Transforming the strategic landscape of Southeast Asia

Examines the implications for the regional strategic landscape of uneven military modernisation in Southeast Asia. To remain relevant and effective, all military forces have to undergo periodic change, both in terms of hardware and capabilities on the one hand, but also in terms of doctrines and strategies, as capabilities change. As strategic conditions change in Southeast Asia, it has facilitated the increasing attention that regional armed forces have paid to the process of transformation from counterinsurgency towards conventional military postures and forces structures. With the ever-increasing pace of modern technological change and the increasingly high costs of modern military technologies, this complicates the modernisation process. Not all Southeast Asian states can actually financially afford to support this military modernisation, therefore, resulting in an uneven process of regional military modernisation that can shape the security environment of the region.