ABSTRACT
This chapter evaluates how the emergence of lethal autonomous weapon systems would impact the balance of power within Southeast Asia and demonstrates how early adoption by middle power states would challenge prior conceptions of the hegemonic power competition and conflict. It focuses on evaluating impact at the regional level, based on the response options. The chapter engages directly with the core research puzzle, arguing that, without proactive and regionally shaped action, the diffusion of increasingly autonomous weapon systems to states in Southeast Asia will negatively impact security and stability at the regional and super-regional levels. Maintaining, or conversely undermining, the support of Southeast Asian states for maintaining the United States’ pre-eminence in the regional balance of power will therefore remain an important aspect of the emerging strategic competition between these two great power states. The argument that Southeast Asian states would take this gradual approach rather than attempt a more traditional adoption response is supported by the rapid diffusion.
