{"id":11553,"date":"2013-12-30T06:00:41","date_gmt":"2013-12-29T19:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=11553"},"modified":"2014-01-07T16:07:01","modified_gmt":"2014-01-07T05:07:01","slug":"a-strategist-retrospective-the-future-of-the-five-power-defence-arrangement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/a-strategist-retrospective-the-future-of-the-five-power-defence-arrangement\/","title":{"rendered":"A Strategist retrospective: the future of the Five Power Defence Arrangement"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post was originally published on November 8, 2012<\/strong><\/p>\n

(The Strategist will return with new material on January 6, 2014 – Ed.)<\/p>\n

\"Lieutenant<\/a><\/figure>\n

The Five Power Defence Arrangements (FPDA) is often overlooked as a regional security institution, and is a curious security device that embodies several paradoxes. The Arrangements\u2019 most important roles are not discussed openly. And the most important non-regional player in the FPDA is not necessarily the one which plays the most prominent role in terms of its conventional military commitment. Moreover, while the FPDA is apparently anachronistic, in reality it continues to serve vital security roles and will do so in the future.<\/p>\n

To expand on the first of these paradoxes: the FPDA is often characterised as a Cold War leftover that is irrelevant to the current and future security concerns of regional states. However, while the FPDA was created during the Cold War in the context of the military withdrawal by the UK from Southeast Asia in the late 1960s and early 1970s, its key roles were never Cold War specific. The five powers involved have always held diverse motives for participating in the Arrangements. However, discussion of two of the FPDA\u2019s core rationales has always been essentially taboo.<\/p>\n

The first of these implicit roles has been for the FPDA to act as a hedge against a resurgence of an unstable and threatening Indonesia which might endanger the security of Malaysia and Singapore, and perhaps also the wider sub-regional balance of power to the detriment of Australia, New Zealand and maybe the United Kingdom. While this has not been a realistic or immediate prospect since the FPDA was established in 1971, the ouster of Indonesia\u2019s President Suharto in 1998 and the ensuing instability there over the following three to four years may have reminded FPDA members\u2014particularly Malaysia and Singapore\u2014of the origins of the Arrangements after Jakarta\u2019s Konfrontasi <\/em>of 1963\u20136. And while Indonesia\u2019s trajectory in terms of domestic stability and its willingness to play a constructive role regionally and internationally has seemed encouraging under the leadership of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, there remain disquieting domestic political trends that could lead to the world\u2019s fourth most populous country becoming a less congenial neighbour in the future.<\/p>\n

The FPDA\u2019s second implicit role has been to maintain essential channels of communication on defence and military matters between Malaysia and Singapore, and to build strategic confidence between these two Southeast Asian states whose sporadic mutual distrust sometimes highlights underlying existential tensions.<\/p>\n

Neither of these FPDA roles can be discussed openly in Southeast Asia, for fear of further undermining sometimes strained relations within the Indonesia\u2013Malaysia\u2013Singapore triangle. Nevertheless, in recent years the five powers have displayed considerable flexibility in interpreting the FPDA\u2019s security ambit, notably adapting their exercise series in response to strategic concerns du jour<\/em>, such as terrorism and humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR). These exercises have doubtless helped to build a degree of interoperability between the forces of FPDA members, which has sometimes proved useful operationally outside the FPDA context. This was certainly true in the Australian-led intervention and security presence in East Timor from 1999: ultimately, forces from all FPDA member-states were deployed in the territory. Familiarity deriving from FPDA contacts might also have helped some FPDA member-states\u2019 armies to operate alongside each other in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

Turning to the second paradox, it is clearly Australia that has played the most active role among the three extra-regional FPDA participants, both diplomatically and in terms of its contribution of forces to FPDA exercises. The UK has never contributed either diplomatic enthusiasm or forces to the FPDA on the scale of Australia, and the British government\u2019s Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) in 2010 further undermined the UK\u2019s capacity to project expeditionary military power. However, successive UK governments\u2019 commitment to perpetuating the UK\u2019s status as one of five permanent UN Security Council members, and as a nuclear-weapons state maintaining a strategic second-strike capability is often overlooked in the Asia-Pacific region. The UK\u2019s continuing involvement in the FPDA, which notably survived the 2010 SDSR, is significant for its FPDA partners and for other regional states because of Britain\u2019s continuing diplomatic and strategic weight.<\/p>\n

One of the most frequently-heard comments about the FPDA is that it is \u2018out-dated\u2019. Putting aside its possible continuing relevance in the immediate vicinity of Malaysia and Singapore, the changing strategic environment in the wider Asia-Pacific region suggests a range of adverse future scenarios in which membership of the FPDA could valuably supplement member states\u2019 other external security arrangements. All signs are that the Asia-Pacific region\u2019s strategic environment will be characterised by these major features:<\/p>\n