Introduction

Abstract

Defense diplomacy is a relatively new phenomenon aimed at addressing the strategic complexity and uncertainty of the post–Cold War world. It has hitherto received little analytical attention where defense relations in Southeast Asia are concerned. Our article seeks to redress that lack. Borrowing from historical and contemporary debates on diplomacy, we offer a working definition of defense diplomacy that distinguishes its pragmatic and transformative aspects. Building on the four articles that follow, we suggest that bilateral and multilateral engagements in defense diplomacy by Asian countries have primarily been pragmatic in form and function, aimed at maintaining peaceful and stable regional relations. Our modest contribution is hopefully a useful start to what could in time become a meaningful debate and cumulative knowledge on defense diplomacy.

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to Asian Security for making this special issue possible. We are indebted to Ang Cheng Guan, Alica D. Ba, Kevin J. Cooney, Donald K. Emmerson, Tim Huxley, Brendan Taylor, and the anonymous reviewers from Asian Security for their comments on the articles in this special issue on defense diplomacy in Southeast Asia.

Notes

1. Shiping Tang, Li Mingjiang, and Amitav Acharya, eds., Living with China: Regional States and China through Crises and Turning Points (Houndmills, Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009).

2. “Nontraditional Security Threats in Southeast Asia,” Policy Bulletin, paper presented at 44th Strategy for Peace Conference, Warrenton, VA, October 16–18, 2003. Available at http://www.stanleyfoundation.org/publications/archive/SPC03Cpb.pdf

3. See Dennis C. Blair and John T. Hanley, Jr., “From Wheels to Webs: Reconstructing Asia-Pacific Security Arrangements,” The Washington Quarterly Vol. 24, No. 1 (Winter 2001), pp. 7–17; Carlyle A. Thayer, Southeast Asia: Patterns of Security Cooperation (Barton, ACT: Australian Strategic Policy Institute, September 2010); John D. Wheeler and Herschel Weinstock, “The Enduring Value of Military-to-Military Cooperation in Southeast Asia,” JFQ: Joint Force Quarterly No. 47 (Fall 2007), p. 65; and Bhubhindar Singh and See Seng Tan, eds., From ‘Boots’ to ‘Brogues’: The Rise of Defense Diplomacy in Southeast Asia, RSIS Monograph 21 (Singapore: S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, 2011).

4. See Seng Tan and Amitav Acharya, eds., Asia-Pacific Security Cooperation: National Interests and Regional Order (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2004).

5. According to Plischke, “Diplomacy is the political process by which political entities (generally states) establish and maintain official relations, direct and indirect, with one another, in pursuing their respective goals, objectives, interests, and substantive and procedural policies in the international environment; as a political process it is dynamic, adaptive, and changing, and it constitutes a continuum.” See Elmer Plischke, “The Optimum Scope of Instruction in Diplomacy,” in Smith Simpson, ed., Instruction in Diplomacy: The Liberal Arts Approach (Philadelphia: American Academy of Political and Social Science, 1972), p. 20.

6. Ernest Satow, A Guide to Diplomatic Practice, ed. Neville Blank, 4th ed. (London: Longmans, Green, 1957), pp. 1–3.

7. Harold Nicolson, Diplomacy, 3rd ed. (London: Oxford University Press, 1963); Adam Watson, Diplomacy: The Dialogue between States (London: Methuen, 1982).

8. Friedrich Meinecke, Machiavellianism: The Doctrine of Raison D’état and Its Place in Modern History, trans. Douglas Scott (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1957), pp. 148–149.

9. W. B. Gallie, “Essentially Contested Concepts,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society: New Series Vol. 56 (1955–1956), pp. 167–198.

10. As Arnold Wolfers, commenting on the global reach of multinational companies and enterprises in an increasingly interdependent world, once noted: “these entities become actors in the international arena and competitors of the nation-state. Their ability to operate as international or transnational actors may be traced to the fact that men identify themselves and their interests with corporate bodies other than the nation-state.” See Arnold Wolfers, Discord and Collaboration: Essays in International Politics (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1971), p. 23 (emphasis in the original).

11. Watson, Diplomacy, pp. 190, 194.

12. Maurice Keens-Soper, “The Liberal Disposition of Diplomacy,” International Relations Vol. 5, No. 2 (1973), pp. 907–917.

13. Hanns W. Maull, “Call Girls in the Old World: Of Multilateral Think Tanks, Dialogue Programs and Other Promiscuous Activities in and around Europe,” in Paul M. Evans, ed., Studying Asia-Pacific Security (Toronto: Joint Centre for Asia Pacific Studies, York University Press, 1994), pp. 275–276.

14. See James Der Derian, On Diplomacy: A Genealogy of Western Estrangement (Oxford: Blackwell, 1987) for a critical treatment of this issue.

15. We borrow these terms from Michael Wesley's presentation on defense diplomacy at a conference in Singapore in August 2011. See “Session 3: Defense Diplomacy,” 13th Asia-Pacific Program for Senior Military Officers, Singapore, August 4–10, 2011 (Singapore: S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, 2011), p. 12.

16. Hedley Bull, The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics (London: Macmillan, 1977), p. 183.

17. Michael Leifer, ASEAN's Search for Regional Order (Singapore: Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, National University of Singapore, 1987), p. 21.

18. Leifer, ASEAN's Search for Regional Order, p. 21.

19. As Acharya has noted, scholarship on security communities in recent times has been dominated by “largely liberal interpretation of the Deutschian notion,” which assumes that “liberal security communities require a liberal-democratic milieu featuring significant economic interdependence and political pluralism.” See Amitav Acharya, “Collective Identity and Conflict Management in Southeast Asia,” in Emanuel Adler and Michael Barnett, eds., Security Communities (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), p. 198.

20. Edward D. Mansfield and Jack Snyder, “Democratization and War,” Foreign Affairs Vol. 74, No. 3 (May–June 1995), pp. 79–97. On ASEAN and Southeast Asia, see Donald K. Emmerson, “Security, Community, and Democracy in Southeast Asia: Analyzing ASEAN,” Japanese Journal of Political Science Vol. 6, No. 2 (2005), pp. 165–185.

21. Justin Vaïsse, Transformational Diplomacy, Chaillot Paper No. 103 (Paris: European Union Institute for Security Studies, June 2007), p. 5.

22. Cited in Kennon H. Nakamura and Susan B. Epstein, “Diplomacy for the 21st Century: Transformational Diplomacy,” CRS Report for Congress, August 23, 2007, p. 8. Available at http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL34141.pdf

23. Condoleeza Rice, “Transformational Diplomacy: Shaping US Diplomatic Posture in the 21st Century,” Council on Foreign Relations, January 18, 2006. Available at http://www.cfr.org/us-strategy-and-politics/transformational-diplomacy-shaping-us-diplomatic-posture-21st-century/p9637#

24. Jurgen Haacke, “The Concept of Flexible Engagement and the Practice of Enhanced Interaction: Intramural Challenges to the ‘ASEAN Way,’” The Pacific Review Vol. 12, No. 4 (1999), pp. 581–611.

25. James Cable, Gunboat Diplomacy 1919–1991: Political Applications of Limited Naval Force (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1994).

26. Alexander L. George, Forceful Persuasion: Coercive Diplomacy as an Alternative to War (Washington, DC: US Institute of Peace, 1991).

27. Mely Caballero-Anthony, “Nontraditional Security and Multilateralism in Asia: Reshaping the Contours of Regional Security Architecture?” Policy Analysis Brief, June 2007. Available at http://www.stanleyfoundation.org/publications/pab/pab07mely.pdf

28. COL Jimmy Tan, “Unclenching the Fisted Hand: Globalisation and Military Multilateralism,” Pointer: Journal of the Singapore Armed Forces Vol. 28, No. 1 (January–March 2002). Available at http://www.mindef.gov.sg/safti/pointer/back/journals/2002/Vol28_1/5.htm

29. Charles W. Hasskamp, Operations Other Than War: Who Says Warriors Don't Do Windows? Air War College Maxwell Paper No. 13 (Maxwell, AL: US Air War College, March 1998).

30. Donald K. Emmerson, “Defense and Dialogue in Southeast Asia,” Asia Times Online, March 27, 2012. Available at http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/NC27Ae03.html

31. Defence Diplomacy, Policy Paper No. 1 (London: MOD, United Kingdom, 2000), p. 2. Available at http://www.mod.uk/NR/rdonlyres/BB03F0E7-1F85-4E7B-B7EB-4F0418152932/0/polpaper1_def_dip.pdf

32. Major General Ng Chee Khern, the director of the Security and Intelligence Division, Singapore's external intelligence agency, and the former chief of Singapore's air force. Cited in LTC Desmond Chong, MAJ Philip Khoo, and CPT Amos Yeo, “Shaping Policy Space: Defence Diplomacy in the 3rd Generation RSAF,” Pointer: Journal of the Singapore Armed Forces Vol. 34, No. 1 (2008). Available at http://www.mindef.gov.sg/imindef/publications/pointer/journals/2008/v34n1/feature2.html

33. The point is also made in Garren Mulloy, “Japan's Defense Diplomacy and ‘Cold Peace’ in Asia,” Asia Journal of Global Politics Vol. 1, No. 1 (2007), pp. 2–14.

34. See “Session 3: Defense Diplomacy.”

35. Andrew Cottey and Anthony Forster, Reshaping Defense Diplomacy: New Roles for Military Cooperation and Assistance, Adelphi Paper No. 365 (Oxford: Oxford University Press for the International Institute for Strategic Studies, 2004).

36. See Table 1 in Cottey and Forster, Reshaping Defense Diplomacy, p. 7.

37. Tan Seng Chye, “The Relevance of the Network of ASEAN Defense and Security Institutions (NADI) to the ADMM,” in Singh and Tan, From ‘Boots’ to ‘Brogues,’ pp. 63–70.

38. Ian Storey, Ralf Emmers, and Daljit Singh, eds., The Five Power Defense Arrangements at Forty (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2011).

39. David Capie and Brendan Taylor, “The Shangri-La Dialogue and the Institutionalization of Defense Diplomacy in Asia,” The Pacific Review Vol. 23, No. 3 (2010), pp. 359–376.

40. Minister for Defense Teo Chee Hean, “Security Cooperation in Asia: Managing Alliances and Partnerships,” Pointer: Journal of the Singapore Armed Forces Vol. 33, No. 2 (2007). Available at http://www.mindef.gov.sg/imindef/publications/pointer/journals/2007/v33n2/Security_Cooperation_in_Asia__Managing_Alliances_and_Partnerships.html

41. Loren Thompson, “Obama Makes Arms Sales a Key Tool of U.S. Foreign Policy,” Forbes.com, January 1, 2012. Available at http://www.forbes.com/sites/lorenthompson/2012/01/02/obama-makes-arms-sales-a-key-tool-of-u-s-foreign-policy

42. Brijesh Khemlani, “Southeast Asia's Arms Race,” RUSI Analysis, January 13, 2011. Available at http://www.rusi.org/analysis/commentary/ref:C4D2F0CEF10A09

43. See “Session 3: Defense Diplomacy.”

44. Defense diplomacy is differentiated here from military diplomacy, naval diplomacy, and gunboat diplomacy. See Anton du Plessis, “Defense Diplomacy: Conceptual and Practical Dimensions with Specific Reference to South Africa,” Strategic Review for Southern Africa Vol. 30, No. 2 (November 2008), p. 3.

45. Our use here of the adjectives “strategic,” “operational,” and “tactical” is inspired partly by the conceptual debate on the so-called “levels of war” among strategic thinkers such as Clausewitz, von Moltke, Liddell Hart, and others.

46. The rotational leadership practiced by ASEAN has created a logistical nightmare for the poorer and weaker member countries, which lack the capacity to host the staggering number of ASEAN-based meetings held annually. Reportedly, to assist Cambodia, the ASEAN chair for 2012, China donated US$400,000 worth of equipment, including 200 desktop computers, 100 laptops, 60 laser printers, and 20 fax machines, along with voice recorders, projectors, and scanners, according to China's official Xinhua News Agency. See Jim Gomez, “Burma, N. Korea to Dominate ASEAN Agenda,” The Irrawaddy, April 2, 2012. Available at http://www.irrawaddy.org/archives/1764

47. Richard Sinnreich and Williamson Murray, Joint Warfighting in the 21st Century, IDA Paper P-3801, April 12, 2004 (Alexandria, VA: Institute for Defense Analyses, 2004).

48. See Cottey and Forster, Reshaping Defense Diplomacy, pp. 6–7.