ASEAN POLITICAL-SECURITY COMMUNITY-2015: IS THE GOAL REACHABLE?
In the article the author reviews the role of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) as a security institution, analyzing the possibility of its transformation into the ASEAN Political Security Community by 2015. ASEAN is commonly viewed as an economic entity; therefore, the article looks at it from the perspective of its role as a security institution. That seems to be especially interesting on the backdrop of absence of armed conflicts among the ASEAN member-states since its inception in 1967. The article is focused on the analysis of the rules and principles elaborated by ASEAN and used as the imperatives for cooperation between member-states and Dialogue Partners in East Asia. The article also analyzes the main documents containing those principles and practices. The author repeatedly highlights the ASEAN''s special understanding of security, characterized by a comprehensive approach to various aspects of social life as possible sources of security threats. The author traces the evolution of the Association as a security institution. The proposal of forming ASEAN Security Community was put forward in 1997 outlining an important step in the ASEAN evolutionary development. Despite the fact that numerous documents forming the framework of the ASEAN Political Security Community have been adopted, the author emphasizes the existing problems in relations of ASEAN member-states that still pose the threat to regional cooperation. In the end of the article the author comes with several conclusions regarding the role of ASEAN as a regional security institution. He emphasizes the progress made by the ASEAN member-states in political and economic cooperation and maintaining regional stability through the formation of intraregional and regional security mechanisms and arrangements such as ASEAN Regional Forum and East Asia Summit. Trying to form an objective assessment of the modern position of the organization, the author reveals its weak points and drawbacks. Speculating about the future of the ASEAN Political-Security Community development he outlines three possible scenarios. And finally the author comes to the conclusion that the formation of the ASEAN Political Security Community is highly unlikely, since the Association still suffers from various unresolved problems and security issues.