The 8th Shangri-La Dialogue: a traditional approach
Dr Mark G. Rolls (Department of Political Science and Public Policy, University of Waikato) reports from the 2009 Shangri-La Dialogue, a high-profile annual defence forum held in Singapore between 29-31 May 2009.
Although not among the 27 countries participating, North Korea’s indirect presence was unmistakeable. Coming only days after its second nuclear explosion – and attendant missile tests – the DPRK received strong censure for its actions. US Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, in his address to the first plenary session, stated that the United States “will not accept North Korea as a nuclear state” and reaffirmed America’s commitment to the defence of its regional allies. In a notable first, Gates and his Japanese and South Korean counterparts held a trilateral meeting on the sidelines at which the subject of North Korea’s behaviour would undoubtedly have headed the agenda.
It is the Dialogue’s ability to provide an environment conducive to informal discussions which is one of its principal attributes and helps to explain why so many states’ defence and security establishments are now represented at the highest levels. The International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) makes every effort to facilitate such discussions with participating states being able to schedule meetings with reciprocal government delegates in various dedicated bilateral meeting rooms. Although these meetings are usually arranged in advance, this does not guarantee that they will always eventuate. New Zealand’s prized meeting with Robert Gates unfortunately fell through due to his late arrival in Singapore. That this was caused by technical problems with his aircraft did not go unremarked.
Much of the work of the Dialogue goes on behind the scenes, as was illustrated in a cartoon in the Straits Times which showed an empty central table with several animated discussions occurring in the background. To some extent this was an accurate portrayal as the high level official delegations were sometimes thin on the ground in the plenaries. Much could be gleaned, however, from the presentations of defence minsters and military chiefs in these plenaries and the question and answer sessions were also illuminating, often providing a real appreciation of some states’ central concerns and sensitivities (even if only from the fact that some questions remained unanswered).
Whilst acknowledged by several speakers, including the Deputy Chief of Staff of the People’s Liberation Army and the defence ministers of Australia and New Zealand, as an important multilateral security forum in its own right, one of the central topics of the Dialogue was the region’s security architecture. There was a general consensus that this should be open and inclusive, and was still a work in progress, but views differed on what form it should take and how should it be achieved.
For Kevin Rudd, who used his keynote speech to again pursue again his idea of an Asia-Pacific Community, allowing the right security architecture to evolve by itself was “potentially dangerous”. Other speakers saw an Asia-Pacific Security Community (though no-one ever defined what they meant by a ‘security community’) evolving as a result of functional co-operation; as a bringing together of sub-regional clusters; or as the outgrowth of existing regional bodies.
From having occupied a sideline position in this debate, ASEAN moved towards centre stage again with a degree of consensus that any future security architecture should be ‘ASEAN-centric’. The ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) lay at the heart of New Zealand’s proposals for how a security community could be advanced with Wayne Mapp calling for it to develop an institutional identity through the establishment of a Secretary-General’s post and a Secretariat. Mapp’s well-crafted speech was one of the few to put forward such concrete proposals.
Driving many of the concerns about the need for an effective regional security architecture was the unspoken issue of the shifting balance of power. Unspoken, that is, in the theoretical sense, for the topic of US-China relations underlay much of what occurred. There were observations, too, pointing to the emergence of India as a strategic player and how Japan’s role might change as its security concerns grew.
Another prominent theme was the issue of military modernisation and arms procurement – the recent Australian Defence White Paper attracting some attention in this regard – and the need for greater transparency and military-to-military dialogues and exchanges was voiced. Importantly, this transparency should not be limited to capabilities but should also include strategic intentions since it is these which can often give rise to the most uncertainty. Given the significance of arms acquisitions it was rather surprising that the issue of arms control did not merit a mention.
Although several speakers spoke of the need for multilateral responses to deal with non-traditional security threats, these threats never attained the prominence which they currently enjoy in security studies literature or some other international fora. It was the military dimension of security which was uppermost and the potential threats posed by the military means possessed by other states which were pre-eminent. One was almost left with the impression at times that we were not so far removed from the days of the Cold War after all.
Please note that the views expressed by the author of this feature do not necessarily reflect the views of Asia New Zealand Foundation.
Images sourced from the International Institute for Strategic Studies, www.iiss.org
