In today’s global architecture, the notion of offensiveness needs, however, to be confined within the efforts to address asymmetric threats to national security.  Nowadays, the utmost challenge of global community comes from asymmetric threat such as terrorism which respects neither national borders nor international norms.  It is non-discriminative as terrorist attacks might occur in developed states as well as in developing countries.

Therefore, rather than building conventional military capability that can’t meet with the asymmetric threats, it is better for Asia Pacific states to enhance global cooperation at every level to uproot the cause of asymmetric threats.

However, in the era of Post Cold War, the rise of asymmetric threats is not followed by significant reduction in conventional military forces in the region. Many states in the region still perceive both states and non-state actors as external threats and thus began to articulate strategic rationales for improving their military capabilities both through improvement in military acquisition and defense industry. Consequently, this action can be suspected to be cause of offensive capabilities proliferation among states that endanger the balance of power in the region.

Arguably, offensive capabilities refer to a strategic capability of military forces of any state that can be used in the pursuit of power and dominance in its external relations, be it at regional and global levels. The broad definition will include armaments and organic logistical capability and rapid deployment for certain action necessary to achieving the objective. Thus, every attempt to build any military mobility capability can be perceived as offensive capability by its neighbor.

In relations with the military development, there is a significant military development both in naval and air capabilities which increase the military mobility of states that finally increase their offensive capability. Significant examples of this include the military acquisition by China, Singapore and South Korea of New Aircrafts and Ships. Other examples are the purchase of ballistic missiles and cruise missiles by states in Asia Pacific Region.

In Asia Pacific region, China and Singapore are deliberately pursued to improve their military capability. The recent global economic crisis has little impact on the increased level of Chinese military expenditure to modernize their military equipment (Military Balance 2010). While many ASEAN countries spend their expenditure in military budget below 2% of GDP, Singapore has raised its military expenditure up to 4.5% of GDP. Furthermore, Singapore also tries to improve her external defense capabilities through high technology for military purpose acquisition.

In the south of Asia Pacific region, Australia seems to increase their military presence in Asia Pacific. According to Australian white Paper, The Australian Defense Force will not only prepare for defending Australia Mainland but also prepare for offensive operations ‘as far from Australia as possible’ using ‘striker capabilities, including combat aircraft, long-range missiles, and navy’s submarines’ (Military Balance 2010 Report). By its neighbor countries, Australia, China, and Singapore are perceived to pursue offensive capabilities through naval and air force armament.

Theoretically, the increase of military capability of one state can provoke the neighboring states to do the same as well. This condition can create armament race in the region. Therefore, we must cooperate to prevent such condition.

Preventing Proliferation

There are three things to do to prevent the proliferation of offensive capabilities. First is promoting transparency in the spending of state’s defense budget which reflects the proportionality in their objective. Allocating enormous spending for military budget with state’s dimension will only raise suspicion of neighboring countries; thus it does not help to nurture mutual respect and understanding. Promoting military transparency has been coined by Teo Chee Hean, Singapore Minister of Defense in previous Shangri-La Dialogue that he said transparency played a crucial role to avoid misunderstandings and to increase trust and confidence.

Of equal importance is promoting the central role of ASEAN in creating peaceful condition is Asia Pacific region. We need to think of security framework cooperation which goes beyond our region, we need to adapt with the new world’s situation bring about by the globalization.  In this regard, several circumstances need to be highlighted such identifying various security initiatives and weighting its adoption for all ASEAN member countries. This ranges from ASEAN Regional Forum, East Asia Summit and other forums where ASEAN countries play prominent role. And then identify the challenge posed by countries in region as a result of the raising of China’s as new economic power in the region.  The law of nature dictates that such a rising will be followed by the assertiveness of states in pursuing its global foreign policies, sometime by using military muscles. The problem and solution to the South China Sea’s overlapping claims provides a test to observe this new challenge of security in the region in the future.

Fostering mutual trustworthiness is an absolute requirement in order not to create fear to neighboring states. Besides, mutual trustworthiness especially in military issues can bring peaceful condition to the region.

Finally, as addressed by Purnomo Yusgiantoro in Shangri-la Dialogue that in order to create regional security architecture we can’t rely on the presence of great powers which posses  enormous amount of weaponry as a security guarantor where other members of the region as a benefactor. What we should to build is regional security architecture in which all members, whether big or small, can have a same equal position that bear a same responsibility in creating peaceful region.

Tags: International Relations, security