The Asia-Pacific Security Lexicon (Upated 2nd Edition)

Introduction to the Second Edition

INTRODUCTION TO THE SECOND EDITION A Singaporean academic once described the first edition of the Lexicon as “words from East Asian talk shops”. He may well be right. The book tr eats words seriously and, to paraphrase T .S. Eliot, continues to focus on their r efusal to remain still. The first edition of the Asia-Pacific Security Lexicon was completed in late 2001 and appear ed in 2002. It seemed to find an audience. More than 6,000 copies were sold in four years and the book has been r eprinted four times. A Japanese translation by Akiko Fukushima was published in 2003 and translations have also been pr oduced in Chinese, Kor ean, Mongolian, and Vietnamese. Our choice of terms in the first edition r eflected a decade of creative institution-building and bur geoning multilateralism in the region. When we began research for the book in 1996,ASEAN had just seven members, the ASEAN Regional Forum was barely established and the first pr oposals for an East Asian regional grouping had been rejected six years earlier. By the time the book came out, we wer e able to look back on a decade in which multilateralism had taken r oot in the r hetoric and practice of Asia-Pacific security. xi 00 A_PacSecurityLexiconPrelims 9/24/07, 9:00 AM 11 Yet by 2001 it was clear that some of the gloss had gone fr om regional multilateralism. An ineffective response to the Asian economic crisis, inaction over envir onmental problems and the disunity brought about by ASEAN’s admission of new members, all raised serious questions about the effectiveness of cooperation on a regional basis. These doubts were compounded by the election in 2000 of a new U.S. administration that r egarded multilateralism with deep scepticism, preferring bilateralism or ad hoc approaches to multilateral cooperation. This growing ambivalence towar ds multilateralism was reflected in changes in the r egional security discourse. ASEAN’s traditional norm of non-interference was challenged by proponents of “flexible engagement” and “enhanced interaction”. The Bush administration’s director of policy planning declared a preference for “a la carte multilateralism”. The changes wer e further compounded by the terr orist attacks in the United States on 11 September 2001 (9/11) and later bombings in Indonesia. In its simplest form “multilateral” refers to interaction among more than two parties, usually defined as states. It can take a variety of institutional forms ranging fr om talks and consultations and can vary in its level of institutionalization fr om ad hoc and loose, to more permanent and formal. The basic philosophy of these small “m” appr oaches to multilateralism is that these processes are conceived as instr uments for achieving specific national goals. Another approach to multilateralism can be classified as capital “M”. It sees multilateral institutions as a way of transforming state policies, not just implementing them, thr ough a pr ocess of creating generalized principles of conduct that include indivisibility, non-discrimination and dif fuse reciprocity. With it comes a belief in law, rules, transparency and binding obligations and often a commitment to str ong organizational structures. States may be the most visible actors but effective multilateralism involves the support and engagement of multiple layers of non-state actors including epistemic communities, NGOs, civil society organizations, business, business associations, and social movements. In its most r obust forms, multilateralism aims at creating new institutions beyond the sover eign nation state. For the past six years, small “m” multilateralism has had a moment in the sun while joined by a mor e assertive unilateralism. This second edition r eflects the post 9/11 regional context, with new entries that provide insights into the use of the language of INTRODUCTION TO THE SECOND EDITION xii 00 A_PacSecurityLexiconPrelims 9/24/07, 9:00 AM 12 the “war on terr or” in Asia. New terms in this r evised edition include terrorism, pre-emption, preventive war, and coalition of the willing. Looking back on the selection of key terms we included in the first edition, we can see how vocabulary has evolved. Some expressions seem to have lost salience, while others have gr own in influence and use. In the mid-1990s for example, ther e was enormous interest and debate around new security concepts like common, comprehensive, and cooperative security. They are still commonly used and have been internalized by a significant portion...