ABSTRACT
Security communities emerge when a group of states collectively renounce violence as a means of resolving their differences with an attendant significant muting of disputes among them. ASEAN came to exhibit such characteristics in its diplomatic role during the Cambodia conflict. As discussed in the previous chapter, ASEAN’s collective action over Cambodia had a salutary effect on intra-ASEAN relations. Unity against an external challenge helped to divert attention from intra-mural differences. As early as 1982, S. Dhanabalan, the Foreign Minister of Singapore, was claiming that intraASEAN conflicts had ‘either become irrelevant or been muted considerably’.1
