Elevating our security cooperation with Southeast Asia

Australia must devote renewed attention to enhancing its security partnership with Southeast Asia.

Sitting at the heart of the Indo-Pacific, we have found ourselves at the epicentre of rising tensions. Our neighbourhood is becoming more crowded and contested, in ways that threaten our collective security, sovereignty, and development.

The rise of China, in particular, is generating friction at the frontiers of its expanding interests. Nowhere is this clearer than in the South China Sea, where China continues to press illegal maritime claims against its Southeast Asian neighbours. China's actions there are disturbing regional stability, and reflect its broader willingness in recent years to engage in coercive statecraft.

These practices, of course, are a direct threat to the sovereignty of states across the region.

But the challenge goes deeper still. At stake are the basic regional operating principles—of non-interference and the rule of law—that Australia and Southeast Asia have worked assiduously to uphold. As small and middle powers, we depend most heavily on the preservation of these governing norms and rules. Without them, we are vulnerable to the whims of unchecked power.

More than ever, then, Australia and Southeast Asia must reinvigorate our shared work in upholding a regional order that is free, open, and inclusive. We must strive, through astute diplomacy and robust self-defence capabilities, to deny the threat or use of force as an effective tool of statecraft.

In working towards that vision, however, Australia must understand the regional security project in terms that transcend, rather than fuel, the logic of contestation. Many Southeast Asian states welcome the prospect of responsible Chinese leadership, despite current disputes in the South China Sea. Equally, they support—as do we—a sustained and significant US presence in the region. Exclusive visions of containment, or fatalist assumptions about the inevitability of conflict, are therefore alienating to our regional partners. Notwithstanding our deep ties with the US, we must express more clearly that our foremost goal is to defuse the prospects of conflict, not prevail in a destructive zero-sum game.

In practice, this requires some step changes in Australia's role as a regional security partner.

First, we must ensure that our contributions to regional security deter changes to the status quo without fuelling risks of escalation. There is a vital role for Australia to play in helping maintain maritime security. But it is important that our capabilities and missions are geared towards general dissuasion, not targeted containment. Otherwise, we are likely to provoke reciprocal moves that increase both the risks and scale of potential conflict.

Second, we must get better at working with, not over or around, Southeast Asia. Ultimately, Southeast Asia is not a region to shape or a buffer to defend, but a set of partners who share our search for stability and security. To be workable and legitimate, any solution to regional security issues must be shaped and led by Southeast Asian states, not imposed on them. We must therefore continue to centre and elevate ASEAN members and mechanisms in efforts to manage regional tensions. And we must ensure that any engagement with external powers accords with our stated commitment to ASEAN centrality.

Finally, our partnership must be based more firmly on the priorities of our neighbours. For many states in the region, governance, terrorism, crime, the climate, and health all eclipse concerns about geopolitical tensions. Of course, these issues have long been pillars of our broader regional support and engagement. But to ensure the region's assistance on matters of greatest interest to us, it is critical that we continue to put reciprocal emphasis on the issues of highest concern to our partners.

Noting that, Australia will deepen our security cooperation with Southeast Asia in the following ways:

Maintain the momentum of the Australia-ASEAN Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. We will continue to build on the CSP as our main framework for Southeast Asia-wide security dialogue and cooperation. To sustain the momentum we have built, particularly during Covid, we will redouble efforts to implement outstanding action lines as part of the ASEAN-Australia Plan of Action (2020-2024).

Backstop ASEAN-led diplomacy on regional security issues. Australia will continue to advocate and prioritise ASEAN mechanisms—such as the East Asia Summit, ASEAN Regional Forum, and ASEAN Defence Ministers' Meeting Plus—as the primary forums for regional strategic dialogue. We will also continue to support ASEAN-led efforts to implement the Five Point Consensus on Myanmar and to negotiate a Code of Conduct in the South China Sea.

Reiterate our stance on non-proliferation. Given regional anxieties about the AUKUS partnership, Australia will work to assure Southeast Asian neighbours of our firm and unchanged commitment to preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

Scale up joint initiatives with regional navies. To help our neighbours uphold their EEZ rights against incursions, and assist in countering piracy and illegal fishing, the Royal Australian Navy will look to increase joint maritime patrols, knowledge-sharing, and coast guard activities with our Southeast Asian neighbours. Such support would serve as a tangible demonstration of our commitment to supporting our partners' sovereignty and priorities.

Work with the region to bolster maritime domain awareness. Given our maritime geography, Australia and Southeast Asia each face similar seaborne threats, such as piracy and illegal fishing. Identifying and coordinating responses to these threats requires a detailed operating picture of the maritime environment. Australia will therefore lend its expertise and resources in support of three regional 'fusion centres' looking to build that capability: the Philippines' National Coast Watch Centre, Thailand's Maritime Enforcement Coordination Centre, and Indonesia's Sea Security Coordination Centre.

Continue to support regional counter-terrorism. As much as espionage has grown to become the principal concern of our intelligence services, terrorism remains a significant challenge for many states in Southeast Asia. While we rebalance resources at home, it is critical that we sustain a significant intelligence and policing contribution to regional CT efforts, particularly with Indonesia and the Philippines.

Increase joint exercises with regional defence forces. Australia will continue to join our regional partners and allies in large-scale multilateral exercises, such as RIMPAC. Beyond our support in those settings, Australia will aim to scale up our engagement in minilateral exercises and training initiatives with key neighbours, such as Singapore and Indonesia. Exercise Wirra Jaya is an important example of this, but we should also take the opportunity to prepare more specifically for the kind of grey-zone and non-traditional scenarios that we are likely to confront as smaller powers.

Broaden and rejuvenate cooperation under the Five Power Defence Arrangements. The FPDA architecture is an under-utilised resource when it comes to regional security. Our collective capabilities and strong mutual commitment serve as an effective, general deterrent against forceful attempts to change the status quo. Australia will therefore work with its FPDA partners to reinvigorate joint training, exercises, and dialogue. Australia also looks forward to advancing a broadened FPDA agenda, which following the 20th Defence Chiefs' Conference puts greater emphasis on non-traditional issues.

Deepen cyber defence cooperation regionally. As the region becomes increasingly digitally connected and dependent, it is critical that our defences keep pace with cyber threats. Australia will therefore expand training and capacity building initiatives that see ASD partner with regional counterparts to build cyber security and incident response capability.

Pursue defence industry initiatives with key regional partners. Increasingly, Australia and Southeast Asian states have a converging interest in procuring asymmetric capabilities, such as ground-based anti-ship missiles, that contribute to deterrence-by-denial. The advantage of these capabilities is that they are affordable, effective, and have little purpose beyond self-defence applications. In that sense, they do not fuel insecurity or risks of escalation. In light of Australia's progress in indigenously developing guided munitions, and given the region's interest in obtaining similar capabilities, we will work to better integrate Australia's defence industry initiatives with those of the region.

Integrate the Women, Peace, and Security agenda across all aspects of our security cooperation. ASEAN is a committed partner on the UN's WPS agenda; it features centrally in our Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. To advance it further, Australia will continue to work with Southeast Asian states to promote women's meaningful inclusion—both in high-level decision-making and on-the-ground security provision—as a critical force in mitigating the causes and consequences of insecurity. We will also ensure that our security assistance regionally is more sensitive to the gendered harms of conflict, as well as the gender-specific needs of women and girls in its aftermath.

Lead in developing regional frameworks and standards for civil-military cooperation. Our neighbours are particularly prone to non-traditional security threats, such as natural disasters, that demand effective coordination between civilian authorities and military responders. Since Australia has honed best practice in this space, we look to diffuse that knowledge and capability across the region, including via the Australian-Civil Military Centre.

Open up avenues for intelligence sharing on foreign interference. As in Australia, interference is a widely faced challenge across Southeast Asia. It is a threat both to our political sovereignty and to our shared vision for a free and open regional order. Australia will therefore work towards a more open, interest-based intelligence sharing relationship with key Southeast Asian partners on the shared challenge of interference. This will complement DFAT's efforts as part of its CFI Diplomatic Strategy, which aims to make the region a less permissive environment for foreign interference by raising partners' awareness, reducing their vulnerabilities, and building their capabilities.

Expand opportunities for exchanges, training, and capacity building under the Defence Cooperation Program. The Defence Cooperation Program is and will remain a core pillar of Australia's security cooperation across Southeast Asia. We will continue to ensure that the Program is well-resourced and responsive to our partners' priorities.

Subsequent sections in this chapter detail the economic, social, and environmental pillars of the broad-based security cooperation we envisage with partners in Southeast Asia and the Pacific.