The EU promotion of security cooperation in the non-European world: the case of ASEAN and Myanmar

This paper explores the EU’s attempts at the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) to encourage Myanmar directly, or indirectly via the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), to connect with security cooperation. The EU was an advocate of security cooperation and behaved as a sponsor by encouraging others to adhere to it. The paper argues that both ASEAN’s assumption of responsibility and Myanmar’s taking on of multilateral security options were linked to the EU’s policy at ARF. In order to demonstrate this, the paper, first, provides an historical insight into the EEC/EU’s relations with ASEAN, in 1980, leading to the EU’s participation in the ARF in 1993. Furthermore, it focuses on the EU’s messages at the Forum when the EU and ASEAN co-chaired the ARF meetings. Meetings co-chaired by both were held between 2004 and 2008. The investigation relates to the ARF as to a framework where interactions develop, and uses Cyclone Nargis that ravaged Myanmar in 2008 to assess Myanmar and ASEAN’s conduct. In evaluating Yangon and the Association’s behaviour, the paper is helped by explanations provided by social mechanisms, an appropriateness logic and observations derived from interviews conducted in Southeast Asia and Brussels. The choice of Cyclone Nargis is justified by the dialogue and training activities in the ARF being concerned with crisis management and disaster relief. The investigation concludes highlighting the EU’s role with regard to the Forum and the promotion of security cooperation in the non-European world. Archival primary sources inform this paper which covers the interaction between the EU and Myanmar before the outbreak of the Rohingya crisis, which gave EU policies towards Myanmar a new dimension