The War on Terror: Implications for the ASEAN Region

On 11 September 2001, a stunned world watched as terrorists flying hijacked civilian aircraft jets erased the twin towers of the World Trade Centre in New York City and seriously damaged the Pentagon in Washington DC. Slightly more than a year later, on 12 October 2002, almost two hundred lives were lost in bombings on the island of Bali, Indonesia. This chapter examines the nature of the challenge posed by the terrorist attacks for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and discusses the implications of ASEAN’s role in the war on terror. It is generally argued here that ASEAN’s participation in the campaign against terrorism in Southeast Asia and beyond has been characterised by significant ambiguity. On the one hand, the war on terror has offered ASEAN governments the opportunities to extract and draw on external assistance to deal with domestic economic and transregional security challenges. On the other hand, regional governments have found it difficult to demonstrate their collective capacity to act as an effective diplomatic community and security regime, and their erstwhile hopes that ASEAN could yet emerge as a manager of regional order have once again been exposed as having only limited substance. This has not been without effect on its international standing. ASEAN is also facing up to the fact that security co-operation with the major powers to stem regional terrorism is a double-edged sword in part because such co-operation fuels an emerging struggle for regional influence by the major powers.