Preventing conflict in our region: options for Australian statecraft

What is conflict prevention?

Conflict prevention refers to proactive efforts to maintain peace and stability by addressing the drivers of organised violence before they escalate into armed conflict. It can range from addressing root causes of instability to direct interventions during crises to de-escalate tensions, to measures that reduce likelihood of recurring violence in post-conflict scenarios. Our report focuses on interstate tensions in Australia’s region, addressing crisis, grey zone activity, and international armed conflict.

A crisis refers to a high-stakes, rapidly escalating situation that may lead to armed conflict. Crises can involve confrontation, diplomatic breakdowns, threats, or military mobilisation.

A specific incident – such as an encounter or accident – may be the proximate trigger, but typically there are deeper currents and causes related to clashes of interests and ideologies. The 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis remains the textbook example of a strategic confrontation that reached the brink of war but was ultimately managed through conflict-prevention diplomacy.

Grey-zone activities describe coercive action by states or state-backed actors below the threshold of warfare. These may include cyberattacks, disinformation and propaganda campaigns, economic pressure, dangerous and coercive manoeuvres by militaries, harassment by law enforcement units, aggressive conflict rehearsals, sabotage of infrastructure, and incremental territorial encroachments. Grey-zone tactics are deliberately ambiguous, blurring the lines between peace and war and complicating policy responses.¹

International armed conflict – in a word, war – is the most severe form of conflict, involving the organised use of armed force.² It occurs between two or more states and includes formally declared war and undeclared hostilities. Flashpoints for such conflict in our region include the Taiwan Strait; the South China Sea; the East China Sea; India-Pakistan; and the Korean Peninsula. These often involve a mix of military posturing, diplomatic crises, and grey zone tactics, highlighting the fluid nature of 21st century conflict.

Although there are a range of potential interstate and substate conflicts in the region, this paper concentrates on those which threaten most harm to regional order and Australia’s interests.

Those are interstate conflicts with the potential to directly involve great powers, most notably across the Taiwan Strait and in the South China Sea. The effects of such conflicts would not be only military, but would extend to grave humanitarian and economic consequences reaching all nations. Australia is thus a significant stakeholder in seeking to prevent such calamity.

The geopolitical environment has deteriorated globally. Some states and non-state actors have demonstrated willingness to use armed aggression to achieve their ends. There is intense pressure on the system of rules, norms and international law that has done so much for global peace, development and prosperity since 1945. Defence policies across many nations reflect that this is the most dangerous time for international order since the Second World War. The Australian Government, for instance, points to the need for preparedness amid the loss of ‘warning time’ for conflict.³ Many analyses point to heightened risks of accidents and incidents that may escalate to conflict, especially with increased activity by militaries and other forces in contested areas.⁴

In this security environment, political actors must focus on measures that:

Prevent accidental conflict – to reduce likelihood of conflict through accident, misunderstanding or miscalculation.

Prevent deliberate conflict – to discourage the risk-taking behaviour or deliberate aggression that could cause conflict.

The conflict cycle and stages of prevention

Conflict is not a single event. Conflicts can regress, re-escalate, or remain latent. They often involve complex social, political, and economic interactions that can escalate, erupt in the use of force, transform, subside, or recur. Prevention efforts must therefore be adaptive and continuous, with attention to early warning, long-term structural reforms, and the evolving political context.

Conflict prevention is thus a multi-stage process, involving different tools, actors, and strategies at each phase of the conflict cycle. During and after active conflict, focus can be on peace- making, peace-keeping and peace-building to prevent recurrence.⁵ This overlaps with conflict resolution, an ambition beyond this analysis.Instead, we focus on the pre-conflict phase: efforts to prevent strategic competition from escalating to crisis, and particularly preventing crisis from escalating to the outbreak of armed conflict.

Emphasis here is on preventing disputes, crises and grey zone activities from escalating to military force.

This preventive work can include:

• identifying and mitigating conflict drivers, including political and geopolitical grievances, environmental stressors, or other material or ideological reasons one or more parties may seek to resort to conflict.
• engaging in early dispute resolution and mediation to de-escalate tensions before they become violent.
• managing and preventing crises, which involves diplomatic engagement and confidence- building measures to prevent a crisis from tipping into armed conflict.
• deterrence, through credible commitments or security guarantees, to discourage actors from aggression.

Preventive diplomacy was articulated in the 1992 report An Agenda for Peace by then-Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali as ‘action to prevent disputes from arising between parties, to prevent existing disputes from escalating into conflicts and to limit the spread of the latter when they occur’.⁶ This is consistent with the conflict prevention provisions of the UN Charter⁷ and the mandates of regional mechanisms such as the ASEAN Regional Forum.⁸

While it can occur during and after conflict, preventive diplomacy generally refers to a proactive approach that seeks to address tensions before they erupt into violence, using diplomatic, political, and institutional tools. It emphasises early engagement, dialogue and cooperative mechanisms to address tensions before they become entrenched or violent.

While traditionally associated with state-to-state relations, preventive diplomacy can include a broader range of actors. Initial expectations for the ASEAN Regional Forum’s Expert and Eminent Persons Group (EEPG) were for it to contribute to policy advice, mediation efforts and early warning assessments. Civil society organisations, independent experts and respected former leaders can assist in early warning, norm development and even mediation.⁹

This broader approach reflects a recognition that conflict prevention can benefit from inclusive, multi-level engagement beyond traditional diplomacy.

While often focused in the pre-conflict stage, preventive diplomacy is a spectrum of activities that can be deployed across different stages of the conflict cycle. Such efforts often take place in institutional and multilateral settings, yet official preventive diplomacy measures can also involve unilateral, bilateral and small groupings (see Appendix for a wide range of examples). Key categories are set out below.

Early prevention and confidence building

At the earliest stage, preventive diplomacy focuses on creating the conditions for peace through:

• confidence-building measures (CBMs) – these are deliberate, reciprocal actions designed to enhance transparency, reduce misperceptions, and foster predictability or trust. Examples include information sharing, military-to-military communication, and joint monitoring mechanisms. CBMs establish communication channels and mutual understanding to assist diplomatic engagement.
• norm and institution building – establishing regional norms and institutions that promote peaceful dispute management or resolution.

Early warning and risk identification

Preventive diplomacy relies on early identification of potential conflict. Early warning mechanisms involve proactively identifying situations that are prone to, or at risk of use of force, and monitoring such situations for signs of increasing risk of use of force. This can also involve data monitoring, which tracks indicators such as political instability, civil unrest, environmental stress, and population displacement (for internal conflicts) or geopolitical frictions, military deployments and incidents in the international context.

Early warning systems monitor indicators of instability. Governments use diplomatic and intelligence networks, while open platforms such as the International Crisis Group’s CrisisWatch track active conflicts and identifying emerging risks to enable timely diplomatic responses.

Crisis management and preventive action

When tensions escalate, preventive diplomacy shifts to more direct forms of engagement. This includes mediation, the deployment of special envoys, and the use of ‘good offices’ to facilitate dialogue between disputing parties.¹⁰ Fact-finding missions and independent assessments provide accurate, impartial information to inform diplomatic responses. In some cases, preventive deployment of peacekeeping or monitoring forces may be undertaken with the consent of conflict parties. Such deployments may discourage use of force and signal international concern.

Structural prevention and capacity building

While preventive diplomacy is a critical tool, it is most effective when integrated with other conflict prevention mechanisms. While conflict resolution processes – such as negotiation, arbitration, and reconciliation – are essential for addressing the root causes of disputes and ensuring sustainable peace, over time these mechanisms may work in tandem with preventive diplomacy to help transform adversarial relationships into more cooperative or at least coexistent ones.

Beyond immediate crisis management, preventive diplomacy can also help address structural causes of conflict.

Within states, these may include economic inequality, political exclusion, and weak governance; between states, the structural causes of conflict may be even more difficult to address, especially if they relate to perceptions of historical grievance, ideology or material differences of interests. Preparedness and capacity-building are essential components of this stage. Ensuring that relevant actors – both governmental and non-governmental – have the skills, resources, and coordination mechanisms to respond effectively to emerging threats is critical for sustaining peace.

Conflict prevention and deterrence

Counter-intuitive as it may seem, deterrence is also a key element of conflict prevention. This involves the possession and credible communication of capabilities to discourage aggression. Deterrence can have military and other dimensions, including economic. It is at its most stabilising when pursued alongside diplomacy which underscores the costs of conflict. However, deterrence needs to be calibrated to avoid triggering escalation or reinforcing security dilemmas, where defensive measures by one state are perceived as threats by others. Reassurance measures, such as transparency and communication, are thus essential to balance deterrence with stability. Conflict prevention balances diplomacy and deterrence.¹¹ Deterrence should be seen as part of a spectrum of statecraft, rather than brought into play only when diplomacy fails. Yet, it also needs to be calibrated to avoid misperceptions or depictions of ‘militarisation’ or ‘arms races’.

Lessons in preventive diplomacy

The effectiveness of preventive diplomacy is tied to three factors, aligned with political will and contextual responsiveness. These are: a shared normative framework, specific operational mechanisms, and capacity and leadership within organisations.¹²

An example of successful preventive diplomacy was the Helsinki Process, which reduced tensions in Cold War Europe by creating a structured dialogue in support of detente.

The 1975 Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE), included confidence-building measures such as military transparency to reduce the risk of accidents or misunderstandings that could trigger conflict, and to enable dialogue during critical times of geopolitical change. It led to the permanent Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in 1995. The Helsinki Process illustrated the importance of parties agreeing to norms and approaches to conflict (in this case, a comprehensive approach that linked security with certain rights, such as self-determination), adaptive institutional frameworks and the will of leaders to prioritise reducing tensions. It defined a status quo without ruling out peaceful change.¹³ The OSCE also developed preventive mechanisms such as the Centre for Conflict Prevention and OSCE field missions for monitoring and fact-finding. The limits of these models need to be acknowledged: no amount of OSCE monitoring could prevent the determination of the Russian leadership to wage aggressive war against Ukraine.

The International Crisis Group has examined some of the most notable peace efforts from the last decade, such as the i) Somalia-Ethiopia deal over Somaliland, ii) the Turkiye-Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) peace talks, iii) the Philippine government's joint vision for peace with the Communist Movement, iv) the Black Sea Grain Deals, v) the Iran-Saudi deal. Think tanks have also considered the role of preventive diplomacy mechanisms in such case studies as Aceh.¹⁴ This research reveals key factors that can contribute to preventive diplomacy.

• Normative frameworks and shared vision: a clearly articulated and collectively endorsed normative framework provides the ideological and legal basis for preventive action, guiding states’ expectations and behaviour. Norms of non-intervention, respect for sovereignty, and peaceful dispute resolution  –  at the core of ASEAN culture  –  are typically central to such frameworks. Such norms are balanced with a shared commitment to regional stability and human security. An effective normative framework is not just abstract principles. It should be anchored in a vision of a desirable future: a shared understanding of the conditions to prevent conflict. This vision helps legitimise preventive action and foster collective responsibility. ASEAN has sought to articulate such a vision in its 2019 Outlook on the Indo-Pacific.
• Operational mechanisms and institutional tools: the second key lesson is the need for concrete mechanisms that translate normative commitments into action. For effective operationalisation, parties need shared understanding of the purpose of the mechanisms and the concepts behind them.¹⁵ Relevant instruments include early warning systems, fact-finding missions, mediation frameworks, the deployment of special envoys and the ‘good offices’ role of respected institutions and individuals. CBMs may improve the predictability, transparency or trust necessary for early diplomatic engagement. The development of these tools must be accompanied by institutional clarity: designated focal points within organisations, for coordinating preventive diplomacy activities.
• Capacity building and institutionalisation: preventive diplomacy requires sustained investment in institutional capacity. This includes not only technical expertise and analytical tools but the ability to mobilise resources quickly and coordinate across agencies. Local capacity for monitoring and identifying sources of conflict is critical. Regional organisations that have developed such capabilities through training, data collection, and scenario planning are better positioned to respond to emerging risks. Institutionalisation also involves embedding preventive diplomacy into an organisation’s regular operations, rather than treating it as an exceptional activity. This ensures continuity, learning, and the readiness to act when opportunities arise.
• Political will and flexibility: whatever the quality of institutional mechanisms, preventive diplomacy depends on political will. Member states must be willing to cooperate and prioritise stability over short-term relative gains. They may even have to be amenable to external intervention. The willingness of disputants to engage, the severity of the situation, and the international context all influence whether preventive diplomacy can be deployed. This reinforces the need for governments and international mechanisms to be socialised to that commitment in advance of a crisis point.

Moreover, institutions and mechanisms need flexibility. Preventive diplomacy often operates in politically sensitive and rapidly evolving environments, and rigid procedures can hinder timely action.

Successful cases demonstrate the importance of being prepared to act when windows of opportunity emerge. Circumstances and timing matter. A prolonged stalemate that adversely affects both sides in a dispute often serves as a catalyst for dialogue. However, waiting for the ‘ripe moment’ also poses challenges. Political will of actors is critical. A trusted mediator – with leverage, agility and the willingness to take risks – can make a substantial difference. It is critical that their neutrality is not open to question, as the Aceh case demonstrates.¹⁶ Such mediators must be prepared for the long journey negotiations demand.

Conflict prevention is a founding purpose of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ (ASEAN). Born in post-colonial independence, the common commitment of the group was to keep peace among themselves and avoid collateral damage from the global contest of the Cold War. This has evolved into a system of multilateral regional diplomacy to address mistrust, manage tensions and nurture a common commitment to peace, stability and development. This was clear in the founding ASEAN Declaration which committed members to ‘promote regional peace and stability through abiding respect for justice and the rule of law in the relationship among countries of the region and adherence to the principles of the United Nations Charter’.¹⁷

The message constitutes the core of regional conflict prevention, and has continued to shape diplomatic endeavours and strategic goals. The region is home to persisting territorial disputes that are not immune from flare-ups. Since its establishment, and through expansion to Brunei in 1984 and Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar in the 1990s, ASEAN has been successful in preventing cross-border conflicts, or keeping the occasional localised clash from escalating.

The ASEAN way

While it may be taken for granted now that ASEAN members are socialised to the norm of non- aggression towards each other, this was the result of a long-term deliberate process. Early generations of ASEAN leaders prioritised diplomacy, frequent meetings, and informal exchanges to build habits of dialogue to override suspicions. This practice has become an ‘ASEAN Way’ of informality and consultation involving trust-building, consensus and non-interference. While this sometimes draws criticism as a process of seemingly inconclusive talk, it has been a cornerstone for ASEAN’s success in avoiding conflict: the neverending nature of the talk is part of the point.

Without generally using the term ‘conflict prevention’, all ASEAN’s guiding documents have been geared to this goal: regional peace and stability as a condition for economic and societal development. These commitments are required not only of ASEAN members but of dialogue partner: the states and institutions in the wider ASEAN-centred diplomacy of the region. The ASEAN Charter opens with the organisation’s purpose: ‘To maintain and enhance peace, security and stability and further strengthen peace-oriented values in the region.’¹⁸

The Charter commits the signatories to behave in such a way as to maintain good relations with each other consistent with international law and conduct. There is emphasis on respecting each other’s sovereignty and domestic politics and renouncing threatening intention, through:

b) shared commitment and collective responsibility in enhancing regional peace, security and prosperity;
c) renunciation of aggression and of the threat or use of force or other actions in any manner inconsistent with international law;
d) reliance on peaceful settlement of disputes.¹⁹

Such principles of peaceful coexistence and friendly cooperation were further defined by ASEAN in the 1976 Treaty on Amity and Cooperation (TAC), intended as a binding code for interstate relations in the wider region.²⁰ The TAC has 55 High Contracting Parties, comprising states in and beyond Southeast Asia, as well as regional organisations. Australia joined in 2005 in the process of accession to the East Asia Summit.

In a deteriorating geopolitical environment, ASEAN has doubled down on its worldview by accentuating the need for dialogue and cooperation, rejecting binary choices between China and the United States, and emphasising its neutral ground. In 2019, ASEAN responded to the emerging Indo-Pacific strategies of other powers with the ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific (AOIP), which articulated the need to:

promote an enabling environment for peace, stability and prosperity in the region in addressing common challenges, upholding the rules-based regional architecture, and promoting closer economic cooperation, and thus strengthen confidence and trust.²¹

The AOIP epitomises the ASEAN call for states to put differences aside for stability and prosperity. Some have interpreted this as denialism in the face of geopolitical rivalry. But it could be also seen as updating the conflict-prevention imperative for an Indo-Pacific era marked by connectivity and competition across a larger strategic space with ASEAN at its centre. This has added significance in a deteriorating geopolitical environment by affirming the commitment of ASEAN to lead in pursuit of the peace, security, stability and prosperity of the wider region, including as an ‘honest broker’ of competing interests.

ASEAN-centred mechanisms with scope for conflict prevention

In the post-Cold War era, ASEAN positioned itself at the heart of wider diplomacy to engage many powers as dialogue partners and build regional mechanisms. Although much of this activity was about economic development and connectivity, another major focus was peace and security. The first and most inclusive initiative - in which Australia also played a shaping role - was the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) in 1994. The ARF is principally a process for Foreign Ministers, supported by senior officials and working groups on issues such as maritime security.

Of all the ASEAN-centred mechanisms, the ARF has the most specific mandate for the prevention of conflict. In the words of Rodolfo Severino, ASEAN Secretary-General 1998-2002: “It seems clear that the ARF was founded to build confidence between states and to reduce the likelihood of conflict between them in the ‘traditional’ military sense.”²² As stated in its foundational document, the 1995 ARF Concept Paper:

The main challenge … is to sustain and enhance this peace and prosperity…
The ARF must dispassionately analyse the key challenges facing the region…
Stage I: Promotion of confidence-building measures
Stage II: Development of preventive diplomacy mechanisms…
Over time, the ARF must develop its own mechanisms to carry preventive diplomacy…²³

These observations hold true even though for some years, before the intensification of strategic competition, the ARF was becoming more focused on transnational issues.

In 2005, ASEAN succeeded in reinforcing its centrality through the founding of the East Asia Summit (EAS) as the pre-eminent dialogue of leaders, including the ASEAN dialogue partners China, Japan, the ROK, India, Australia and New Zealand, with the United States and Russia being added a few years later. Australia views the EAS as the “Indo-Pacific's premier forum for strategic dialogue… [enabling leaders to] discuss political, security and economic challenges facing the region”.²⁴ Defence Ministers and militaries were engaged more directly through the ASEAN Defence Ministers Meetings (ADMM) set up in 2006, augmented in 2010 by the ADMM Plus process which includes the same eight dialogue partners as the EAS. The initiative is intended to “enhance regional peace and stability through cooperation in defence and security”. The ADMM and ADMM Plus frameworks have brought steady increase in practical cooperation in the defence sector, including maritime security, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, counter-terrorism and peacekeeping.

At the core of the ASEAN-centred mechanisms are common principles.

Diplomatic, peaceful and non-coercive methods of conflict prevention all require trust and confidence built over time. This can be a profound challenge during crises when the windows of opportunity for conflict resolution are tight. Another limitation in conflict prevention is the lack of reinforcement mechanisms for ASEAN-led processes: these rely on the goodwill of actors voluntarily abiding by international law and conduct, but have neither enforcement nor monitoring capacity.

Lines of limitation: the South China Sea

The South China Sea is a shared maritime space at the heart of regional connectivity. It illustrates challenges to ASEAN conflict prevention. ASEAN members Vietnam, Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei have territorial claims. The waters are also critical for other maritime ASEAN nations, notably Indonesia and Singapore. China pursues a very large territorial claim at odds with ASEAN claimants and, since 2016, in defiance of a ruling of the internationally- recognised Permanent Court of Arbitration. The difficulties for conflict prevention relate not only to territorial claims, but to dangerous patterns of action, including the behaviour of China’s forces such as coastguard, maritime militia and state-directed fishing fleets.

Arising from disputes and occasional clashes from the 1970s to the 1990s, ASEAN consultations with China led to the 2002 Declaration of the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea.

Consistent with the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea and the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation, this involved undertakings of mutual restraint, and foreshadowed the negotiation of a formal Code of Conduct. Those negotiations continue.

A positive view would see the lack of military hostilities and the continuation of a diplomatic process as conflict prevention. A more critical view would see prolonged dialogue failing to build confidence, while grey zone tactics accumulate below the threshold of war, with China using the time to advance its control including through militarised island building.

Many nations, in ASEAN and beyond, remain concerned about the risks to sovereignty, order, peace and stability. The South China Sea understandably remains a key issue for ASEAN-centred diplomatic mechanisms.

Addressing maritime conflict

Even beyond the South China Sea, potential conflict in the Indo-Pacific would have a maritime focus. Its impacts would not be limited to the sea, and conflict-prevention must factor in other domains, notably cyber and space. Still, diplomacy will need to address 21st century maritime conflict. This includes the tactical level, where the behaviour of individual units, such as naval ships, coastguard vessels and aircraft can have a direct impact on risks of crisis and escalation. The maritime character extends to the strategic dimension, reflecting the connectivity of the region and the impossibility of localising the consequences of conflict.

The maritime dimension does not automatically mitigate against peace. There is a fluidity and ambiguity that can be beneficial for conflict prevention. For instance, maritime forces can deploy and redeploy without signalling aggression or retreat as decisively as the movement of major ground forces. At the same time, maritime forces can encounter one another suddenly and unexpectedly. Incidents can arise at great speed, with the decision-making of individual operators or local commanders having major consequences.

Conflict prevention in this region must address the precise risks of miscalculation or misunderstanding in the maritime domain.

Progress should be acknowledged, such as the development and implementation by many forces of agreed rules for predictability and risk-reduction.²⁵ These are embodied multilaterally in the Code for Unalerted Encounters at Sea (CUES), which the Royal Australian Navy helped shape and to which it consistently adheres. There are also many bilateral agreements on conduct and communications channels, including between China and respectively the United States, Japan and a range of ASEAN countries, as well as among some ASEAN countries themselves, such as Philippines-Vietnam. ASEAN nations are also well-practised at coordination in small groups on such maritime concerns as piracy.

However, military risk-reduction protocols are unevenly practised, and China has sometimes opted to cut communications channels in tense situations. Each year there are dangerous incidents, often involving Chinese forces. Moreover, efforts since 2002 to negotiate an ASEAN-China Code of Conduct in the South China Sea have proceeded slowly, even while the force presence in the region has grown and friction points have accumulated.

Deterrence and conflict prevention in the Indo-Pacific

The South China Sea experience underscores the challenges in coming to terms with deterrence as an element of conflict prevention. The ASEAN way of preventive diplomacy has sought to encourage conditions for cooperation and an environment where conflict is deferred or avoided. Hence the emphasis on protracted dialogue.

However, for at least the past decade, the regional geopolitical environment has deteriorated with the intensification of great power competition and the rapid modernisation of military capabilities, most sharply in China.

Deterrence is now identified by multiple countries as essential for maintaining peace and stability. But uncertainties and differences of perspective remain with regard to what constitutes an acceptable and stabilising deterrence posture, as opposed to forms of military deployment and capability acquisition which may be perceived or depicted as destabilising. Pressures for defence spending will occur alongside calls for arms control. The two are not necessarily at odds, but conflict- prevention diplomacy will need the sophistication to factor in both.

Unilateral peace moves

Despite ASEAN’s attachment to multilateralism, unilateral peace efforts are not unknown in the region. Individual ASEAN countries can draw on their reputations for neutrality in hosting dialogue. For instance, Vietnam hosted talks between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un, in 2019. Some of the most sustained diplomatic efforts in the region involve Singapore. It works with a global think tank to convene an annual defence summit that brings together voices from a wide range of countries to communicate views, redlines and expectations. Singapore has also been the venue for sensitive talks such as the first Trump-Kim summit in 2018, and a meeting of Xi Jinping and then Taiwan president Ma Ying-jeou in 2015. It practices proactive diplomacy alongside its seriousness about defence and deterrence.

Future conflict prevention efforts in the Indo-Pacific will take account that the leaders of some powers may aspire to be seen as peacemakers. President Trump’s approach to the Russia- Ukraine conflict is well known. In some circumstances, Xi Jinping may want to be seen as a mediator.²⁶ Within ASEAN, Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto, even before winning office, demonstrated an aspiration to address conflicts in Europe and the Middle East.

Our analysis turns to the core question: what practical options are there for Australian policy in pursuing prevention of conflict in our region, especially through ASEAN-centred institutions?

Setting the scene for diplomacy

This paper concentrates on diplomacy as an instrument of conflict prevention. But whatever chance such diplomacy may have of affecting outcomes, it will fail if it is prosecuted in a vacuum. Rather, it needs to be positioned in an ecosystem of stabilising statecraft. This involves deterrence, interdependence, rules, institutions, communication and political will.

Deterrence involves capabilities, credibility and communication for imposing costs on a potential aggressor, through military force and potentially through additional means, including economic. 

Deterrence without diplomacy and reassurance can destabilise, just as diplomacy without deterrence will disappoint.

Interdependence includes those conditions for economic prosperity and societal wellbeing that rely on relations across borders, notably trade and investment. This relates also to the existence of rules, laws, norms and understandings, to ensure the smooth functioning of the international system and set limits to acceptable behaviour by states.

Institutions and communication are connected: they refer to the need for established, trusted and well-worked channels of engagement between states, including at leadership and ministerial levels, as well as at a working level between officials, militaries and other forces.

And none of this diplomatic scaffolding can be effective unless there is political will to seek outcomes and head off conflict, and not only on one side. Conflict prevention is impossible if one or more parties are actively risking or pursuing conflict as an instrument of statecraft or a means to ensure regime legitimacy. Diplomatic solutions work best when states are genuine in their willingness to resolve disputes peacefully and in accordance with international law, and take substantive measures to demonstrate this commitment.

Exercising the ASEAN mission

Australian regional engagement has long supported the concept of ASEAN centrality. ASEAN’s record at constructively managing differences among ten diverse nations is to be respected.

Southeast Asia, as represented by ASEAN, is the crossroads of the wider Indo-Pacific. Over the past three decades, the broader institutions centred on ASEAN (ARF, EAS and ADMM Plus) have become pre-eminent in the region’s inclusive multilateral diplomacy. They were an achievement of a more hopeful time of confident and patient institution-building. It is difficult to imagine them being invented today.

But the risks of a new era compel Australia and other friends of ASEAN to contribute further practical meaning to the concept of ASEAN centrality.

It is understandable that ASEAN is at the heart of dialogue on regional security issues. Accordingly, the preservation or restoration of ASEAN centrality requires that such dialogue be frank, substantial and with purpose.

An inherent tension of ASEAN architecture is that to genuinely use it for conflict prevention means accepting the risk of damaging it. ASEAN-centric organisations like the ARF have evolved as places where nations agree to disagree, and can thus keep on talking. This approach reaches its limits when differences descend into crisis and the prospect of conflict. In theory there is scope to use ASEAN-centred institutions more assertively as vehicles for conflict- prevention communication and transparency. But this comes at the risk of one or more major players ceasing to engage. An overly-cautious approach to using dialogue mechanisms in times of crisis may render them ineffective in conflict prevention. Critical observers have noted ‘the priority ASEAN and its member governments have given to the forum’s own survival’ rather than ‘operational effectiveness’.²⁷ The question then becomes how can ASEAN-centred mechanisms operate beyond this institutional tension to ensure greater effectiveness and timeliness in managing crises and avoiding armed conflict. Effectiveness is key to long-term institutional strength and survival.

Australia and ASEAN: the partner’s opportunity

Australia, like many of ASEAN’s other dialogue partners, has an interest in working with ASEAN to more actively exercise regional mechanisms in conflict prevention. At the same time, Australian policymakers have understandably taken the view that they need to show full regard, where possible, to ASEAN principles of respect, consultation and consensus. This does not mean that Australia or other ASEAN dialogue partners should be cautious to the point of passivity.

That is not what our friends in Southeast Asia expect. Instead, the best approach should be one of assiduously and creatively seeking opportunities and partnerships for action.

A range of ASEAN voices may quietly welcome Australia’s qualities as a reliable and forthright partner, with a clear sense of strategic priorities and a patient determination to engage.

At the same time, Australia is far from alone as a valued dialogue partner. Amid US-China competition for influence, a reputable 2025 survey shows that much elite opinion across ASEAN recognises a range of other partners as being of strategic relevance, notably Japan, followed by the EU, Australia, India, the ROK and the UK, then Russia, Canada and New Zealand. In terms of trust and influence, Japan and the EU stand out among this list, although the polling ranks China (first) and the United States (second) as far and away the most influential and relevant powers.²⁸ The point is that Australian initiatives to engage ASEAN on issues of shared concern will have greater impact the more they can also involve the support of other dialogue partners.

Most important, however, is the need to engage at least one ASEAN country as a close collaborator in leading any initiative. ASEAN policymakers are hardly oblivious to concerns about the effectiveness of ASEAN-centred institutions. The same 2025 survey cited above identifies ASEAN elites top concerns about ASEAN as being that it ‘is slow and ineffective, and thus cannot cope with fluid political and economic developments, and is becoming irrelevant in the new world order’ (35%) and ‘ASEAN is becoming an arena of major power competition and its member states may become major power proxies’ (29.8%).²⁹ In other words, dialogue partners who can help address these problems could find a positive reception, at least in some quarters. But much will depend on how such initiatives proceed.

Revitalising ASEAN mechanisms

There are other limits and considerations to guide any realistic Australian policy initiative on conflict prevention in an ASEAN context.

The formal structures – including the ARF, EAS and ADMM Plus – are bound by a consensus rule that constrains agreement or progress on issues that may be sensitive to one or more members. And conflict prevention fits that description, even though it may be critical for the security of all.

The agency of chairing and convening the higher level meetings belongs to ASEAN member states, and the scope for progress in any given year depends on which nation holds the rotating ASEAN chair. Co-chairing rights have been given to non-ASEAN partners at a working group level within the ARF. The question has been aired from within the ASEAN community of security experts: should this model also extend to senior officials or even Ministerial meetings, where decision-making authority rests?

There is an appetite within parts of the ASEAN community for greater activism in revitalising the mechanisms and putting them to work on critical issues. For instance, in the words of respected Indonesian foreign policy specialist Rizal Sukma:

ASEAN must devise a more coherent mechanism for conflict prevention, crisis management, and conflict resolution … The 2004 Vientiane Action Program 2005–2010, for example, clearly stated that ‘an early warning system based on existing mechanisms to prevent occurrence or escalation of conflict’ should be developed… To address extra-mural challenges, the East Asia Summit still provides the best promise of multilateral security cooperation in the Indo-Pacific. The Summit clearly requires further institutionalisation. This, for example, could include the agreement to set up a sherpa system, a joint chair with a non-ASEAN member, and even a secretariat.³⁰

At the same time, there is serious concern across ASEAN about specific risks related to the South China Sea, with polled elites ranking the top ones: China’s encroachments in the exclusive economic zones and continental shelves of Southeast Asia’s littoral states; an accidental confrontation between an ASEAN member state and China that results in a political crisis; China’s militarisation and assertive actions; and a direct military confrontation between the United States and China. The same survey suggests that preferred responses would involve ASEAN taking a principled stand that upholds international law, UNCLOS and respect for the 2016 arbitral tribunal’s ruling (69.5%) and ASEAN supporting actions that would deter aggressive behaviour such as participating in joint military exercises (46.1%).³¹

Working with the grain: transparency and communication

The ASEAN-centric mechanisms have a founding mandate for conflict prevention. For example, the ARF includes the option for the Chair to use its ‘Good Offices’ for activism in preventive diplomacy. However, the mechanisms lack much capacity, let alone the authority to bind parties or enforce agreements. They cannot police, arbitrate, compel or punish. This limits but does not eliminate their capacity to influence states whose behaviour may raise the risk of conflict. The institutions are platforms for transparency and communication, which could be operationalised as risk identification, monitoring, reporting, early warning and signalling.

Such approaches are especially useful to reduce the risk of unintended or accidental conflict, that is conflict arising from misperception or miscalculation. However they can also go some way to reduce the risk of deliberate conflict, by raising and widening awareness of calculated aggression or wilfully provocative activity.

The foundations laid by ASEAN offer a stage for building shared awareness of risk among all countries engaged in the region.

The existence of ASEAN-centred diplomatic mechanisms makes it harder for a reckless or aggressive power to deny its behaviour or hide its intentions.

Because the institutions have legitimacy across a wide range of states, they could be used to generate a trusted and shared picture of regional security developments. This need not be confined to the periodic sharing of basic documents about national defence outlook, but could extend to more dynamic and frequent exchange of information – including declassified intelligence assessments – about risky activities leading potentially to conflict. ASEAN-centred institutions have potential to be a voice of authority in diminishing the escalatory effects of disinformation. There could also be sharing of assessments about the costs and consequences if conflict were to occur.

Such information need not be shared only among governments. Conflict threatens the regional economy, as well as states and societies: the impacts would be profound for economic growth, human development and social stability. So there is also a compelling case for a two-way conversation with the economic sector about risks and costs of war. This could include candid engagement with the region’s private sector through major corporations, financial institutions, shipping lines, insurers, energy companies, providers of international connectivity and communications infrastructure, industry peak bodies and international organisations focused on economics and finance, including the OECD, Asian Development Bank and Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. Traditionally, regional diplomatic institutions and the business community have had entirely parallel and separate conversations about conflict risk. There could be real merit in bringing them together. If governments were reluctant, such dialogue could be offered under the less formal auspices of a regional Track 1.5 process such as the ARF EEPs.

While acknowledging ASEAN’s custom of consensus, there should still be scope to advance the agenda beyond the preferences of the most cautious.

Work to develop partnerships within ASEAN – and between ASEAN states and non-ASEAN dialogue partners – can draw on the following principles: a baseline of facts about conflict risks and costs, openly conveyed; a willingness to engage and listen; respect for ASEAN-centred institutions as persistent and proactive venues for dialogue; but the need also to adapt them for speed and responsiveness.

A key message should be that ASEAN must engage more seriously on conflict prevention not because conflict is inevitable but precisely because a diversity of regional powers have agency, if they choose, in helping forestall it. Nor should it be controversial to work with ASEAN partners in framing a message about the stabilising potential of deterrence, including through multilateral military exercises under the auspices of ASEAN or ADMM Plus.

It is worth working with ASEAN partners to illuminate the reality that conflict risks are deepening from grey-zone competition already well underway: in other words, if conflict prevention only becomes a priority when military escalation is plainly imminent, then it will be too late.

Nations also have recourse to deterrence signalling and bilateral dialogue: the point is to coordinate these measures with multilateral engagement, rather than imagine them as substitutes. At the same time, conflict-prevention diplomacy should reinforce rather than undermine the war- stopping purposes of deterrence.

Rather than dialogue partners going to ASEAN with rigid or elaborate ideas for revitalising the institutions, however, there needs to be flexibility: presenting ideas to be tested and refined; and the active encouragement of a diversity of voices and ideas from among ASEAN and its dialogue partners. The recommendations of this report are presented in that spirit.