Introduction
In late 2011 and early 2012, the Obama administration rolled out its most significant strategic policy decision: the ‘rebalancing’ of its foreign- and defence-policy priorities towards Asia. The administration took the view that American policy had become unbalanced by its heavy commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan, and that it needed to recalibrate its approach to better reflect the long-term character of America’s interests and the seismic geopolitical changes occurring in Asia. What was entailed in moving strategic focus away from the two conflicts it had inherited was clear. But just what Obama’s rebalance is towards, and precisely what it entails, has been the subject of considerable debate. Is the rebalance simply repackaging a return to the longer-run patterns of American policy of offshore balancing established after the post-1972 Sino-American rapprochement? Is it little more than code for the containment of a rising China? Or does it entail a far more radical and substantive transformation of how America thinks about and approaches its grand strategy in Asia? Most importantly, what does America think Asia’s strategic geography entails?
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Country or Region: Thailand
Pongsudhirak, Thitinan
Abstract
In view of its Cold War status as the last domino and frontline state that first withstood communist expansionism in Indochina and later Vietnam’s invasion of Cambodia, Thailand’s threat perception has become markedly inward-looking. Leading military planners and the security and foreign policy establishment have had a rather difficult time identifying clear and present external threats. To the extent that these exist, they are focused on Thailand’s immediate neighbourhood — its near-abroad — rather than far-flung and nebulous sources such as the Soviet Union or China as in years past or the ideological dogma of communism. Burma/Myanmar is the chief source of threat perceptions on this front, with the Thai–Cambodia border tensions and politicised bilateral relationship as secondary. Beyond the immediate threats from next door, the Thai security outlook is focused on non-traditional security (NTS) issues, largely emanating from transnational crime, running the gamut from the trafficking of arms, humans, and light and heavy weapons, and also including natural disasters, money laundering, food security, and energy security. Equally important, Thailand’s security concerns continue to focus on the threat of terrorism, as distinct and apart from the Malay-Muslim insurgency in its southernmost border provinces, and touch on maritime piracy.
This essay takes stock of the emerging geopolitical realities and imperatives in Thai security, foreign policy outlook, and direction in the context of overarching dynamics in mainland Southeast Asia. The relative and uneasy calm and stability under the government of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra present a timely occasion to reassess Thai security concerns. Unsurprisingly, the Yingluck government has maintained Thailand’s traditional focus on concentric circles of foreign relations, first and foremost on immediate neighbours next door and the broader Southeast Asian orbit, to the major powers and the wider regional context. Myanmar’s further political opening and economic reforms bode well for Thailand, and are a boon for mainland Southeast Asia and ASEAN more broadly. But prospects emanating from Cambodia bode ill. While the flames over the Preah Vihear Temple have significantly dissipated after Yingluck’s election victory (owing to close ties between her brother and internal, but it can be deemed a security threat to the Thai state in the absence of a workable way forward. This home-grown instability should not be discounted even though it does not fall into conventional threat perceptions mould. Thais are threatening each other, which has far-reaching consequences for security-related policy areas. The following sections enumerate some of these security perceptions, both external and internal.
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Murphy, Ann Marie
Abstract
This article examines Thailand’s response to China’s rise. Contrary to predictions made by power transition theories that states respond to rising powers by balancing against or bandwagoning with them, Thailand has reacted to China’s rise with no fundamental change in its alignment posture. Thailand sees little threat but much opportunity in China’s rise. Thailand is clearly not balancing; it has taken few measures to enhance its military capability or strengthen its alliance with the United States. This article argues that Thai policy can be classified as bandwagoning only under definitions that cannot be distinguished from foreign policy writ large. The policy implications of these findings are that the United States should not to take access to Thai bases or Thai support for a balancing coalition against China for granted.
Ong, Russell
Abstract
This article assesses Taiwan’s strategic options in relation to the US. From Taipei’s perspective, the first strategic option is to maintain the interest of the US and this is largely done by emphasizing the threat posed by a rising China. The second strategic option relates to gaining more support from the US through highlighting the island republic’s democratic credentials. Importantly, limitations exist in Taiwan’s strategic options in part because they are subject to positive responses from the US as well as reactions from China. For Taipei, a middle power, the key therefore is achieving an optimal mix of strategies while overcoming any deficiencies in order to enhance its national security.
Park, Jae Jeok
From the publisher: The ‘hub-and-spoke’ alliance structure led by the United States was – and remains – a major feature of security politics in the Asia-Pacific. This article links its ‘general interests’ with the larger issue of the Asia-Pacific’s evolving multilateral regional order. After reviewing the concept of ‘hedging’, the first section problematises the literature that treats the US-led alliances which constitute the hub-and-spoke system mainly as instruments for the competitive side of a hedging strategy. The second section observes that they go beyond being instruments of threat response to becoming a more complicated network of regional multilateral order-maintenance and order-building. The third section claims that the United States and its regional allies have been utilising the hub-and-spoke alliance structure as a hedge against an undesirable multilateral order emerging in the region. The fourth section examines those arguments with reference to the East Asia Summit (EAS) and the Six Party Talks. The article concludes with some thoughts about what these findings mean for the future direction of the hub-and-spoke alliance structure in the Asia-Pacific.
Capiea, David
From the publisher: There is growing interest among scholars and advocates in the way that the nascent norm of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) is diffusing at the regional level. This article critically explores the spread of R2P in Southeast Asia against the backdrop of recent scholarship on norm localization. It argues that, contrary to some recent analyses, the R2P norm has not been localized in Southeast Asia. Constitutive localization requires the active borrowing of transnational norms by local or regional actors who build congruence with local practices. Although some regional states have used the language of ‘sovereignty as responsibility’ there are few signs that local actors are driving the reception of the norm in the region, nor have they institutionalized it. Rather, outsider proponents are the primary advocates and the norm lacks a champion or well-connected ‘insider’ proponent among regional governments or civil society groups. Second, despite an energetic campaign by advocates, emphasizing consensual and capacity-building activities, many governments are still wary of R2P as a potential threat to sovereignty and regime security. As a result, regional states have taken an ‘à la carte’ approach to R2P, accepting aspects of the R2P agenda that they find least threatening or that support their national interests, while ignoring or quietly resisting those they find challenging. Rather than localization, what we are seeing with respect to R2P in Southeast Asia is a dramatic change in the way outsiders are reframing the norm.
Kraisoraphonga, Keokam
From the publisher: The paper reviews Thailand’s position on Responsibility to Protect (RtP) through in-depth interviews with those currently working most closely with RtoP-related issues within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the National Human Rights Commission, the Armed Forces and NGOs. The interview results reveal that Thailand’s position on RtoP is mixed. While the country is willing to support the international community implementing RtoP through UN humanitarian operations, it is inclined not to define any of its own internal security problems as an RtoP-type situation. The paper highlights the challenges posed by separatist insurgents in Southern Thailand, and the recent violent political confrontation during April and May 2010, two internal security cases viewed by some observers as RtoP-type situations. But from Thailand’s perspectives, almost all those interviewed insist that these situations are matters of internal security affairs. In addition, the preventive dimension of RtoP has not received much attention and has rather been challenged as to how such measures for the prevention of RtoP crimes differ from those more broadly undertaken to achieve the same goals as RtoP, but are not being called as such. Therefore, given the present context, Thailand’s position on RtoP will unlikely change for the better if RtoP continues to be advocated as a concept in its current state.
Bradshaw, Michael , Mikkal E. Herberg, Amy Myers Jaffe, Damien Ma, and Nikos Tsafos
From the publisher: Asia has emerged as the global center for energy demand growth and now accounts for more than two-thirds of the worldwide market for liquefied natural gas (LNG). However, there is enormous uncertainty about the extent to which the region will rely on LNG to meet its future needs, as well as what role the U.S. shale gas revolution might play in transforming markets and global energy diplomacy. To better understand these issues, The National Bureau of Asian Research’s Energy Security Report explores “Asia’s Uncertain LNG Future.” Essays in the report examine how and to what extent countries in the Asia-Pacific are integrating LNG into their energy-security strategies and the key geopolitical and market implications.
You can read the full report by clicking here.
Ravenhill, John
From the publisher: East Asian governments have long recognized that national security must incorporate a reduction of their vulnerability to the disruption of essential imports. The rapid economic growth of China and India has intensified competition for increasingly scarce resources, elevating resource security once again to the top of the international agenda. Issues that were previously regarded as ‘technical’ have been ‘securitized’ as state elites perceived possible conflicts over availability and pricing of natural resources as threats to national security.
International institutions have the potential to contribute to the defusing of tensions over the supply of commodities by providing, through various means, assurances regarding the behaviour of partners. Only the global institutions concerned with commodities trade, the International Energy Agency (IEA) and the World Trade Organization (WTO), have legally binding arrangements and the authority to impose sanctions on states that fail to comply with their obligations. But both have weaknesses: the IEA’s membership is limited; the WTO’s rules relating to raw materials trade are far from comprehensive. Most of the regional institutions in this field seldom go beyond information exchange or the setting of aspirational targets. At the bilateral level, government attempts to enhance resource security through minerals chapters in preferential trade agreements have had little success. Bilateral investment treaties are the only instances of cooperation at the sub-global level that incorporate legally-binding provisions.
The cooperation on resources issues in which countries have engaged has reflected the core characteristics of Asia-Pacific bilateral and regional intergovernmental institutions. The shallowness of cooperation reflects perceptions on the part of state elites that their interests in the resources sector are best served by national rather than collective action and that current cooperative arrangements fail to provide sufficient incentives to prevent states from succumbing to opportunistic behaviour in the event of a short-term clash of interests. The potential gains to be made from a cooperative approach to resource security remain largely unrealized.
Lee, John
Summary
This Trends in Southeast Asia series — now revamped and redesigned — acts as a platform for serious analyses written by selected authors who are experts in their fields. It is aimed at inspiring policymakers and encouraging scholars to contemplate the diversity and dynamism of this exciting region.
This issue is the first in a planned series on the theme of “China’s economic engagement with Southeast Asia”.
There is evidence that China engages in “economic statecraft” in using tools such as trade and investment to influence strategic and political decisions in so-called “swing states” in Southeast Asia. When it comes to Thailand, Beijing’s actual or material capacity to use these economic tools to significantly alter decision-making in Bangkok is limited and frequently overstated. Although the economic relationship with China will grow in importance, the relatively open and diverse nature of the Thai economy offers the country significant trade and investment alternatives that are denied to neighbours such as Cambodia.
Chachavalpongpun, Pavin
Summary
From 2001 to 2006, Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra transformed Thailand’s international role from one of obscurity into a kind of regional hegemon. Thaksin’s diplomatic ambitions were reflected in his myriad of grandiose foreign policy initiatives, designed to locate Thailand at the forefront of regional politics and reinstall the Thai sphere of influence over weaker neighbouring states. He abolished the traditional bending-with-the-wind foreign policy, revamped the Thai Foreign Ministry, and empowered Thai envoys through the CEO Ambassadors programme. But in this process, Thaksin was accused of exploiting foreign policy to enrich his business empire. Thaksin’s reinvention of Thailand as an up-and-coming regional power was therefore tainted by conflicts of interest and the absence of ethical principles in the country’s foreign policy.
Wagener, Martin
Abstract
In 1962, the International Court of Justice ruled that the Preah Vihear temple lies within Cambodian territory. The status of the 4.6 km² of land surrounding the temple, however, remained unclear. When UNESCO declared the Preah Vihear temple a Cambodian World Heritage Site in July 2008, the situation was exacerbated. Several firefights between October 2008 and April/May 2011 claimed at least 34 lives. The border dispute became a rollercoaster ride along the way: Talks between Thailand and Cambodia were regularly interrupted by exchanges of fire, only to be resumed a little later. This prevented a resolution of the conflict. The essay explores how Thailand’s and Cambodia’s conflict behaviour can be explained from a first-image perspective. In doing so, uncovering the motives of both countries’ prime ministers is crucial to understanding Bangkok’s and Phnom Penh’s actions in the border area. The paper argues that in low-intensity border conflicts, motivations are different from those underlying heads of government’s behaviour in high-intensity border conflicts. While this complicates an agreement on the Preah Vihear question, it also means that escalation to a manifest border war is very unlikely.
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Wagener, Martin
Abstract
As the greatest military power in the Asia-Pacific, the U.S. depends on the cooperation of its allies. In the past, Washington has had to recognize that support is not always forthcoming. Using the example of relations between the U.S. and Thailand, this article tries to establish how the reliability of an ally can be assessed. For this purpose, the options of military access for American forces are first analyzed. Subsequently, the actions of the kingdom are explained from a theoretical point of view: Is Bangkok following a policy of bandwagoning vis-à-vis Washington? Finally, against this background, the possible behaviour of Thailand during a crisis in the Taiwan Strait is discussed: How reliable will the American ally be when it counts?
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Chambers, Paul
Abstract
Three years ago, the United States and Thailand seemed headed for a more strained and distant relationship. U.S. policy-makers viewed Bangkok as increasingly insignificant while Thailand sought to move out of its traditional U.S. orbit and increasingly balance the influence of Washington with China, Europe, and the Muslim world. Yet, since 2001, the United States and Thailand have become extremely close. This article examines the U.S.-Thai relationship from the 1980s to the present day, particularly focusing on the post-9/11 era in light of the Bush administration’s war on terrorism and growing linkages between Thailand and the United States. Ultimately, the article analyses what has accounted for warmer ties, why some strains still remain, and whether U.S.-Thai relations have in fact returned to their previous 1980s intimacy.
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Ganesan, N
Abstract
Thai-Cambodian bilateral tensions in 2003 were not an accurate reflection of Thailand’s recent foreign policy initiatives. Thailand has embarked on its most aggressive foreign policy moves thus far to seek regional peace and stability, partly driven by domestic political consolidation and a reformist/populist agenda under Thaksin Shinawatra and his Thai Rak Thai party. This article first examines Thai politics and foreign policy from the Chatichai Choonhavan government’s Indochina Initiative onwards, then focuses on the Thaksin government’s domestic and foreign policies since 2001 and the implications for Thailand and the region. It is argued that the ongoing initiatives of the Thaksin government have significant implications for domestic politics while foreign policy initiatives are to be understood within the Thai tradition of performing a regional leadership role.
