New Institutional Developments In ASEAN: Towards A More Effective (Genuine) Security Architecture?

The recent establishment of the ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting-Plus (ADMM-Plus) as an integral part of the ADMM, a forum created in 2006 as a means of fostering defence and security dialogue and cooperation within the region, has elevated the buzz surrounding ASEAN’s efforts to consolidate regional political and security cooperation, with many positing that the new forums are a significant step towards the formation of an ASEAN security community. It is therefore timely to consider the kind of security governance that ASEAN’s new and existing institutions – specifically the ADMM and the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) – appear geared towards; and whether there are indications that ASEAN is attempting to evolve its framework for regional (security) governance – constituted by an array of overlapping institutions – into a more coherent security architecture.