► Recent ASEAN Regional Forum meeting in Laos demonstrated the limit on how ARF can perform in realizing ASEAN Centrality and bring about solutions to major regional security issues.

► ASEAN Regional Forum focus on technical cooperation and its lack of progress on realizing agenda beyond dialogue may test its ability to bring workable solutions to potentials of major conflict in the region.

► ASEAN relies on low-hanging fruit security cooperation. So does ARF. It thus limits ASEAN ability to realize centrality in dealing with major security issues.

The founding of the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), which recently held its 31st annual meeting in Laos on July 27, 2024, is often considered a testament to ASEAN centrality. Established as a multilateral security arrangement with cooperative security at its core, the Forum seeks to promote habits of dialogue and regional norms rooted in ASEAN principles, institutions, and mechanisms, such as sovereignty, non-interference, and the peaceful settlement of disputes. However, the current stage of the Forum's development and achievements in relation to its ideal objectives raises serious questions. Given the intensifying geopolitical tensions and major power competition in the region, one must ask whether the Forum—and its associated ASEAN Way—can maintain its relevance.

During the 31st annual meeting in Laos, Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi emphasized that the ARF must be revitalized to ensure its relevance and positive impact on dispute settlement. Meanwhile, the Republic of Korea (ROK) also had high hopes that the Forum might be useful in responding to increasing military threats from the North. ROK Foreign Minister Cho Tae-yul reportedly attended the meeting in Laos to garner regional support in expressing concern over the increasing military activities and provocations by North Korea—officially the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK)—including the launching of trash-carrying balloons toward Seoul.

To maintain its relevance, the latest Forum in Laos issued at least four key deliverables: a statement on enhancing regional cooperation on ferry safety; two recommendations on adopting a work plan to counter terrorism and other transnational crimes; a work plan on disaster relief; and a concept paper on the Compendium of Best Practices on the Implementation of the International Ship and Port Facility Security (ISPS) Code.

Regarding the North Korea issue, the Chairman’s Statement, issued on July 27 by the Lao PDR as the current ASEAN Chair, “expressed concern” over developments on the Peninsula and “stressed the importance of continued peaceful dialogue among all concerned parties.” Consensus among ASEAN Member States (AMS) on the Korean Peninsula issue had previously been articulated in an earlier Joint Communiqué of the 57th ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting (AMM), held just two days before the ARF meeting. While maintaining concern and emphasizing peaceful dialogue, all points in the AMM’s Communiqué were echoed in the ARF Chairman’s Statement, though the latter emphasized that the points mentioned were made by “many ministers.” The Chairman’s Statement added an additional point raised by “some ministers” on humanitarian concerns over abductions and detainees’ issues. This reflects that the statement made by the chair was merely a report of what had been said in the meeting, rather than a consensus on how the Forum interprets the current situation between the DPRK and ROK and how to bring about solutions to the problem.

Lowest Common Denominator

These documents demonstrate the scope of how the ARF can function and be useful in seeking solutions to maintaining stability and creating peaceful settlements of disputes. In recent years, efforts have been made within ASEAN to preserve its centrality and relevance in today’s regional dynamics. ASEAN has launched the ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific (AOIP), acknowledging current geopolitical and geostrategic dynamics. Calls for rethinking, adjustment, and revitalization have been made to various ASEAN and ASEAN-led initiatives. However, there has not been significant recalibration from ASEAN to realize new interpretations of regional dynamics or how ASEAN should respond to major geopolitical issues.

ASEAN has never been fully established as a result-oriented security arrangement. Although both the establishment of ASEAN and its evolution from an association inwardly focused on building a resilient Southeast Asian region to an organization that outwardly seeks to drive a broader regional agenda through mechanisms such as the ARF, the East Asia Summit (EAS), and the ASEAN Defence Ministers Meeting (ADMM) Plus are closely associated with great power dynamics, ASEAN’s answers to security problems remain rooted in the belief that security can be achieved not by focusing on military issues, but by promoting a multidimensional approach to security, including socio-economic and developmental measures.

Last year, Indonesia, the largest ASEAN Member State, as ASEAN Chair, announced the idea of ASEAN as an “Epicentrum of Growth,” seeking to further implement the AOIP through various functional cooperation and development-oriented initiatives. The absorption of Indo-Pacific strategic discourse was focused on mainstreaming Indo-Pacific discussions and agendas in various ASEAN-led mechanisms, including calls to revitalize and reform the ARF, EAS, and the Extended ASEAN Maritime Forum (AMF). Enhancements to the EAS have been made, among others, by introducing regular EAS Ambassador meetings in Jakarta, where the ASEAN Secretariat is located, and where various ASEAN Permanent Missions of both AMS and ASEAN Dialogue Partners are stationed. The AMF now emulates the ARF’s habit of publishing an annual outlook. However, while these initiatives cannot be considered major reforms, there has been no notable improvement in how the ARF responds to current regional dynamics.

The ARF relies on areas of cooperation including preventive diplomacy, counter-terrorism and transnational crime, disaster relief, maritime security, non-proliferation and disarmament, Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) security, defense, and peacekeeping. The first six areas of cooperation have been equipped with work plans, and according to the latest Forum, there will be a renewal of work plans on counter-terrorism and disaster relief. Counter-terrorism is an area where consensus is highly likely since the issues today do not constitute a major threat to the national interests of all participating countries. Disaster relief is highly relevant to the region given its natural challenges as a region situated along the Ring of Fire, with major earthquakes and possible tsunami alerts, which always necessitate that security is understood first and foremost as a public good, not in a zero-sum outlook. These technical cooperations are instrumental in demonstrating that the ARF is functioning, and thus, remains relevant.

Maintaining Centrality?

However, major challenges remain in dealing with potential inter-state conflicts. Working through multiple dialogues in various sectors, leading to myriad sectoral meetings, has been relatively successful in nurturing habits of cooperation and creating a sense of community, at least among AMS officials, thereby making war an unthinkable solution to disputes. However, this success has not been effectively extended to other types of conflict: internal conflicts, conflicts involving AMS and ASEAN Dialogue Partners or participants in ASEAN-led mechanisms that are supposedly parties to the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation, or conflicts among those partners and participants.

It should be noted that the roadmap created in 1995 stated that the ARF would evolve through three stages: (1) the promotion of confidence-building measures, (2) preventive diplomacy measures, and (3) conflict resolution. One of the most notable achievements of this Forum is its ability to bring even adversaries in the then-Asia Pacific together in a forum, such as the inclusion of North Korea in the dialogue. Embedded within the ARF is the ASEAN Way of conflict management, which consists of two key elements: (1) the avoidance of any formal mechanism since any formality and legalism could strongly indicate a sense of adversarial relationship and a recognition of threat; and (2) the principle of intensive consultations and consensus, which serves as the bedrock of ASEAN’s institutional structure. Following this logic, it is no wonder that dialogues within the ARF have focused more on technical cooperation, where issues remain low politics and non-sensitive.

In anticipating major conflicts beyond interstate conflicts among AMS, the ARF is stuck at the first stage: confidence-building measures. Preventive diplomacy requires more formal and legal approaches, and moving forward with ASEAN logic requires consensus and decision-making. The failure of the Six-Party Talks and the lack of progress made in establishing a Code of Conduct to manage South China Sea disputes are proof that the ARF has become inflexible and trapped in its informal model of security cooperation. This is the irony of the ARF because the flexibility and consultation that characterize its distinct diplomacy have been substituted by an inflexible conception of sovereignty and consensus, which always hamper the ARF and arguably ASEAN’s ability to respond swiftly to any major regional security issues.

The 31st Forum held in Laos largely continued this trend. Without any major improvement, the ARF will continue to focus only on low-hanging fruit issues. No consensus can be reached if it involves any Member State’s or Participant’s interests, and the best the ARF can offer is the curation of statements and normative calls rather than workable solutions. Regarding current questions about ASEAN centrality, it remains unclear whether ASEAN can manage to maintain its own unity in the face of great power involvement. Amitav Acharya once wrote that ASEAN might lose centrality, and it does not necessarily mean bad news for ASEAN if it focuses only on its own region rather than a broader Asia-Pacific or now even Indo-Pacific perspective. However, he argued that there can be no ASEAN centrality without ASEAN unity and ASEAN neutrality. While ASEAN unity is now being questioned over issues such as the Myanmar crisis and increasing incidents in the South China Sea, neutrality might further frustrate countries like Korea or any AMS and Dialogue Partner that seek support, if not solutions, with explicit reference to upholding common norms and principles, such as respecting international law of the sea, imposing nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament, or condemning military invasions of a sovereign state.