The debate about the role of regional institutions in managing power transition and cresting stability in East Asia is, on the other hand, even more indeterminate. Judging the transformative potential of these institutions is difficult because so many of the key “hard” cause of regional security conflicts are not dealt with through these institutions; because the states concerned do not treat these institutions as channels of first resort in managing or preventing or resolving conflicts but instead rely on bilateral and other avenues; and because insufficient time has passed to allow scholars to test claims of socialization assessment and to assess questions of who is socializing whom. This context renders premature attempts to prove or disprove liberal institutions and constructivist theories. Moreover, regional institutions such as ASEAN should not be analyzed in isolation, but in relation to the more realist security strategies that regional states obviously pursue at the same time.
In the context of the increasing role China plays in regional security vis-à-vis the United States, understanding the strategic thinking of Southeast Asian States is an important element in formulating an effective U.S. regional strategy. The controversy over how to characterize Southeast Asian regional security Strategies stems in part from which aspect of Southeast Asian relations with China and the United States scholars choose to focus on—whether they place more emphasis on economic and political engagement with China or on military ties with the United States—and how they define balancing and bandwagoning. There is an obvious need to account for complex Southeast Asian Strategies beyond this simplistic dichotomy. How can scholars cut through these theoretical disagreements to understand how Southeast Asian Strategies for coping with systemic changes relate to wider East Asian stability? How do the Strategies of these small states interact with great power dynamics, and to what extent are the former able to influence regional order?
This article adopts a focus on regional order that enables scholars to explain how the Strategic alignment and institution-building phenomena in Southeast Asia are related, and to what ends. Southeast Asia regional security behavior defies straightforward application of realist or liberal logic because the Strategic thinking here has been aimed at facilitating the transition to a certain kind of regional order, rather than simply responding to systemic changes by choosing sides. Deriving from Hedley Bull’s seminal work, adopting the lens of international or regional order means focusing on the way in which interstate relations proceed along largely well known channels and patterns, which limit unpredictability and stabilize expectations between states. Although accepting that self-help is an important characteristic of an anarchical international system, Bull suggests that states also cooperate to varying extents through five key “institutions of international society”---“ a set of habits and practices shaped toward realization of common goals.” There are the balance of power, international law, diplomacy, the great power managerial system, and war. This “international order” framework allows scholars to ask holistic questions about the mechanisms by which regional relation are regulated and how the relative role and position of states are negotiated, as opposed to discrete queries about particular choices of strategic behavior.
The following analysis takes into account the profoundly ambivalent feelings Southeast Asian States have regarding Chin, giving greater credit to the depth of strategic thinking present in the region and recognizing significant activism on the part of these small states in shaping the regional order. It is commonplace to hear that Southeast Asia does not want to have to choose between the United States and China that the region is “hedging,” with the implication that these countries cannot decide which way they will lean. This article fleshes out the conceptual thinking that underlies this avoidance strategy. It finds that instead of merely adopting tactical or time-buying policies, key Southeast Asian States do have strategic preferences and have actively sought to influence the shaping of the new regional order.
The “order” framework used here consists of two dimensions: processes that regulate interstates relations and expectations toward common goals; and outcomes in terms of systemic attributes, particularly the distribution of power. Writing on Asia, Muthiah Alagappa has suggested that the main order- producing and order-maintaining processes, or pathways that sustain the present security order, include hegemony, balance of power, concert, multi-lateral institution, bilateralism, and self-help.