ASEAN commands far greater influence on Asia-Pacific trade, political, and security issues than its members could achieve individually. This has driven ASEAN’s community building efforts. This work is based largely on consultation, consensus, and cooperation
ASEAN has been reasonably successful in preventing conflicts among its member nations. The Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia, for example, took place before either were members and the then ASEAN membership reached a unified diplomatic stance about the issue. The 1987-8 war between Thailand and Laos occurred prior to Laos’s accession to ASEAN. Confrontation between member states reduced considerably after Mikhail Gorbachev ended the Soviet Union’s support for Communist regimes in Southeast Asia and those states have all subsequently become involved in the capitalist economic system in one way or another. ASEAN has provided a forum in which governments have been able to communicate with each other when ideology would otherwise have kept them apart.