ABSTRACT
The major structural changes in the international environment, particularly after the end of the Cold War, have had significant impacts on the global security agenda in general and in the Asian region in particular. To be sure, the nature of conflicts and the milieu within which these conflicts have occurred have become remarkably different. Whereas in the Cold War most conflicts were characteristically inter-state and the nature of security concerns were largely focused on protecting a state’s territorial integrity and securing its borders from outside intervention, the current strategic environment reveals conflicts increasingly found within states. Moreover, the nature of security threats has become much more complex and diverse – going far beyond the preoccupation with military threats to state security.
