Security Challenges in Southeast Asia

The last security challenge I would like to address on is the terrorism. The terrorism security challenge has not been the issue that only being considered in Southeast Asia, however, it is a global issue that concerned all of the countries. After 9/11, the main challenge of the terrorism is its increasingly transnational organization and the fact that it is often directed against ‘soft’ targets and civilians, inflicts unacceptable harm, and threatens the credibility of governments to protect their populations (Tellis, 2004: 41).

For example, the international terrorist groups, as al Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), and there were some terrorism happened in the region, such as in Bali (October 2002), Jakarta (August 2003 and September 2004) and the Philippines (February 2003 and February 2004). Moreover, there are 200 million Muslims live in the Southeast Asia region. With the Islamic terrorism increasing recently, such as ISIS and al Qaeda, there is a certain concern that Southeast Asia might become one of the basements of Islamic terrorism. Although it has been said that the Islam in Southeast Asia region has a tolerant, moderate, peaceful that is different from the Islam in the Middle East which prefers more doctrinaire varieties and it is undoubtedly that. However, it soon became clear that the region was vulnerable to the invasion of violent Muslim militants as the discovery of networks affiliated with al Qaeda in Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore (Ott,2006).

It is obvious that Southeast Asia has progressed a lot after the end of the Cold War, for example, the establishment of the ASEAN, which enhances the bilateral military cooperation in this region, as well as, its rapid economic development has later brought the stability to the ASEAN countries. Without the colonial power, the countries start to establish their own economic, political and the future. However, maybe it was because of the fragile democratization and political system, there still have some new security challenges emerged in Southeast Asia in the post-cold war era. As I mentioned above, for example, the human security challenges of Rohingya happened in Myanmar; the maritime security challenges, piracy, maritime terrorism, people trafficking and the violation of IUU fishing, moreover the maritime area issue in the Spratly archipelago of the South China Sea; last, the terrorism security issue, the local terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) and transnational terrorism. Unlike the cold-war era, without the presence of those great powers who used to occupy the region, there are concerns if Southeast Asia cannot deal with the problems properly that the challenges could lead to the collapse of some countries in the region. However, according to Professor Sheldon Simon, who has written on Asian security for over 40 years, argues that ASEAN is pursuing an engagement strategy in the 21st century, bringing the great powers (the United States, China, India, Japan, and the European Union) into Southeast Asia’s political and economic discussions (2014).

Based on this information, it seems that ASEAN’s strategy is to invite the external powers to help them deal with the problems. And in my opinion, with the growing status of the Association of Southeast Asia Nations, it is possible that the external powers will come back and contribute to the future improvement of the regional security challenges.