The Southeast Asian nuclear weapon free zone proposal: retrospect and prospect

Abstract

This thesis examines the Southeast Asian Nuclear Weapon Free Zone (SEANWFZ) proposal; its past and its future. At the end of 1992, East-West tensions prevalent at the time of the concept's birth are no longer present. ASEAN-Indochina dichotomy common for much of the 1980s has largely been erased. The study seeks to answer the question of the relevance of the SEANWFZ proposal in the changing regional and global security environments and in this way contribute toward discussions about the place of the NWFZs concept generally in the post-Cold War period. The study approaches this task by identifying some of the expectations states have of NWFZs and by applying these in evaluating the attitudes of the United States, the Soviet Union, later Russia, China and the ASEAN states toward the SEANWFZ proposal. The thesis shows that these states have tended to focus on one aspect of the SEANWFZ idea: its geographical nuclear non-proliferation aspect; in other words, SEANWFZ's potential to regulate the regional deployment of nuclear weapons belonging to the nuclear-weapon states. Divergence of views about the implications of the geographical nuclear non-proliferation aspect of SEANWFZ contributed to the proposal's lack of progress. In fact, the debate seemed to have been based on an exaggerated view of the exclusionary potential of SEANWFZ. In practice opponents and supporters of . SEANWFZ were primarily concerned with the symbolic impact of the scheme. The end of the Cold War seems to offer a more positive environment for the realization of SEANWFZ. The draw-down in U.S. and Russian military presence in Southeast Asia is likely to reduce the past fixation with the geographical non-proliferation aspect of SEANWFZ. At the same time, the horizontal non-proliferation and confidence-building aspects of SEANWFZ may receive greater attention. What is certain is that as symbolic or political tools and as arms control measures, a SEANWFZ, and NWFZs generally, still have a unique potential to contribute toward the promotion of regional and global security in the post-Cold War period.