ABSTRACT
Over the last decade, the regional security environment in Asia, particularly in Southeast Asia, has changed dramatically. While the risks of major armed conflict and interstate wars are now on the decline,1 the region is increasingly confronted with new security challenges emerging from a host of transnational threats. Of late, there is growing recognition that new security challenges are proving to be more severe and more likely to inflict more harm on a greater number of people than conventional threats of interstate wars and conflicts. As a consequence, policymakers in the region have had to rethink their security agendas and find new and innovative ways to address these new security challenges. These, in turn, have had profound implications for regional security cooperation among states in the region. These developments have once again brought to the fore the debates about rethinking
and reconceptualizing security. In this regard, let me start by raising two points about the evolution of non-traditional security work in the region. The first is the way this concept has evolved in the security lexicon in Asia, and the second has to do with the kinds of security issues that fall under this term.
