It wasn’t too long ago that the European Union was being touted as “the” model for ensuring stability, peace, and prosperity in this postmodern, globalized world. And, indeed, when regional organizations like ASEAN (The Association of Southeast Asian Nations) looked to examples for how best to move forward, the EU was, rather than NATO, more often than not touted as the paradigm for deepening effective and meaningful regional cooperation.
That was all well and good, except that, when it comes to foreign affairs, both the EU and ASEAN a) lack a military and b) make their key decisions on security through multi-national consensus. Hence, both lack “hard power” or, rather, “hard power” that can be employed in a decisive and consistent manner—which isn’t a problem until they are faced with a nation that doesn’t share their values and has the institutional and military wherewithal to push its own agenda swiftly and effectively.
Lacking the capacity to push back, it’s predictable that both ASEAN and the EU will fall back on a strategy of engaging—or worse, appeasing—the neighborhood bully. Just this past week, as Russian military and Russian-backed insurgents once again upped major military pressure on Ukraine, the EU insisted that it will not send a military contingent to Ukraine for peacekeeping and, what’s more, that the government in Kiev should keep quiet about its desires to move toward membership in NATO. Instead, the key players in the EU—Berlin, Paris, and London—are pressing Ukraine’s leaders to push forward with implementing the Minsk ceasefire agreement despite Russia and Ukrainian separatists continually violating it and showing every sign of gearing up to swallow even more of Ukraine.
In the meantime, in Asia, at a summit of ASEAN leaders in Kuala Lumpur, efforts to deal with China’s program of “land-filling” its way toward control of the South China Seas have gone nowhere. As the Wall Street Journal reports, “During Monday’s plenary session, Philippine President Benigno Aquino III stressed to his counterparts that China’s continuing reclamation project represents a threat to countries beyond the region, adding that those activities ‘likewise pose a threat to the freedom of global commerce and navigation.’” President Aquino then reminded the other ASEAN heads of state that China had reached an agreement with the ASEAN countries that prohibited inhabiting disputed areas of the sea. But, of course, the agreement was nonbinding, and, without the capacity to enforce it, all ASEAN can do is stand by and watch as China increases its sovereign claims in one the world’s most strategically important sea lanes. No surprise then when ASEAN’s current chairman and Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said in response to Aquino’s pleas, “We will continue to engage China” and “hope to be able to influence China.”
Of course, the EU is a far more deeply integrated regional governing body than ASEAN. But even if it functioned more like the EU, ASEAN would still suffer from the fatal flaw of having no singular, sword-wielding executive capacity to carry out and defend its policies. It turns out that the postmodern world is still in need of what the early modern world’s theorists—Machiavelli, Hobbes, and Locke—knew was essential if true peace and prosperity were to be achieved.
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