Given the considerations above, ASEAN is best characterized as representing a limited economic and security regime because the ASEAN states are, on balance, currently bound by only a medium-low level of complex integration. While the rhetoric of the ASEAN satisfies the definition of a regime in the full sense of the term (i.e. medium-high integration), the inconsistency by which the ASEAN states adhere to their self-declared principles, norms and rules means that, in practice, they have not moved beyond the characteristics of a limited regime. Meanwhile, ASEAN maintains some utility as a diplomatic community but its capacity to exercise a collective voice internationally has generally been limited to rare instances where security issue have commonly affected all the ASEAN members. Therefore, ASEAN’s occasional utility as a diplomatic community does not symbolize a deepening of complex integration because any associated convergence of interests in the political-security sphere has only been transient and issue specific. Further, while the level of complex integration may be on the verge of a medium-low level, a transition to a medium-high level of integration (i.e. the model of institutional liberalism in Figure 1.3) represents a significant step, and should ASEAN successfully evolve in this direction, the process will like take place over a number of decades rather than years. Finally, a high level of complex integration, symbolized by a security community, is even further away.