A

s the United States tries to disengage from Afghanistan and with the recent killing of Osama bin Laden, the world’s biggest economy will likely shift its security focus to Asia, analysts agree.

Ernest Bower, a senior adviser and director of the Southeast Asia Program at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), said the US wanted to withdraw from Afghanistan, and that killing Bin Laden has given President Barack Obama improved national security credentials in the US.

“The new focus will be on Asia, because the US sees growth and [there’s a] clear understanding in Washington that in terms of 21st century security issues, Asia is going to be more important than the Middle East,” Bower said in Jakarta.

According to Bower, who spoke at the second day of the ASEAN Leadership Forum held after the ASEAN Summit on Saturday and Sunday, there’s a “real interest in national security cooperation”.

Myanmar, however, will remain a thorny issue, especially if ASEAN is to grant it chairmanship in 2014 as it has requested, Bower said.

This, he said, “will effectively cut us out for a year”.

Bower added that the US would be able to work around maintaining engagements in the ASEAN region.

For things to run smoothly, significant changes in Myanmar are needed between now and 2014, he said.

Just before the APEC Summit last year in Japan, US President Barack Obama said the US was prepared to lead in Asia, and that the US has a stake in Asia’s future because America’s success is tied to the region’s rise.

Separately, international political expert Andi Widjajanto concurred that the United States would turn to Asia after easing its focus in the Middle East.

“Their most immediate battle is the rise of the China military, such as the Chinese maritime power,” he said.

While Indonesia’s regional stability policy strategy constantly tries to prevent a unilateral power or consort of power in East Asia that would leave Southeast Asia’s voice out of the talks, the latter is unlikely to happen due to the less than cohesive atmosphere among the three renowned powers: the US, China and Japan, he said.

ASEAN and Indonesia, especially, currently have a chance to push their regional security management mechanism at the East Asia Summit, scheduled in October this year.

“The possibility for ASEAN to be in the central position in this issue, which includes the South China Sea conflict is significant. However, to achieve the centrality, progress must move beyond normative steps”.

“The next step in the evolution should be military showcase, especially in maritime terms. Indonesia should be able to compete until 2014 and provide a significant presence in the South China Sea. If we can’t do it by ourselves, we should strengthen cooperation with the other coastal nations,” he said.