ABSTRACT
At least some South-east Asian navies have since the 1990s experienced fairly rapid military modernisation and growth.2 Thus far, both scholars and policy-makers have been fairly consistent in arguing that this process of modernisation has not amounted to a naval arms race, that what has been taking place is force modernisation, which suggests an essentially natural process by which states acquire military capabilities and upgrade them regularly through a natural process of obsolescence and replacement. There is some truth to this answer. Most of the naval forces of South-east Asian states have, up to the early 1990s, suffered from relative neglect, in comparison to their respective air force counterparts. By the standards of conventional warfare requirements, virtually all South-east Asian navies have been weak and under-equipped. Nevertheless, this chapter argues that these explanations do not provide a sufficient understanding of the security implications of this naval modernisation process. By focusing on the naval modernisation efforts of Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam – countries that have been most active in the realm of naval modernisation since the 1990s – this study suggests that what emerges is a rather more mixed picture: that while the navies of these selected South-east Asian countries have been engaged in a process of naval modernisation, there are potential arms race implications of this naval modernisation process that can have further negative implications downstream for regional stability. This chapter will begin by examining the growth of naval forces in the South-east Asian countries earlier identified. It will examine three interrelated driving forces of naval acquisitions and modernisation in Southeast Asia. The first set of drivers is the gradual growth of naval forces in South-east Asia, something that has, for resource constraint reasons, taken a long time. The second set of drivers is the issue of technological change and systems obsolescence, and the concomitant need to replace antiquated weapon systems and platforms. The third set of drivers is the issue of changes to the strategic landscape (perceived or otherwise), the resulting changes in strategic missions that regional navies have had to
undertake and the need to acquire new types of capabilities that allow regional navies to undertake these new strategic missions. Second, this chapter suggests that while these drivers of naval growth and modernisation are not necessarily problematic from the perspective of regional security and stability, the patterns of acquisitions, and in particular the timings of specific acquisitions, might begin to suggest underlying tensions in political relations within the region. Insofar as that is true, then while there may not be a naval arms race in South-east Asia per se, there is still potential cause for concern.
