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SEAN leaders are going to meet in Thailand at the end of this month to mark the implementation of the ASEAN Charter. The summit was originally scheduled to be held in last December, but due to domestic political chaos at that time in Thailand, the summit was postponed.

The region itself is now facing tremendous challenges from new security problems. These issues, especially the nexus between traditional and non traditional security that ASEAN should address, are part of the consequence of the significant changes both in the global and regional security environment.

First, the economic and social threat which include poverty, the widening gap between the rich and the poor, infectious diseases, the limitation of access to food (food insecurity) and the degradation of the environment.

Second, the international conflict (inter state conflict). Although the tendency of this conflict in the Southeast Asian region has been reduced significantly, this does not necessarily mean that this threat has completely disappeared. The recent border conflict between Thailand and Cambodia shows that a break out of this traditional conflict still remains possible. Problems of border disputes among the members of ASEAN admittedly have not yet been completely resolved. This dispute, of course, may trigger international tension, if not international conflict, among the members of ASEAN.

Third, the internal conflict (intra-state conflict) that precisely since the end of the Cold War has significantly increased in the region. The domestic conflict within some ASEAN members - for instance, in Indonesia, the Philippines and the tension between Malaysia and Thailand over the issue of Islamic militants in the southern part of Thailand - was the product of various domestic problems that derived from issues of economics, politics and social culture (or religion).

The Southeast Asian region still has significant potential domestic problems such as internal conflict which can be transformed into inter state conflict. This problem will become very acute if the issues of separatism continue to spread in this region.

Fourth, another type of threat which also must receive serious attention is the spreading of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. Although this threat is relatively small (almost nonexistent), this still could happen in the Southeast Asian region.

Even though the region has declared itself a nuclear-weapons-free zone, this does not mean that we can completely ignore the possibility of the spreading of nuclear and biological weapons. The process of globalization will enable the non-state actor to have the capability to use these weapons in obtaining their political objectives.

And finally the threat which can also contribute to regional insecurity is the threat posed by the transnational organized crime syndicates involved in narcotics, human trafficking, and distribution of illegal weapons. The strategic position of the region and globalization has facilitated TNOC (Trans-National Organized Crimes) by making a borderless world, information and communication more accessible, and the transfer of funds easier. Many cases show that this region is not only used as a distribution line but it has also become one of the important producers or sources of transnational crimes which has connections with other TNOC syndicates from other regions.

In order to answer the four main questions above, the purpose, the responsibility and the collective regional strategy is based on three main pillars:

First, it assumes that the nature of all the threats that should be dealt with now cross national borders.

Second, all threats in the region have a complicated connection between aspects of the military and the non-military.

And third, the above threats must be overcome simultaneously whether in national, regional or global order. The regional cooperation in the region so far was very focused on "state-driven cooperation." Evidently, it should be supplemented with the new idea that regional cooperation should also push the "non state-driven cooperation."

Considering the above characteristics and the possible cross-national linkage of the issue of traditional and non traditional security, what steps might ASEAN take to address it? There are at least two crucial levels of addressing the security threats in the region: the national and the regional level. At the national level, each member of ASEAN should have an interagency operations board.

These operations will not only include the ministries of foreign affairs, defense forces, and the police but will also involve other agencies concerned with social welfare and home affairs. The initiative to establish a nationally integrated structure can be considered an effort to better coordinate the interagency operations.

At the regional level, ASEAN as a regional grouping should also consider initiating regional or even multilateral cooperation. The nature of this multilateral cooperation should principally lie in formal and legalistic approaches to nontraditional security planning in order to promote a collective response in the region. ASEAN also need to reconsider its noninterference principle in addressing the multidimensional issue of security due to the national, regional and international implications of the issue.

The changes in the strategic environment of the Southeast Asian region have indeed forced many countries, including the ASEAN member states, to change their foreign policy agendas, including the pattern of cooperation in the region.

Most of the new security challenges will come from within the region itself. In order to deal with these changes, Southeast Asian countries need a certain ability and willingness to further increase the level of regional framework for cooperation and to evaluate in a critical manner the agendas and the policies that have been produced so far, including the mechanism of decision making in ASEAN.