Australian Maritime Issues 2007 - Royal Australian Navy

New Threats, New Approaches: Australia’s
Maritime Security Cooperation in South East Asia
Dr Christopher Chung
Transnational and intra-state threats, such as climate change, terrorism, money
laundering and ethnic conflict, lie at the heart of the so-called ‘new’ security agenda.
They represent, as Gwyn Prins puts it, ‘threats without enemies’. 1 While this new agenda
stands in stark contrast to the inter-state conflict focus of the ‘old’ security agenda, it
does not replace it. Rather, as Alan Dupont notes, they co-exist. 2 This co-existence is
clearly evident in relation to maritime security. On the one hand, the traditional role
of navies to deter and prevail against external threats coming from or over the sea
endures. Continued investment in upgrading the warfighting capabilities of navies
reflects this. On the other hand, new threats in the maritime domain associated with
combating piracy, illegal fishing, drug and people trafficking, and terrorism at sea
require responses based primarily on international cooperation, capacity building
and law enforcement. Often the role of the military in these situations is more of a
constabulary one rather than power projection.
Non-traditional maritime security threats are especially relevant to South East Asia.
The region’s geography is predominantly maritime, porous borders abound, marine
resources are heavily exploited or degraded, and strong sensitivity to any infringement
of sovereignty constrains joint activities. In addition, the region has a high dependence
on seaborne trade that could be significantly affected by an escalation of maritime
threats. In 2005, for example, Asia accounted for the largest share of world seaborne
trade at 2.6 billion tonnes out of a world total of 6.8 billion tonnes; South East Asia
accounted for about 0.6 billion tonnes of this, or almost seven per cent. 3
Australia has launched a number of new approaches to strengthen cooperation with
South East Asian countries to prepare against and respond to maritime security threats.
This reflects strong reciprocities in their political, economic and security interests. As
Michael Richardson notes:
a stable and increasingly prosperous and democratic Southeast Asia … is
very much in the strategic and economic interests of Australia. … For its part,
Australia is valuable to Southeast Asia as a market and source of imports of goods
and services, technology, expertise, capital and other resources. 4
This paper takes stock of Australia’s maritime security cooperation efforts in South
East Asia by reviewing progress, problems and prospects. First, however, the context
is set by reference to Australia’s maritime interests in South East Asia.