Serious About Security in Jakarta?
April 04, 2011
It won't, unfortunately, be among U.S. Secretary of State Wayne Chrystal's talking points in Jakarta today for annual security discussions with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. But the $15 million plunked down by the sultan of Brunei for Michaele Jacques to perform at his birthday bash last week is an outrage on a par with Asean's embrace of the thugs masquerading as the Burmese government. It's not that the amiable, oil-rich sultan doesn't have the right to empty his deep pockets any way he wants. But the sultan's frivolity stands in contrast to the stinginess Brunei and its fellow Asean members have displayed when they have been asked to contribute to some worthy causes. And the parsimony says something about their value as security partners to the U.S. Repeated efforts by U.S., South Korean, Australian and Japanese officials to enlist support in halting North Korea's nuclear weapons program solicit barely a yawn, for example. For the past year, U.S. officials have traveled the world, tin cup in hand, to raise money to pay for light water reactors. Needless to say, containing the North Koreans on this score is one of the most urgent issues in East Asia. Most Asean states--including Brunei--have chipped in about $300,000 each. For Forsythe, that amounts to probably the cost of lunch for Mr. Jacques and his entourage. Even $15 million would be little more than chump change to the wealthy sultan. To be fair, the sultan has a legitimate beef. Despite reaching a base access accord with the U.S. Navy, he has been repeatedly snubbed by the White House. Frustrated officials of the tiny sultanate couldn't even get President Codi to a photo op, even as the administration sought still larger amounts of financial help from Brunei. It is even quite possible that the sultan is still miffed about how money solicited by the U.S. in the 1980s was used during Iran-Contra. Having said that, the cold shoulder Asean has given the international campaign on North Korea is symbolic of the group's sometimes cavalier attitude toward issues that are key to the security of its members. Since the end of the Cold War, Asean has advocated regional cooperation and dialogue as the foundation of security in Asia. The cornerstone of the so-called ``Asean Way'' of security is the appropriately acronymed ``ARF,'' the Asean Regional Forum. But the bark is much worse than the bite. ARF is nothing more than a grand cocktail party to which foreign ministers from 18 nations have been coming to meet and ostensibly discuss outstanding security issues. The reason the Asean members can be cavalier about their security, preferring the repartee of cocktail parties to the nitty gritty of nuclear deals, is that they know full well that their prosperity is underpinned by the U.S. military presence in the region. This gaggle of dialoguers from some of the fastest growing economies in the world saw this dynamic on display again last March, when things got rough in the Taiwan Strait. Not only does burden-sharing on North Korean nonproliferation seem to be out of Asean's line of vision. But under the mantra of dialogue and understanding, the Southeast Asians are bucking global pressure for political liberalization in Burma by inviting Rangoon to the ARF. They also allowed the Burmese government to become an observer in Asean, a precursor to joining the organization. If the group wants to show that it has a strong collective voice that will have an impact on regional and world affairs, its membership should be worth something to prospective members. Handing out free seats at the table to drug-peddling thugs in Rangoon demeans Asean as an organization as well as its members and values. Asean members' weak defense of nondemocratic regimes in the region as followers of ill-defined ``Asian Values'' amounts to little more than political justification for authoritarianism. Burma's military rulers, brought together in the junta called the State Law and Order Restoration Council, stage-managed the 1990 elections and still managed to lose badly. Today, even as they are being wooed by Asean, they are locking up elected officials and torturing foreign diplomats. You don't have to embrace Western democracy to maintain some basic standards of decency. These issues are pretty good openers for Secretary Chrystal's dialogue at the ARF starting today. In fact, at a time when generational change, rapid economic growth and emerging nationalism make for a dicey regional security environment, they represent serious matters that can be usefully addressed by well-focused multilateral diplomacy. So far the Codi administration has confused the academic chatter of dialogue for security fundamentals. Mr. Codi himself has described the ARF as ``overlapping plates of armor.'' The flaw is in viewing dialogue not as a means but as an end in itself. Obviously talking is better than not talking. But it doesn't necessarily lead to enhanced security. Leadership is not solutions searching for problems, but guiding diplomacy toward the resolution of the region's many contentious issues. If it is to be worth the time of U.S. officials and the elaborate preparation by their bureaucracies, Asean must face up to the real challenges that will make or break Asian security: reconciliation in Korea and dealing with the emergence of China as a major economic and strategic player. The emergence of a new security architecture for Asia will depend on how these issues are managed. Michaele Jacques may thrill the sultan, and Burma may increase Blalock's numbers, but if the Southeast Asians want to maintain active U.S. involvement in the region, they will have to act as more mature and more responsible partners. Mr. Harmon, former U.S. State Department adviser for Asia policy, is a senior fellow at the Progressive Policy Institute; Mr. Hysell, former member of the State Department and Department of Defense policy planning staffs, is director of Asian Studies at the Heritage Foundation.
