security Lexicon focuses on the vocabulary of

Asia-Pacific security, mainly as it developed in the creative decade of the

1990s The goal is to dissect thirty-four ideas and concepts that have

been at the core of debates about multilateral security co-operation

The study of multilateral institution-building in the Asia-Pacific has

usually focused on material determinants, especially the relationship

between the balance of power and regional institutions By contrast,

the focus here is on ideas

The Lexicon originated from a Canadian project to assist China’s

participation in multilateral security institutions, which dated back

to China’s entry into the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) in 1994 As

part of what became an annual “Canada-China Seminar on Asia

Pacific Multilateralism and Cooperative Security”, a team of Canadian

academics identified a set of central concepts and prepared

bibliographical essays on each Our partner on the Chinese side, the

Asian Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, discussed all

the entries with us, prepared some, and translated an early draft of

the Lexicon into Chinese In 1998, the first draft was circulated as a

working paper by the Joint Centre for Asia Pacific Studies (JCAPS) in

Toronto It included a Chinese and a Japanese translation, and a

useful The draft, in whole or in part, has subsequently been translated

into Korean (separate translations in the Republic of Korea and the

Democratic People’s Republic of Korea), Mongolian, and Thai A

This entry is reproduced from The Asia-Pacific Security Lexicon, by David Capie and Paul Evans (Singapore:

Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2002) This version was obtained electronically direct from the publisher

on condition that copyright is not infringed No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in

a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording

2 The Asia-Pacific Security Lexicon

second Chinese translation has also been produced by academics

in Taiwan

The current version of the Lexicon has been rewritten to take

into account changes in regional discussion since 1998 and to add

several new terms It does not include translations into other

languages, although we hope that this will occur subsequent to

publication While English is the language of Asia-Pacific

multilateralism, it is not the language of most Asians We have

observed with interest how complex terminology, developed in

international processes, moves from English into other languages

From the perspective of diplomacy, this adds an extra layer of

complications and increases the chance of misunderstandings and

distortions From the perspective of scholarship, the act of translation

raises difficult issues of linguistics, conceptual starting points, and

world-views that need further, and we hope collaborative,

programmes of study

The objectives are both practical and theoretical The Lexicon is

primarily intended as a handbook to assist policy-makers and

researchers as they participate in multilateral activities Much of the

debate and controversy in regional discussions still revolves around

conceptual questions Is “confidence-building” a Western process

involving measures too legalistic and formalistic to suit the Asian

context? Does “preventive diplomacy” involve the use of force? Is

“humanitarian intervention” different from “humanitarian assistance”?

Does it involve a challenge to state sovereignty? Is “human security”

merely a Western restatement of the old Asian notion of

“comprehensive security”? What is the real nature of “engagement”?

Is it simply a softer form of containment?

We address these questions but can scarcely resolve them Our

purpose is not to offer definitions and interpretations that are fixed

and incontestable The concepts we examine, to borrow T S Eliot’s

phrase, “will not stay still” Rather, the aim is to set an intellectual

and historical context, and examine how the concepts have evolved

On the theoretical side, the principal objective is to apply and

broaden the constructivist approach to international relations The

view that ideas matter in international affairs is hardly new Yet most

Asian Studies, Singapor

of the writing about ideas has been explicitly rationalist For example,

an influential study argues that ideas matter because they helppolicy-makers pursue their rational self-interest in more efficientways “Ideas affect strategic interactions”, write Judith Goldsteinand Robert Keohane, “helping or hindering joint efforts to attain

more complex view of the impact of ideas on international relations.Ideas do not simply help states to develop more cost-efficient ways

of pursuing their interests; they can also redefine these interests andlead to collective identities

Constructivism faces a special problem in looking at ideationaldebate across cultural and socio-political divides in a region asdiverse as the Asia-Pacific Because of an implicit normative bias infavour of collective identity formation, constructivists have tended

to take an oversimplified view of how ideas shape interests andidentities Despite a professed sensitivity towards cultural variances,there have been very few empirical studies that deal with thecontested ideas informing and shaping co-operation in differentregional contexts

Asian policy-makers have often treated ideas proposed byWestern scholars and officials with suspicion A prime example isthe idea of “common security”, which was the philosophical basis

of the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE)and which played an instrumental role in reducing East-West tensionsresulting in the end of the Cold War When common security wasfirst proposed in the early 1990s as a possible basis for multilateralsecurity dialogues in the Asia-Pacific by policy-makers from theSoviet Union, Canada, and Australia, Asian scholars and governmentofficials were quick to criticize it Its emphasis on militarytransparency, confidence- and security-building measures, andformalistic mechanisms for verification and compliance were seen

as reflecting European circumstances and diplomatic traditions thatwere unsuitable for Asia The negative reaction was surprisingconsidering that common security’s emphasis on security with, asopposed to security against, was deemed important by Asian policy-makers as a needed shift in approach in dealing with regional

4 The Asia-Pacific Security Lexicon

rivalries The same pattern emerged in regional reactions to

“co-operative security” and, a decade later, “humanitarian intervention”

In the case of “preventive diplomacy”, the ARF agreed to develop

such mechanisms as part of a three-step process of security

co-operation However, controversies about what preventive diplomacy

actually means and how it is to be pursued have stymied its

incorporation into the ARF’s agenda

Preventive diplomacy was a highly contested notion when it

was outlined in the ARF Concept Paper as stage two of its

three-stage approach to security co-operation (the other two being

confidence-building and conflict-resolution, or “elaboration of

approaches to conflicts”) Some ARF participants expressed deep

misgivings about the notion, apprehensive that the use of force was

to be a tool of preventive diplomacy However, by the late 1990s,

mainly through conceptual debate and discussion described in the

Lexicon, it had been made clear that preventive diplomacy was

quite distinct from coercive diplomacy

Asian anxiety about importing security concepts from outside

has four foundations One is essentially linguistic Many English

words about security relationships simply do not translate into some

Asian languages Chinese writers, for example, have noted that the

term engagement has no direct Chinese equivalent In these situations,

policy-makers often use rough approximations and analogues that

open the door for misunderstanding and suspicion

A second is more directly political Many ideas originating in

Europe and North America, such as human rights, humanitarian

intervention, and preventive diplomacy, either implicitly or explicitly

challenge state sovereignty, which remains the core of Asian political

thought and practice The precise meaning and scope of these ideas

is a matter of intense political debate within individual countries in

Asia and on a regional basis

A third centres on the established traditions of diplomatic

interaction in the region Many ideas about security co-operation

are expected to require institutionalization This goes against the

grain of informality in time-honoured Asian approaches, especially

those associated with the “ASEAN way” Indeed, the very novelty of

Asian Studies, Singapor

multilateral security co-operation in Asia predisposes its makers against embracing new proposals that call for putativelybenign formal procedures and mechanisms

policy-Finally, the suspicion of imported notions of security is integral

to efforts by some Asian élites to construct and project a regionalidentity Carefully constructed notions about an Asian identity coverissues ranging from human rights and democracy to multilateralsecurity co-operation Ideas from outside the region can becometargets to foster an insider/outsider distinction that sustains a sense

of Asian exceptionalism In terms more subtle than a lingeringsuspicion of Western “cultural imperialism”, there is a widely sharedbelief that many security concepts generated in the West projectexternal values, beliefs, and practices without realizing how poorlythey fit in with local situations

Multilateral efforts to expand security co-operation have involvedAsian and non-Asian actors, a debate about fundamental ideas, andattempts to find common understandings of key concepts Conceptsintroduced from outside Asia have rarely been accepted and adopted

in that region without revision or modification Rather, they havebeen adapted to suit local conditions and to support local beliefsand practices Asian states have not been passive recipients offoreign ideas, but active borrowers, modifiers, and in some instancesinitiators There are also indications of mutual learning While manyideas concerning security co-operation have been “Asianized”, someAsian ideas and practices (for example, the “ASEAN way” andflexible consensus) have been “Westernized” or “universalized”.Asian notions of comprehensive security developed by Japan,Malaysia, and Indonesia not only pre-dated trends in Europe andNorth America to redefine and broaden the meaning of security,they helped promote them Seen in this light, the controversieswhich the Lexicon chronicles indicate the progress made in building

6 The Asia-Pacific Security Lexicon

humanitarian intervention, held by the democratic regimes in

Bangkok and Manila are often more similar to those in Ottawa or

Canberra than in Beijing or New Delhi Similarly, although Canada

and the United States have consistently held very different

understandings of “co-operative security”, their foreign policy

interests and beliefs are barely distinguishable to many Asians Nor

can one attach the label “Western” to particular notions about

Asia-Pacific security simply because they were initially proposed by a

Western scholar or official For example, human security is not

exclusively or even primarily a Western construct even though the

Canadian Government has been one of its most enthusiastic

proponents Two advocates of human security are Asian nations:

Japan and Thailand While there are differences between the

Canadian and Japanese interpretations of human security (with the

former focusing on the human costs of violent conflict while the

latter stresses economic development to address human needs), the

similarities are more striking than the differences The safety and

dignity of the individual remain at the core of both notions, and

both seek to move away from a state-centric notion of security

A second trend is the gradual broadening of dialogues to include

intra-state issues and participation by groups from civil society The

well-established “track two” process has been supplemented with

the creation of a burgeoning “track three”, comprising dialogues

between officials and civil society actors

Third, states have changed in their receptivity to multilateral

dialogue and co-operation At the beginning of the 1990s, both

China and the United States were lukewarm, even hostile, to the

idea of multilateral instruments and frameworks By the middle of

the decade, both governments offered enthusiastic, if qualified,

support New actors, some coming out of decades of isolation,

including Myanmar, Vietnam, and North Korea, were brought into

the multilateral process both at the track one and track two levels

Their participation not only contributed to the relevance of the

multilateral process, but also made the task of reaching agreement

on meanings and interpretation more complicated

Comparing 1990 with 2000, it is obvious how far multilateralism

Asian Studies, Singapor

has penetrated the rhetoric and reality of regional security analysis.Institutions for multilateral consultation and co-operation have takenroot on an ad hoc basis around specific problems, through regularizedchannels at the governmental level and through numerous track twoand track three dialogue processes While self-help and bilateralarrangements remain the cornerstones of regional security practice,the number of multilateral interactions in the region today testifies

to the progress that has been achieved in moving beyond Cold Warstructures

In spite of this progress, multilateralism in the Asia-Pacific isnow at an important juncture We share the concerns of many thatefforts at promoting multilateralism have reached a plateau TheAssociation of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) does not seem able

to produce the energy and leadership that it did before the economiccrisis Middle powers, such as Australia and Canada, are playingless visible roles than they did a decade ago In addition, with achange of administration in the United States, there are signs ofincreased strategic competition with China, and at least a rhetoricalemphasis on bilateral alliances and unilateral action

Nevertheless, harsher critics of Asia-Pacific institutions shouldremember that multilateralism in the region is still a very newenterprise Mechanisms for official-level security dialogue such asthe ARF are only slightly more than five years old Leading regionalmilitary figures recognize that the alternatives to multilateralismoffer no greater promise of stability or peace

The challenge for advocates of multilateralism will be to findnew ways to build on the foundations laid down in the past decade

We hope the Lexicon will not be just a historical account of theprogress made in the 1990s but also a platform for moving thediscussion to a new stage

Methodology

In preparing the Lexicon we consulted more than 2,000 articles,books, and conference papers Rather than attempting to becomprehensive, we have focused on the arguments and positions

8 The Asia-Pacific Security Lexicon

that we feel have been most important in setting the basis for

common understandings or in producing important controversies

We have aimed to strike a balance in selecting writings that reflect

differing national contexts, philosophical starting points, and points

of view Our chronological cut off was September 2000

In editing the manuscript we have kept with the Institute of

Southeast Asian Studies’ (ISEAS) use of the Oxford Dictionary for

Writers and Editors as the standard for spelling in words such as

“co-operation” and “co-operative” rather than the unhyphenated

versions more familiar in regional discussions Similarly, for reasons

of consistency with ISEAS standards, in the title and throughout, the

copy editors have chosen the hyphenated version of “Asia-Pacific”

rather than the unhyphenated “Asia Pacific” employed by many of

the authors cited in the Lexicon

Two entries are of a rather different character than the others

The sections on “Cold War Mentality” and “New Security Approach”

are based heavily on ideas generated by the Ministry of Foreign

Affairs in Beijing They have not been as widely used as some of the

other concepts, at least by analysts outside China, but are included

because of their centrality in Chinese thinking and their significance

for future regional discussions

Acknowledgements

The Lexicon has been a joint venture from the outset and we owe

more than the normal number of thanks We thank several officials

in the Asian Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Beijing

who have been involved in the project from its inception The

Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) has provided

financial support for the Lexicon for the past five years as part of the

Canada-China Seminar on Asia Pacific Multilateralism and

Cooperative Security Brian Hunter at CIDA encouraged the project

at every turn

Paul Evans appreciates release time supported by the Abe

Fellowship Programme and the United States Institute of Peace in

1998 and 1999 Several colleagues from Asia and North America

Asian Studies, Singapor

took their time to comment on sections of the Lexicon or to preparetranslations of the first draft We especially appreciated the earlyencouragement of Yukio Satoh, and the careful and thoughtful adviceprovided by Dr Akiko Fukushima Amitav Acharya has been a majorpresence from the beginning He was a principal lecturer in theCanada-China Seminar (CANCHIS) process from 1997 to 2000 andco-authored the Introduction Shirley Yue played an indispensablerole in managing the complex logistics that made the overall projectpossible Finally, Michael Leifer did not have an opportunity to look

at the revised Lexicon before his untimely death, but we all benefitedfrom frequent debates with him about the limits and direction of theregional discussion, especially whether multilateralism in the regioncould move beyond dialogue to substantive co-operation

Disclaimer

While we acknowledge the advice and assistance of many whohave been involved in the project, we emphasize that any errors inselection, interpretation, or factual matters are ours alone

Notes

1 David H Capie, Paul M Evans, and Akiko Fukushima, “Speaking Asia Pacific Security: A Lexicon of English Terms with Chinese and Japanese Translations and a Note on the Japanese Translation”, Working Paper, University of Toronto-York University Joint Centre for Asia Pacific Security, Toronto, 1998, 320 pp.

2 Judith Goldstein and Robert Keohane, eds., Ideas and Foreign Policy: Beliefs, Institutions and Political Change (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993), p 12.

Literally ad hoc multilateralism refers to multilateralism created for

single-issue multilateralism, the term was used by Robert Scalapino to

describe collaborative mechanisms developed to deal with specific

security problems in Eastern Asia before the creation of an effective

describe multilateral responses to security problems on the Korean

peninsula and in Cambodia

Scalapino’s use of the term focused on North Korea’s threat to

withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) He argued

that in the absence of a permanent peacemaking or peacekeeping

institution in Northeast Asia, ad hoc multilateral arrangements limited

to particular issue areas had to be organized to deal with this crisis

In the Korean case, this process involved complex shuttle diplomacy

between the foreign ministers and leaders of the United States,

Japan, China, and the two Koreas Ad hoc multilateralism usually

focuses specifically on a single problem or issue area, and

membership tends to be restricted to parties with a close link to the

matter at hand, although these do not necessarily need to be states

In the Korean situation, ad hoc multilateralism included a key role

for institutions such as the International Atomic Energy Agency

(IAEA), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the Korean

Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO) Scalapino

has characterized the interactions between the parties in such a

situation as involving the construction of ad hoc arcs formed in

concentric manner over a particular issue He describes a series of

interactions that take place among and between diverse parties,

from the most essential to the more peripheral, but in each case

stemming from a sense of national interest According to Scalapino,

arcs, not circles, represent the most appropriate metaphor since the

different levels must be open-ended so that contact can be maintained

Desmond Ball and Pauline Kerr have noted that when former

U.S Secretary of State James Baker argued in an influential 1991

Foreign Affairs article that security policy in the Asia-Pacific “could

take on a stronger multilateral component”, he was actually referring

This entry is reproduced from The Asia-Pacific Security Lexicon, by David Capie and Paul Evans (Singapore:

Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2002) This version was obtained electronically direct from the publisher

on condition that copyright is not infringed No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in

a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording

12 The Asia-Pacific Security Lexicon

to ad hoc multilateral co-operation on specific security issues such

as Cambodia or the North Korean nuclear issue, and was not

complementary to the United States’ bilateral “hub and spokes”

In a more conceptual analysis, Brian Job has argued that ad hoc

multilateralism represents one end of a spectrum of possible

multilateral arrangements He claims its exponents see “only an

efficiency argument to state security cooperation … States act in

response to their short-term interest, narrowly defined; they

collaborate with other states because of a short-term coincidence of

the “deeper” multilateralism of institutions such as the North Atlantic

Treaty Organization (NATO) or the General Agreement on Tariffs

and Trade (GATT), where states take on far greater commitments

with only the promise of diffuse reciprocity in return (for a more

detailed discussion of these terms, see the entry on “Multilateralism”)

Job compares the logic of ad hoc multilateralism with the temporary

collaboration of great powers, coming together to act in a

problem-solving capacity when another state threatens the overall regional

security environment

In a similar vein, Susan Shirk has linked ad hoc multilateralism

to her analysis of the prospects for a concert of powers in Asia Shirk

points out that while the supervision of the election in Cambodia in

1993 involved United Nations peacekeeping forces, and North

Korea’s threat to leave the NPT involved the International Atomic

Energy Agency (IAEA), “the arena for working out these problems

[was] not … the Security Council, but consultations among the

major regional powers: the United States, China, Russia, and Japan,

along with ASEAN in the case of Cambodia and South Korea in the

Benjamin Miller’s study of concerts unequivocally states that

single-issue, ad hoc great power co-operation should not be confused with

Asian Studies, Singapor

2 Robert Scalapino, “The United States and Asia: Future Prospects”,

Foreign Affairs 70, no 5 (Winter 1991–92): 19–40; Susan L Shirk,

“Asia-Pacific Security: Balance of Power or Concert of Powers?”, Paper

prepared for the Japan Institute of International Affairs-Asia Society

Conference on “Prospects for Multilateral Cooperation in Northeast

Asia: An International Dialogue”, Tokyo, 18–20 May 1995, p 29 See

also, Robert Scalapino, “Northeast Asia in an Age of Upheaval”, Paper

prepared for the “Major Powers and Future Security in Northeast Asia”

Conference, Seoul, Republic of Korea, 25–26 May 1995, a summary of

which is available online at <http://www.nbr.org/pub/analysis/

vol6no2.html>.

3 For a contemporary discussion of ad hoc multilateralism, see Robert A.

Scalapino, “Historical Perceptions and Current Realities Regarding

Northeast Asian Regional Cooperation”, NPCSD Working Paper No.

20, York University, Toronto, 1992, pp 10–11.

4 Desmond Ball and Pauline Kerr, Presumptive Engagement: Australia’s

Asia-Pacific Security Policy in the 1990s (St Leonards, NSW: Allen &

Unwin, 1996), p 21, note 26.

5 James A Baker, III, “America in Asia: Emerging Architecture for a

Pacific Community”, Foreign Affairs 70, no 5 (Winter 1991–92): 1–18,

5–6.

6 Brian L Job, “Bilateralism and Multilateralism in the Asia Pacific

Region”, manuscript, p 3 An earlier version of this paper appears in

William Tow, Russell Trood, and Toshiya Hoshina, eds., Bilateralism in

a Multilateral Era (JIIA and the Centre for the Study of Australia-Asia

Relations, 1997).

7 Shirk, “Asia-Pacific Security”, p 29.

8 Benjamin Miller, “Explaining the Emergence of Great Power Concerts”,

Review of International Studies 20 (1994): 327–48, 329.

The “ASEAN way” is a style of diplomacy or code of conduct that

has evolved in intra-ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations)

ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) and Asia-Pacific Economic

Co-operation (APEC) by virtue of ASEAN’s special role within them

Also presented in parallel formulations as the “Asian way”, “APEC

way”, or “Asia-Pacific way”, the “ASEAN way” represents the

conscious rejection by Asian leaders and policy-makers of what

they perceive to be imported Western notions of diplomacy and

“Cartesian” style of diplomacy which some Asians regard as

“formalistic” and focused on “legalistic” procedures and solutions,

the “ASEAN way” stresses patience, evolution, informality,

way” “a distinct political process” developed by the Association and

characterized by “the habit of consultation and accommodation …

or Asian way of diplomacy has not been universally accepted,

however Some criticisms, particularly from European scholars, have

been strident

The origins of what has come to be called the “ASEAN way”

actually pre-date the creation of the Association in 1967 According

to Filipino scholar Estrella Solidum, the desire to avoid confrontation

and acrimony in international relations and the importance of

low-key, consensus-based diplomacy can be traced back to ASEAN’s

1961, the founders of the ASA declared that problems in the region

should be resolved using “Asian solutions that contain Asian values”

Solidum says the most important of these values was the use of

“very low-key diplomacy [which] avoids fanfare before an agreement

ground rules” shared by ASEAN élites Typically, scholars identify

these shared norms as including a preference for informality and for

non-legalistic and, thus, non-binding approaches to diplomacy which

A central characteristic of the “ASEAN way” has been its cautious

Minister S Jayakumar has called this ASEAN’s predilection for

all these labels suggest that ASEAN is a different regional institution

member states do not seek to create a political union nor does the

institution have any supranational authority Rather, ASEAN is an

example of “sovereignty-enhancing regionalism” where most

decision-making powers continue to reside in the various national

capitals

ASEAN’s institutional resources reflect its preference for

informality Compared with an entity such as the European Union

(EU), ASEAN has only a modest bureaucratic apparatus, although its

Both the ARF and APEC have followed ASEAN’s example The ARF

has no permanent professional staff or Secretariat, and the APEC

also reflected in the labels used to describe these institutions Since

the establishment of the ARF in 1994, ASEAN representatives have

been careful to describe it as a “dialogue forum” rather than the

apparently more formal-sounding “multilateral security

affected the ARF’s inter-sessional process At the second ARF meeting

in 1995, it was agreed to establish inter-sessional working groups

However, China objected to the use of the term working groups and

opposed an open-ended timetable because “this smacked of thicker

designated the groups as inter-sessional support groups (ISGs) and

inter-sessional support meetings (ISMs) Many of the same arguments

have taken place about institutionalization within APEC APEC has

been referred to as a “consultative mechanism” to clearly distinguish

it from an “economic community”, a term that has obvious European

connotations A 1993 Australian proposal to use “community” in

the APEC context was met with consternation by APEC’s Asian

recommended “the progressive development of a community of

Asia Pacific economies with free and open trade and investment”

According to the EPG, “community” was not meant to imply

complete economic integration or even a customs union, but “simply

to connote a like-minded group that aims to remove barriers to

The preference of the “ASEAN way” for informality can also be

seen in the Association’s use of consultative processes such as

“habits of dialogue” and non-binding commitments rather than

Foong, “ASEAN officials have contrasted their approach to [those]

that emphasize legal contracts, formal declarations, majoritarian

APEC nor the ARF has adopted formal dispute settlement

mechanisms APEC proponents explicitly rejected calls for the

establishment of a regional dispute settlement mechanism They did

not see a need for “highly legalistic” procedures such as those of the

World Trade Organization (WTO) or General Agreement on Tariffs

and Trade (GATT) Instead APEC’s Bogor Declaration only calls for

Similarly, for the ARF, the objective of conflict resolution has had a

mixed reception The ASEAN Concept Paper, presented at the second

ARF meeting in 1995, initially proposed a three-stage approach to

future security co-operation: beginning with confidence-building,

then preventive diplomacy, and finally conflict resolution However,

after some discussion the term conflict resolution was changed to

“elaboration of approaches to conflicts”, apparently because China

found conflict resolution “too formal a category” and opposed any

is a rather striking example of antipathy for legalistic approaches,

Acharya notes that China’s position would not be inconsistent with

ASEAN’s own approach to intra-mural conflicts which is “better

The importance of personal relations and élite diplomacy

between ASEAN leaders is another manifestation of this preference

for informality A founding father of ASEAN, Ali Moertopo, has said

intra-ASEAN consultations are often successful because its leaders

leaders prefer what Tun Abdul Razak called “sports shirt diplomacy”

discussions over dinner or on the golf course are more likely to be

effective than sitting down to debate a policy in a meeting Some

analysts have noted, however, that the importance of personal

relations has declined as a new generation of ASEAN leaders has

face-to-face meetings between leaders remain important in building

trust ASEAN uses the Bahasa expression empat mata (literally

meaning “four eyes”) to refer to direct one-on-one meetings between

Advocates of the “ASEAN way” also stress the importance of

patience Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad has

described the first task of any dialogue process as “the tedious

laud the very existence of the ARF, and emphasize that in dialogue

institutional setting such as the ARF, the “ASEAN way” seeks to build

a “level of comfort” amongst participants before embarking on

ambitious initiatives The 1995 ARF Chairman’s Statement declared

that “the ARF process shall move at a pace comfortable to all

meeting described this pace as not “too fast for those who want to

practice, this means that any contentious issues likely to provoke

confrontation or open disagreement are dropped from the agenda

Some Asian leaders have referred to the need for multilateral

need for patience has been recognized by some non-Asian

participants as well One regional defence official has said of the

ARF, “[t]he rate of progress will try the patience of some, but the

speed of the train becomes irrelevant if some of the carriages are left

While proponents of the “ASEAN way” are uncomfortable with

rapid and formalistic approaches to institution-building, and assert

that “process is more important than structures”, this discomfort

should not be exaggerated Although Asia-Pacific institutions usually

have small bureaucracies by European standards, the number of

track one officials meetings and working groups co-ordinated by

ASEAN, APEC, ASEM (Asia-Europe Meeting), and the ARF is

considerable ASEAN itself organizes close to 300 officials meetings

annually APEC has ten formal working groups, covering issues from

investment to trade promotion ARF inter-sessional meetings have

also become commonplace Since 1999, ARF delegations have

been expanded, allowing defence officials to meet with their

counterparts over a working lunch at ARF meetings In addition, the

past few years has seen the emergence of a burgeoning stream of

intra-East Asian multilateralism, including several meetings of the

officials and ministers now meet regularly and in a systematic way

He argues that while there is a tendency in the Asia-Pacific to

highlight the modesty of institutional arrangements when compared

with Europe, “the development of APEC … compares favourably

with the early phases of institutional cooperation in other parts of

the world, including Europe in the immediate post World War II

Another element of the “ASEAN way” is the principle of

inclusivity: bringing both like-minded and non-like-minded

participants into dialogue As early as the 1991 ASEAN Ministerial

Meeting, it was envisaged that non-like-minded states, such as the

Soviet Union, China, North Korea, and Vietnam, should be included

ASEAN’s policy of constructive engagement with the State Law and

Order Restoration Council (SLORC) regime in Myanmar (Burma)

is an important foundation of APEC’s embrace of non-discriminatory

open regionalism (see the entry on “Open Regionalism”) and some

scholars have used the term to describe ASEAN’s own model of

for engaging non-like-minded actors, inclusivity has its limits: for

example, neither Taiwan nor Pakistan is a member of the ARF, and

Similarly, Australia, New Zealand, India, and Pakistan were excluded

Generally, track two groupings such as the Council for Security

Co-operation in the Asia Pacific (CSCAP), tend to be more inclusive

than their track one counterparts

A third and perhaps the most important element of the “ASEAN

way” is its particular use of consensus Some accounts trace the

origins of ASEAN’s deeply-rooted preference for consensus to Javanese

village culture, in particular to its twin notions of musyawarah and

disposition on the part of the members to give due regard to the

which at the village level meant the leader should not act arbitrarily

or impose his will, but rather “should make gentle suggestions of the

path the community should follow, being careful always to consult

all other participants fully and to take their views and feelings into

According to former Indonesian Foreign Minister Subandrio,

negotiations in the musyawarah spirit take place “not as between

consensus reached through the process of musyawarah In theory,

musyawarah goes on for as long as is needed for mufakat to be

achieved Michael Haas has argued that this process eschews what

he calls “Anglo-European” tendencies like “power plays, trade-offs,

the process tries to create an “amalgamation of the most acceptable

based on the belief that a “feeling of goodwill based on feelings of

brotherhood and kinship may serve the same purpose as oil on

It is important to note that ASEAN’s approach to consensus

should not be confused with unanimity Former Indonesian Foreign

Minister Ali Alatas described it as finding a way of “moving forward

Where there is “broad” support for a specific measure, the objections

of a dissenting participant can sometimes be discounted, provided

the proposal does not threaten that member’s most basic interests

led one scholar to argue that ambiguity is the “handmaiden of

ambiguous language that allows “participants to reach common

standards, and subsequently, to hold their own interpretation of

consensus-building as “accommodation on the basis of the minimum

consensus approach to decision-making gives the key role to the

Chair, as it is the one who determines when consensus has or has

not been reached It is, therefore, especially important that the Chair

The final element of the “ASEAN way”, and one which has

received considerable attention, is the norm of non-interference in

the internal affairs of member states As relatively young and

predominantly post-colonial states, ASEAN’s members have always

placed a great deal of importance on the preservation of their

sovereignty The principle of non-intervention is enshrined in all

ASEAN’s key documents, including the 1967 Bangkok Declaration,

the 1976 Treaty of Amity and Co-operation (TAC), and the 1976

Declaration of ASEAN Concord In the wake of the regional economic

crisis in 1997–99, the environmental problem known as the “haze”,

and violence in Cambodia and Indonesia, there were numerous

calls for ASEAN to revisit its fundamental norms Some said it

should abandon key aspects of the “ASEAN way”, particularly the

norm of non-interference and the preference for thin

institutionalization (for a more detailed discussion of these calls, see

the entry on “Constructive Intervention”) One scholar predicted

that ASEAN’s failure to act collectively in the face of the economic

“the ‘Asian way’ of consensus-based diplomacy has suffered greatly

while the economic crisis did provoke heated discussion within

ASEAN about its procedural norms, a debate that is still ongoing,

the “ASEAN way” as it has traditionally been understood has been

largely reaffirmed, at least for the time being, at Ministerial Meetings

The “ASEAN way” or “Asian way” has not been without its

detractors One of its foremost critics was the late Gerald Segal of

the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS)

In a strongly argued essay published in 1996 entitled “What is Asian

about Asian Security?”, Segal dismissed claims of a distinctive East

nothing especially “European” about formal approaches to

been made in the Middle East using arms control techniques derived

from the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE)

He concluded, “rather than any special approach to security and

arms control which has yet to find the appropriately devised, and

culturally-sensitive, mechanism … East Asians may simply be

Martin Jones have said, “ASEAN’s handling of Myanmar and

Cambodia’s entry into the Association exposes the limitations of the

ASEAN way … In particular, it exposes the limitations of consensus

and informality which it is often declared constitutes a particular

strength of the ASEAN way.” Smith and Jones conclude

unambiguously that “ASEAN is not really a conflict avoidance

Leifer has also been critical of some of the claims made about the

“ASEAN way” Responding to one scholar’s suggestion that “cultural

tradition in the Asia-Pacific can facilitate greater regional security

cooperation”, Leifer described the ARF as “an embryonic,

one-dimensional approach to regional security among states of

considerable cultural and political diversity … To interpret its role

in terms of a new paradigm in international relations would be the

A growing number of prominent figures in Southeast Asian

security circles have also begun to express reservations about the

efficacy of ASEAN’s traditional modus operandi In a July 1998

op-ed piece in the International Herald Tribune, Singapore’s former

ambassador to the United Nations Tommy Koh argued that East Asia

could learn much from the Western European experience of

institution-building He said, “the currency and economic crisis in

East Asia has shown that the ASEAN way needs to be supplemented

by institutions … The time has come for East Asia in general, and

ASEAN in particular, to strengthen existing institutions and build

argument, warning that short of changes ASEAN will surely become

irrelevant He prescribed “a more formal set of principles” for

ASEAN and said, “ASEAN needs to institutionalize the way it does

business While it would not want to imitate the European Union,

increasing institutionalization is vital for ASEAN’s ability to cope

with new challenges.” In August 2000, Wanandi repeated his call

In the Straits Times, he said, “basically, the old principles which

have guided ASEAN in the last thirty years — namely a personal,

non-legalistic and informal system of cooperation between the states

or their bureaucracies and a step-by-step approach — are no longer

adequate to cope with fundamental changes happening in ASEAN

about environmental co-operation, Simon Tay argues, “substituting

international principles and approaches for the ASEAN way have so

far failed, so the best hope is that ASEAN can adapt international

practices and so evolve the ASEAN way toward greater effectiveness

Notes

1 The ten member states of ASEAN are Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia,

Laos, Myanmar, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and

Vietnam.

2 For a critical discussion of the “Asian way” in a broader sense, examining

arguments made by the so-called Singapore school (whose most notable

members include Lee Kuan Yew, Tommy Koh, and Kishore Mahbubani)

about development and Asian values, see Alan Dupont, “Is there an

Asian Way?”, Survival 38, no 2 (Summer 1996): 13–33.

3 For an example of this distinction, see S Mankusuwondo, “APEC Trade

Liberalization”, in Indonesian Perspectives on APEC and Regional

Cooperation in Asia-Pacific, edited by Hadi Soesastro (Jakarta: Centre

for Strategic and International Studies, 1994); see also Noordin Sopiee,

“An Asian Way for APEC”, Japan Times, 19 September 1994, p 2.

4 Kusuma Snitwongse, “Thirty Years of ASEAN: Achievements through

Political Cooperation”, Pacific Review 11, no 2 (1998): 183–94, 184.

5 Estrella Solidum, “The Role of Certain Sectors in Shaping and Articulating

the ASEAN way”, in ASEAN Identity, Development and Culture, edited

by R P Anand and Purificacion V Quisumbung (Manila and Honolulu:

University of the Philippines Law Centre and the East-West Center

Culture Learning Institute, 1981), pp 130–48.

6 Ibid., p 136.

7 This is a paraphrase taken from Snitwongse, “Thirty Years of ASEAN”,

p 184.

8 Acharya describes this as a preference for the avoidance of ‘“excessive

institutionalization”, see Amitav Acharya, “Ideas, Identity, and

Institution-Building: From the ASEAN Way to the Asia-Pacific Way?”, Pacific

Review 10, no 3 (1997): 319–46, 328–30.

9 Quoted in Lee Kim Chew, “Don’t Discard Fundamentals”, Straits Times,

25 July 1998.

10 Cited in Diane Stone, “Networks, Second Track Diplomacy and Regional

Cooperation: The Role of Southeast Asian Think Tanks”, Paper presented

at the 38th Annual Meeting of the International Studies Association,

Toronto, Canada, 16–22 March 1997, p 20.

11 Alastair Iain Johnston, “The Myth of the ASEAN Way? Explaining the

Evolution of the ASEAN Regional Forum”, in Imperfect Unions: Security

Institutions Over Time and Space, by Helga Haftendorn, Robert O.

Keohane, and Celeste A Wallander (New York: Oxford University

Press, 1999), pp 287–324, 299.

12 Liao Shaolian, “ASEAN Model in International Economic Cooperation”,

in One Southeast Asia in a New Regional and International Setting,

edited by Hadi Soesastro (Jakarta: Centre for Strategic and International

Studies, 1997), pp 83–92.

14 Michael Richardson, “Asian Security Forum Gains Support”,

International Herald Tribune, 31 July 2000.

15 See, for example, Singapore Defence Minister Yeo Ning Hong quoted

in “The Jane’s Interview”, Jane’s Defence Weekly, 19 February 1994, p.

52, cited in Acharya, “Ideas, Identity, and Institution-Building”, pp.

333–34.

16 Johnston, “The Myth of the ASEAN Way?”, p 311

17 Roslan Ali, “Indonesia: APEC Community Will Be Different from EC —

Evans”, Business Times (Malaysia), 10 August 1993 In the article,

Australian Foreign Minister Gareth Evans is quoted as saying, “There is

no reason why we cannot in our regional village, use the word

community to mean what we want it to mean We can push ahead

with building our economic community according to our patterns, our

models and our language.” He went on to say, “Community is already

embryonically in practice in the every day processes of APEC and is

emerging in the ASEAN Post-Ministerial Conference (PMC) process.

That means a community built in the APEC way, the ASEAN dialogue

way, founded on the evolutionary recognition of mutual benefits and

interests, open dialogue, consensus-building, and loose but effective

arrangements.”

18 Second Report of the Eminent Persons Group, Achieving the APEC

Vision: Free and Open Trade in the Asia Pacific (Singapore: APEC

Secretariat, 1994).

19 Acharya, “Ideas, Identity and Institution-Building”, p 334–35;

Snitwongse, “Thirty Years of ASEAN”, p 184

20 Khong Yuen Foong, “ASEAN’s Collective Identity: Sources, Shifts, and

Security Consequences”, Paper presented at the 94th Annual Meeting

of the American Political Science Association, Boston, 3–6 September

1998, p 10.

21 Third Report of the Eminent Persons Group, Implementing the APEC

Vision (Singapore: APEC Secretariat, 1995), p 12.

22 Acharya, “Ideas, Identity and Institution-Building”, p 335 China remains

insistent on this wording An ASEAN Draft on Concept and Principles

of Preventive Diplomacy presented at an ARF track two meeting held

in Singapore in April 2000, contained a sentence which referred to

“elaboration of approaches to conflict resolution” China asked for the

word resolution to be deleted, saying “the Chinese side always believes

it is crucially important to strictly follow the consensus reached by the

ARF ministers” For more details on these papers, see the entry on

“Preventive Diplomacy”.

23 Ibid.

24 Quoted in Michael Antolik, ASEAN and the Diplomacy of

Accommodation (New York: East Gate Books, 1990), p 95.

25 Quoted in Michael Haas, “The Asian Way to Peace”, Pacific Community,

No 4 (1973), p 504.

26 Jusuf Wanandi, “ASEAN’s Future at Stake”, Straits Times, 9 August 2000.

27 Antolik, ASEAN and Diplomacy of Accommodation, p 90.

28 Quoted in Jusuf Wanandi, “Pacific Economic Coooperation: An

Indonesian View”, Asian Survey 23, no 2 (December 1983): 1272.

29 Jose T Almonte, “Ensuring Security the ‘ASEAN Way’”, Survival 39, no.

4 (Winter 1997–98): 80–92, 81.

30 ASEAN Regional Forum, Chairman’s Statement, 1995, p 2

31 “ASEAN Regional Forum: A Concept Paper”, para 21, reproduced in

Desmond Ball and Pauline Kerr, Presumptive Engagement: Australia’s

Asia-Pacific Security Policy in the 1990s (St Leonards, NSW: Allen &

Unwin, 1996), Appendix 2.

32 Asian Wall Street Journal, 24 June 1994, pp 1, 6.

33 Former New Zealand Secretary of Defence Gerald Hensley,

“Asia-Pacific Security: A Balance Sheet”, Speech given by the New Zealand

Secretary of Defence in Honolulu, 27 July 1995 (author’s copy).

34 ASEAN Plus Three is made up of the ten ASEAN member states plus

China, Japan, and South Korea Foreign ministers from these states held

their first meeting in July 2000 See Edward Tang, “’ASEAN Plus Three’

Move Closer”, Straits Times, 27 July 2000.

35 Kamarulzaman Salleh, “Enhancing Multilateral Ties”, New Straits Times,

24 July 2000, p 22.

36 Richard Higgott, “Free Trade and Open Regionalism: Towards an Asian

International Trade Strategy?”, Paper presented at the Conference on

“Europe in the Asia Pacific”, Bali, Indonesia, 28–31 May 1996, p 27.

37 Explanatory text for the 1991 ASEAN Ministerial Meeting, cited in

Stewart Henderson, “Canada and Asia Pacific Security: The North

Pacific Cooperative Security Dialogue: Recent Trends”, NPCSD Working

Paper No 1, York University, Toronto, 1992, p 12.

38 The SLORC was re-named the State Peace and Development Council

(SPDC) on 15 November 1997; see Jose Manuel Tesoro and Dominic

Faulder, “Changing of the Guard: SLORC Fixes Its Name — and Purges

Some Faces”, Asiaweek, 24 November 1997; “A SLORC by Any Other

Name”, Washington Post, 6 March 1998, p A24.

39 Mohammed Ariff, “Open Regionalism à la ASEAN”, Journal of Asian

Economics 5, no.1 (1994): 99–117.

40 “’Lack of Consensus’ Keeps Pakistan out of ARF”, Hindu, 26 July 2000.

41 David Lague, “Evans Plays Down Our ASEAN Snub”, Sydney Morning

Herald, 1 August 1995; “As Europe Meets Asia”, Economist, 2 March

1996, pp 16–17; Phar Kim Beng, “Why Australia Still Left out of East

Asia”, Straits Times, 27 July 2000.

42 Arnafin Jorgensen-Dahl, Regional Organization and Order in Southeast

Asia (London: Macmillan, 1982), p 166.

43 Herb Faith, The Decline of Constitutional Democracy in Indonesia,

(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1962), p 100, note 58.

44 Ibid., p 40.

45 Cited in Jorgensen-Dahl, Regional Organization, p 166.

46 Michael Haas, “Asian Culture and International Relations”, in Culture

and International Relations, edited by Jongsuk Chay (New York: Praeger,

1990), p 179.

47 J N Mak, “The ASEAN Process (‘Way’) of Multilateral Cooperation

and Cooperative Security: The Road to a Regional Arms Register?”,

Paper presented at the MIMA-SIPRI Workshop on “ASEAN Arms Register:

Developing Transparency”, Kuala Lumpur, 2–3 October 1995, p 5.

48 Jorgensen-Dahl, Regional Organization, p 167.

49 Straits Times, 13 November 1994, p 17, cited in Acharya, “Ideas,

Identity, and Institution-Building”, p 331 Emphasis added.

50 Michael Richardson, “Alliance Prefers Informal Consensus”, Globe

and Mail (Toronto), 7 June 1997, p A19.

51 Snitwongse, “Thirty Years of ASEAN”, p 191 Generally, it is accepted

that the “Ten minus X” formula applies to economic issues, such as

aspects of ASEAN’s liberalization agenda, but does not apply to political

or security issues.

52 Antolik, ASEAN and Diplomacy of Accommodation, p 157.

53 Ibid.

54 Ernst B Haas, “International Integration: The European and the Universal

Process”, in International Political Communities: An Anthology (New

York: Doubleday, 1966), p 95, cited in Jorgensen-Dahl, Regional

Organization, p 168 See also, Snitwongse’s comment about “‘meat

grinder wisdom’ based on the lowest common denominator”, in “Thirty

Years of ASEAN”, p 184.

55 Johnston, “The Myth of the ASEAN Way?”, p 299.

56 For example, see Kay Möller, “Cambodia and Burma: The ASEAN Way

Ends Here”, Asian Survey XXXVIII, no 12 (December 1998): 1087–

104.

57 Amitav Acharya, “A Concert of Asia?”, Survival 41, no 3 (Autumn

1999): 84–101, 84.

58 For a summary of these developments, see Jurgen Haacke, “The

Principles of Non-Interference and Quiet Diplomacy in the International

Politics of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in the

Late 1990s: What is Really Changing?”, Paper presented at the Fortieth

Meeting of the International Studies Association, Washington, D.C.,

16–20 February 1999 See also, Robin Ramcharan, “ASEAN and

Non-Interference: A Principle Maintained”, Contemporary Southeast Asia

22, no 1 (April 2000): 60–88.

59 Gerald Segal, “What Is Asian About Asian Security?”, in Unresolved

Futures: Comprehensive Security in the Asia-Pacific, edited by James

Rolfe (Wellington: Centre for Strategic Studies, 1995), pp 107–20, 107.

60 Ibid., p 114.

61 Ibid.

62 M L Smith and D M Jones, “ASEAN, Asian Values and Southeast

Asian Security in the New World Order”, Contemporary Security

Policy 18, no 3 (December 1997): 126–56, 147 See also Tobias Ingo

Nischalke, “Insights from ASEAN’s Foreign Policy Cooperation: The

‘ASEAN Way’, a Real Spirit or a Phantom”, Contemporary Southeast

Asia 22, no 1 (April 2000): 89–112 Nischalke concludes that “put

starkly, the ‘ASEAN way’ has proven to be a myth”, p 107.

63 Michael Leifer, The ASEAN Regional Forum: Extending ASEAN’s Model

of Regional Security, Adelphi Paper No 302 (London: International

Institute of Strategic Studies, 1996), p 59.

64 Tommy Koh, “East Asians Should Learn from Western Europe,”

International Herald Tribune, 10 July 1998, p A4.

65 Wanandi, “ASEAN’s Future at Stake”.

66 Simon Tay, “Fires and Haze in Southeast Asia: Challenges to Regional

Cooperation in ASEAN and Asia Pacific”, in Community Building in

Asia Pacific: Dialogue in Okinawa (Tokyo: Japan Centre for International

Exchange, 2000).

According to Kenneth Waltz, “if there is any distinctively political

While the idea of the balance of power is often taken for granted in

writings on security, as Waltz himself notes, it has always been a

strongly contested and controversial notion It is seen by some as

being akin to “a law of nature; by others, as simply an outrage

Some view it as a guide to statesmen; others a cloak that disguises

their imperialist policies Some believe that a balance of power is

the best guarantee of the security of states and the peace of the

world; others, that it has ruined states by causing most of the wars

sense” meaning, there are several distinct ways in which balance of

power can be used, although many scholars tend to confuse and

paterfamilias of American realism, used four different meanings

This confusion prompted Haas to entitle his seminal 1953 essay on

the subject: “Balance of Power: Prescription, Concept, or

According to Inis Claude, the term balance of power has two

principal meanings First, “a situation of equilibrium”, and second,

“a system of states engaged in competitive manipulation of power

distinguishes between the balance of power as “a policy” aimed at

Despite these clear distinctions, Claude laments that “champions of

balance of power rarely bother to define their crucial terms.” He

argues that unless scholars state which definition is being used, “we

cannot be certain whether we are being asked to welcome a result

or to accept the claim that a certain mechanism is reliably conducive

As a condition, state of affairs, or situation, the balance of

power refers to a roughly equal distribution of power existing between

two or more states It can be broken down further into what Hedley

Bull called “simple” or “complex” balances A simple balance of

power is one made up of just two powers, while a complex balance

This entry is reproduced from The Asia-Pacific Security Lexicon, by David Capie and Paul Evans (Singapore:

Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2002) This version was obtained electronically direct from the publisher

on condition that copyright is not infringed No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in

a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording

involves three or more According to Bull, the important difference

between the two is that while a simple balance requires equality of

power between the actors, a complex balance does not In a system

with three or more actors, the development of gross inequalities in

power among them does not necessarily put the strongest in a

position of preponderance because the others have the ability to

Bull also distinguishes between what he calls the “general

balance of power” and “local” or “particular” balances of power A

general balance exists when no one actor has a preponderance of

power in the international system as a whole In some areas of the

world, such as Southeast Asia, a local balance of power exists In

other areas — Bull gives the Caribbean as an example — there may

actually be a local preponderance of power However, neither

situation belies the fact that there can be a general balance of power

There is no precise way to determine whether a balance of

power exists in a given international order Measuring the distribution

of relative power among states is not an exact science and there is

no sure way to determine whether power is balanced or unbalanced

at any given time However, as Arnold Wolfers notes, “it makes

sense to speak of an existing balance of power — or of a fair

approximation to such a balance — whenever there are indications

that two opposing nations, or blocs of nations, are being deterred

the balance of power in the Asia-Pacific, Paul Dibb refers to a

balance existing when “no one power is in a position to determine

balance to exist “objectively” He says there must also be an

intersubjective “general belief” among the powers that such a balance

While “a situation of balance or equilibrium” sounds desirable,

this definition also aptly describes the situation during the Cold War

when both East and West were deterred from putting each other’s

total capabilities to the test by what Lester Pearson called “the

balance of terror” It is also worth noting that even if the general

balance of power among the superpower prevented global war, its

success in preventing regional conflicts was questionable at best

Similarly, because the idea of the balance of power centres on

preserving the status quo, it has been criticized by some for ignoring

two blocs may be better (in terms of preserving the peace) than

giving hegemony to one supposedly “peace-loving” bloc He argues

that a balance of power enforces a sense of restraint among the

actors, preventing adventurism and temptations, as well as the

In contrast, some have argued that because a balance of power

requires a relatively equal balance of capabilities between states, it

is incapable of adequately deterring a would-be aggressor They

argue that only an opposing force of overwhelming capability can

dependably deter One of the more prominent criticisms of the

ability of the balance of power (understood as a situation of rough

parity) to keep the peace came from Sir Winston Churchill in his

famous “Iron Curtain” speech at Fulton, Missouri, in 1946 Churchill

said if the English-speaking Commonwealth were to join forces with

the United States, “there will be no quivering, precarious balance of

power to offer its temptation to ambition or adventure On the

The second way of thinking about the balance of power is to

consider it as a policy or as behaviour pursued by states Scholars

who take this interpretation often refer to a balance of power

system, or to balancing behaviour on the part of states As a policy,

states following the edicts of balance of power theory use both

internal and external efforts to achieve their goals Internal efforts,

often simply referred to as “self-help”, include “moves to increase

economic capability, to increase military strength, and to develop

clever strategies” External efforts include “entering alliances,

strenthening existing alliances or weakening the alliances of one’s

called “power politics”

Critics of balance of power policies argue that they can

exacerbate the security dilemma, and can lead to arms racing and

even war Indeed, Robert Jervis notes that one prerequisite for the

existence of a balance of power is that “war must be a legitimate

instrument of statecraft states must believe they can resort to the

historically, balance of power systems have a poor record of

maintaining system stability They have not tended to accommodate

In perhaps the most systematic critique of power politics and

balancing behaviour, John Vasquez concludes that “the attempt to

balance power is itself part of the very behaviour that leads to

Henry Kissinger says there are two situations where the balance

re-form alliances and coalitions depending on the circumstances of

the moment Instead of relying on ideological ties, states calculate

and act according to their own perceptions of self-interest or

realpolitik They recognize that, in Jervis’ words, “today’s enemy

the Cold War was the “triangular” diplomacy practised by the Nixon

administration, which after 1972 used relations with its former

The second situation is a modified form of the balance of power

balancer is usually a powerful state that can stand apart from the

others (often it is separated geographically) and has the capability of

playing a determining role in alliances or conflict In essence, it is

charged with ensuring that “no one state or alliance is able to

exercise a hegemony over the others, or even to establish an

“regulator”, a force for stability that counters disruptive elements to

and Perkins note that is “the most desirable role for a great power to

According to some scholars, Great Britain played this role in

Europe from the late seventeenth century to the nineteenth century

in seeking to prevent French hegemony In the event of French