ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that the concerns of the sceptics are warranted and must overcome if the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) is to become a viable institutional approach to Asia Pacific regional security. It employs both realist and constructivist insights to argue that the ARF will continue to face serious impediments in relation to regional security regime creation and implementation. The problems surrounding both leadership and legitimacy in an ARF context have fed directly into two key policy challenges that will shape the future viability of the Forum. The first of these challenges concerns the problem of institutional relevance - the capacity of the ARF to assimilate an increasingly diverse range of Asia Pacific security actors while maintaining the centrality of the ASEAN states in defining the Forum's institutional agenda. The second challenge concerns the ability of the ARF to 'socialise' the two key great powers needed to underwrite regime formation in Asia Pacific, China and the US.
