NGOs, piracy and maritime crime in Southeast Asia

For more about the East-West Center, see http://www.eastwestcenter.org/Joon Num Mak, Independent Analyst based in Malaysia, writes that “The establishment of a regional forum where NGOs can meet to discuss a comprehensive strategy to end the problem of piracy and maritime crime in Southeast Asia over the long-term would be a very important development

Maritime cooperation in the Asia-Pacific region: current situation and prospects

This monograph includes the discussion papers presented at the Fifth Meeting of the CSCAP Maritime Cooperation Working Group held in Kuala Lumpur on 17 and 18 November 1998. It is the fifth in the series to be published by the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre on behalf of the CSCAP Maritime Cooperation Working Group. Maritime cooperation has become an important consideration in the Asia-Pacific region. It is essential for the effective management of the marine environment ('oceans governance') and is regarded as an important contributor to regional security as a confidence- and security-building measure (CSBM). There is possibly no other region of the world where maritime cooperation is so important or more necessary. There is certainly no other region of the world where maritime cooperation has gained such specific recognition as it has in the Asia-Pacific during the 1990s. The need for maritime cooperation in the region flows from both the importance of maritime issues and the complexity of the regional marine environment. The papers in this monograph explore the strengths and weaknesses of existing processes of maritime cooperation in the Asia-Pacific region. They reflect the desire and necessity to pursue the widening and deepening of existing cooperation and other maritime CSBMs. Within the Working Group there is increasingly frank and full discussion of such issues, and this is reflected in the interesting and thought-provoking papers contained within

Maintaining the strategic edge: the defence of Australia in 2015

The recent and continuing changes in Southeast Asia - the economic calamity in 1997-98, the overthrow of President Soeharto's New Order and the tenuous establishment of democracy, and the horrific circumstances of East Timor's independence - have disturbed Australia's security situation more seriously than anything since the 1960s, when Australia was at war (albeit covertly) with Indonesia in Borneo and had a task force in Vietnam. The rate of technological change is also unprecedented, especially in the area of information technology (IT) and its manifold applications, promising a revolution in military affairs (RMA), some aspects of which are very attractive for Australian defence planning. At the same time, the Australian Defence Force (ADF) faces the imminent prospect of 'block obsolescence' - when major platforms such as the F/A-18 Hornet multi-role fighter aircraft, the F-111 strike fighters, the P-3C Orion long-range maritime patrol aircraft, and all of the navy's surface combatants, will need to be replaced (or their tasks foregone). Addressing these issues will require the development of a sound appreciation of Australia's security environment, and of clear and coherent strategic guidance for defence force planning. The purpose of this volume is to assist and inform these processes