Since the end of the Cold War, the international arena has become more complex, and countries are facing a completely new paradigm in which new goals have to be defined, new working relationships have to be established, and new frameworks and policies have to be set. Government-to-government diplomacy alone is far from adequate to meet such challenges. Track Two Diplomacy helps to spell out different opinions and to facilitate the consensus-building process. Even then, in more sensitive areas such as security, according to Paul Evans, the "responses to track two meetings ran from cool to hostile in Tokyo and Washington, and cautious in Beijing." But this began to change in 1991, and by 1993 it was difficult to even list the various Track Two channels old and new.
The rapid proliferation of Track Two forums testifies to the success of the Track Two process. But in recent years there have arisen forums referred to as Track One-Point-Five. These are forums that are more structured and semi-official. Some of them are coordinated by government ministries and others have restricted membership. For example, the Managing the South China Sea Workshop, though a non-official forum, is coordinated by key personnel from the Foreign Ministry of Indonesia and has a restricted membership. Participants are mostly invited through the foreign ministries of respective governments. Attempts are made in some of the meetings to reach a common understanding.
Some are more structured and are related to Track One processes. One case in point is the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific (CSCAP). Its activities are mainly carried Out by working groups that undertake policy-oriented studies and make recommendations to the CSCAP, which in turn present them to the senior officials' meeting of the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF).
Track One Point Five process is often developed to gain efficiency. It often results from frustration with slow or no progress at the Track One level and impatience with the non-official Track Two process. It aims to bring the international relations forward from no-talk or mere-talk to action. In other situations, the Track One-Point-Five process is created with the specific goal to assist Track One or formal diplomacy, in consensus-building, research, and drafting recommendations.
Track One-Point-Five is not Track One as it has no official status. It is more regulated and much more result-oriented than Track Two, but its non-official status is blurred by its direct or indirect link to Track One or government-to-government relations.
The blurring of non-official status can reduce the edge that Track Two has over Track One Diplomacy. Can one really be free to overlook government policy positions in Track One-Point-Five discussions? What will become of the outputs of Track One-Point-Five? Would they become "automatically" official once the outputs or recommendations are presented to the official forum? Then, how representative are the participants themselves who come to formulate the recommendations? In fact, what is the scope of domestic consultation among each country's member? On the other hand, is the representation of all participating states really "equal"?
For example, in the case of the CSCAP, the Kuala Lumpur Statement stated that "it will be open to all countries and territories in the region... The Steering Committee members will seek to establish broad-based committees in each of their respective countries or territories." Yet, looking at the actual composition and participation of CSCAP and its working groups, we see there is much diversity among the "delegations".
