This book explores the experiences of temporary migrants in the Asia-Pacific region. It develops the original concept of 'fluid security' to analyse the way in which persons carry a set of tools, strategies and attitudes across spatial, temporal and imagined borders. This concept applies a mobilities lens to human security in order to take into account the aspirations and needs of mobile populations appropriate for a globalising world. The book brings to light the diverse experiences of mobility and the multiple vulnerabilities experienced by individuals that intersect with, and sometimes challenge, national security domains. The authors analyse mobility patterns that are diversifying at a rate far outstripping the capacity of governments to adapt to the human security needs of mobile populations. While the idea of global citizenship may be held up as an ideal through which access to rights is not an arbitrary lottery, it remains far from a reality for the majority of migrants. They are excluded from the migratory flows global elites engage in almost at will. This important book advances the idea that mobile individuals can generate their own security when they have agency and the ability to plan; that experiences of security are not necessarily tied to permanence; that mobile populations benefit from policies that support transnational life; and that fluid security is enhanced when individuals are able to carry a bundle of rights with them.

The security architecture of the Asia/Pacific region is in a profound transformation. Such changes are not without problems, which are discussed here.

The proliferation of advanced militarily relevant technologies in the Asia-Pacific over the past few decades has been a significant, and perhaps even alarming, development. This volume addresses how such technologies may affect military capabilities and military advantage in the region.

In the wake of 9/11, the Asian crisis and the 2004 tsunami, traditional analytical frameworks are increasingly unable to explain how individuals and communities are rendered insecure, or advance individual, global or environmental security. In the Asia-Pacific, the accepted wisdom of realism has meant that analyses rarely move beyond the statist, militarist and exclusionary assumptions that underpin traditional realpolitik. This innovative new book challenges these limitations and addresses the missing problems, people and vulnerabilities of the Asia-Pacific region. It also turns a critical eye on traditional interstate strategic dynamics. Critical security in the Asia-Pacific applies both a critical theoretical approach that interrogates the deeper assumptions underpinning security discourses, and a human-centred policy approach that focuses on the security, welfare and emancipation of individuals and communities. Leading Asia-Pacific researchers combine to apply these frameworks to the most pressing issues in the region, from the Korean peninsula to environmental change, Indonesian conflict, the ‘war on terror’ and the plight of refugees. The result is a sophisticated and accessible account of often-neglected realities of marginalization in the region, and a compelling argument for the empowerment and security of the most vulnerable.

What is Non-Traditional Security? How have our understandings of security changed over the past decade? What are the dominant non-traditional security challenges we face in the world today?The concept of national security remains contested but our understanding of it continues to evolve as it is shaped by the world around us. From a globally dominant 'traditional' understanding of security during the Cold War characterised by a focus on countries and their militaries protecting their sovereignty to today, where non-military threats such as global pandemics, climate change, energy, to disasters threaten the wellbeing and livelihoods of people, communities, and the environment that form the backbone of society.The global dial has shifted towards a more comprehensive understanding of security that recognises these non-traditional security threats moving the focus away from solely the survival of the state to the empowerment and protection of people and the environment. This shift highlights the experiences of different individuals and communities, from civilians affected by war to irregular migrants moving from one place to the next, and what the world witnesses as efforts to empower and protect people and the environment.Indeed, comprehensive security has a long history in the post-colonial Asia-Pacific. Non-Traditional Security emerged after the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis. It emerged as a way to recalibrate the ways governments engaged people and communities and developed pathways for countries in the region to cooperate.Non-Traditional Security in the Asia-Pacific: A Decade of Perspectives, an interdisciplinary collection, is essential reading for anyone interested in the developments of security with a focus on the dominant non-traditional security threats in the Asia-Pacific over the last decade — from advanced undergraduates, graduate students, and scholars, to policymakers at the local, national, regional, and international levels.

This book offers the most comprehensive analysis yet of the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), which remains the foremost dialogue forum for the promotion of cooperative security in the Asia-Pacific. Contributors focus on the perspectives and roles of the key players in the ARF – ASEAN, the United States, China, Japan, and Australia – and discuss to what extent these participants have shaped the Forum's institutional development and affected its achievements and prospects against the backdrop of the evolving regional security architecture. They also examine in depth how participants have used the Forum to respond to a range of important transnational security issues and challenges, including terrorism and maritime security, as well as disaster relief. This work also explores how, despite the difficulties in reaching a new consensus regarding the collective pursuit of preventive diplomacy, some activist participants have succeeded in bringing about a notable, albeit incipient, 'practical turn' in the ARF’s security cooperation. This book will appeal to students of South-East Asian Politics, Asian Security Studies and International Relations in general.

The conventional understanding of strategic issues in the modern world has been very much a Western-driven phenomenon. That is to say, Western strategists, thinkers and writers have tended to establish the principles of strategic concepts, and to develop theories around them. While there is utility in much Western strategic thought, it is also apt to note that some of it does not have full relevance or validity when applied to a regional setting that is far removed from the geographical boundaries of the Western world. In that connection, this volume is partly intended to serve as an antidote to much of the Western commentary on Asia-Pacific security issues by providing a range of perspectives on those issues from the Southeast Asian point of view. It offers a range of Southeast Asian perspectives on the multifaceted security issues that confront the Asia-Pacific region in the post-Cold War era. That there is no unitary perspective emanating from the region is symptomatic of the very fluid geopolitical situation that characterizes Asia-Pacific security, and, of equal import, the different schools of thought that analysts in the region have chosen to subscribe to.

The term comprehensive security goes beyond simplifications such as us and them; it accounts for all aspects vital to national stability; food, energy, environment, communication and social security. Confidence building methods, preventive diplomacy, energy security, second order cybernetics, transparancy of financial markets are all means to enhance overall stability. Comprehensive Security has become a concept particularly suited for a continent with many powerful countries. An important contribution to one of the key issues of contemporary (Asian) politics.

We cannot expect in East Asia over the foreseeable future to see the sort of conflation of sovereign states that has occurred in Europe. We must anticipate that, for the foreseeable future, the requirement will be for the sensible management and containment of competitive instincts. The establishment of a multilateral security body in East Asia that includes all the key players, and which the major powers invest with the authority to tackle the shaping of the regional security order, remains a critical piece of unfinished business.

This book argues that, given the existence of a discrete Malay archipelago security complex, it is a fallacy for the United States to approach this region primarily through the prism of global counter-terrorism