Gorbatko Anastasia

The ASEAN Regional Forum from an Asia-Pacific Maritime Security Perspective: Time to Think Bigger.

ЮГО-ВОСТОЧНАЯ АЗИЯ: АКТУАЛЬНЫЕ ПРОБЛЕМЫ РАЗВИТИЯ, 2022, №3(56), 40-48

 
Annotation: The paper reviews the evolution of the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) and addresses crucial issues the Forum is encountering. Starting from an outline of the ARF’s achievements and limitations, the paper further proceeds to exploring the maritime security dimension of the Forum’s activity to finally turn to the pivotal task the ARF has to resolve in the present international circumstances. The author argues that the ARF’s inability to produce positive results in handling Asia-Pacific maritime security challenges is part of its bigger deficiencies, most importantly, the ARF’s failure to offer its participants, primarily, China and the US, a consolidating agenda of cooperation. As long as this problem remains unresolved, the ARF’s contribution to keeping Asia-Pacific maritime security challenges manageable will remain minor at best.

Keywords: ASEAN, ASEAN Regional Forum, China, US, Indo-Pacific Region, cooperative security, maritime security challenges