Preliminary version

NIKOLAS BUSSE / HANNS MAULL
Enhancing Security in the Asia-Pacific. European Lessons for the ASEAN Regional Forum

In Pacific Asia, which is marked by a rapidly changing and somewhat fragile strategic environment, European experiences with co-operative security have so far by and large been rejected, rather than adapted. Yet there is much in those experiences which holds relevance to Pacific Asia. Europe has - primarily through European integration - successfully achieved a qualitative transformation of interstate relation and established an effective security community. It also has - mostly through the OSCE - developed innovative methods at confidence-building and preventive diplomacy built on consensus and full respect of the principle of sovereignty. An analysis of the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) - the principal instrument for co-operative security policy in Asia-Pacific - shows that the Asia-Pacific has so far been rather timid in exploring the potential for institution-building, preventive diplomacy and a transformation of interstate relations. To move towards a more benign and stable security environment, ARF will have to recognise the need for developing more extensive and intrusive institutions, and ultimately also for transforming interstate relations through co-operation and integration. A careful evaluation of European experiences with preventive diplomacy and confidence-building could help to achieve this task.