India’s National Security Advisor, Shivshankar Menon while delivering his valedictory address at the 13th Asian Security Conference organized by Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA) in New Delhi on Friday acknowledging the “rapid rise of China” said that other powers in its immediate periphery like South Korea, Vietnam, Indonesia and India were also developing rapidly and there has been an increase in defence budgets throughout the region over the last two decades.

Regarding the danger of terrorism, he said : “there is an increasing danger of terrorism spreading from those parts of Asia, like Pakistan and Afghanistan which have not been part of the Asian economic miracle. The security of nuclear materials and weapons in those same parts of Asia is another example of the sort of problems that we face. These are problems I mean when I speak of the increasing security divide within Asia.”

He suggested that in the background of these events Asia needs “to find a new internal equilibrium of its own.”

Stressing upon the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) as a nodal agency, he said : “Centering the institution on ASEAN would be logical and practical and ASEAN Defence Ministers’ plus Eight Meeting offers a potentially very useful way forward.”

According to Menon, given the diversity in Asia, the collective security proposals should be inclusive and plural and must include all relevant powers including those geographically external but intrinsic to Asia’s security in practice and presence. It should be extensive from Suez to the Pacific and include the entire Eurasian land mass.

“Asia’s geopolitics are complicated by the presence of several extra-regional powers who are now integral to Asian security in this age of globalization of economics, security and technology. Powers such as US, Russia and Japan are present and have long established interests of their own in Asia. An Asian order which ignores their interests is unlikely to be stable,” he said.

Asia as a whole will remain dependent upon the rest of the world for its own continued growth and security, whether in terms of energy security, food security or in the more conventional calculation of the sources and providers of security capabilities and technologies. The new equilibrium in Asia is likely to be as much a result of production chains and regional and global market integration as of purely security driven alliances, he said.
Menon said : “In other words we are speaking of an Asia that will be largely developing, increasingly integrated within itself and simultaneously dependent upon the broader global community and environment – a powerful but poor Asia.” He extrapolated that the growth in Asia would be over medium term.

Regarding the current changes in Asia, he said that these were different from those seen in the historical analogies of rising power in the past. “No one-size solution or simplistic prescription will work. We should learn from the failure of Cold War alliance systems in the area and of earlier Asian Collective Security proposals,” he said.

Menon suggested three new challenges to be met like connectivity domains like maritime security, cyberspace and outer space security as it affects Asia’s physical and economic security. The next challenges are to bridge the increasing security divide in Asia and institutionalization of security cooperation in Asia.