After all, some regional navies are already putting into practice tacit self restraint procedures to avoid escalating sensitive situations.
Good communication and understanding of crisis prevention mechanisms on the ground are very important for commanders to act rationally and to prevent simple accidents from escalating into military conflicts. It is always crucial for parties in dispute to be able to communicate promptly and clearly with one another. Reliable, trustworthy, confidential and quick means of communication are crucial in preventing the aggravation of disputes.
The existing stable political relationship between the countries in the region is conducive to promote INCSEA. More so when the structure to facilitate the process is already in place. Amongst some ASEAN members, for example, there are General Border Committees (GBCs) and other forms of security arrangements to resolve common problems. The Malaysia-Indonesia and Malaysia-Thailand GBCs are examples of such bilateral cooperation. Apart from these there is a web of cooperative security arrangements in place between Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei and the Philippines. Though most of these arrangements have a definitive area of application such as joint operations against common enemy, joint piracy and crime prevention patrols, nevertheless, they could be expanded to include other topics such as marine pollution preventive activities. Among the claimants that have yet to have any similar kind of cooperative arrangements are Vietnam, China and Taiwan. Nonetheless, as most of these countries have in principle declared their willingness to settle their disputes through peaceful means, the climate for the pursuance of INCSEA is thus quite favourable.
All these cooperative engagements denote the mutual recognition of non-zero sum outcome amongst the South China Sea disputing parties. The acceptance by most parties that non-zero sum outcomes are possible even though the benefit to the individual claimants may be of a lesser degree, can be one of the most helpful elements for crisis prevention. When translated to practical terms, the INCSEA-type of arrangement means that the parties involved are wiiling to self regulate their behaviour on the ground. "Self-censorship" is what INCSEA wishes to promote.
The cooperative arrangements like the INCSEA process also imply that the parties involved believe that all friendiy forces are rational, not trigger-happy and would only apply minimum force to attain their objectives, If contenders to the dispute are assumed to be rational, then communications designed to influence their cost benefit calculation, to convey message, or to propose alternatives become more plausible. This rationality approach would also ensure that the contenders are not pushed into a corner which could provoke them into taking an irrational course of action.
The parties to the disputes also recognise their interdependence in other areas within the region. This realisation for regionalism has prevented many from acting unilaterally. In other words, the more mutually valued interdependencies exist among parties, the more likely they are to participate in dispute management efforts. This has perhaps been the main mitigating factor in containing the disputed territorial problem in the Spratlys.
Conclusion
The prospects for regional security cooperative mechanisms like the CBM process in the Spratlys are generally good if states are prepared to give them a chance. The mechanisms can only work if there is strong political commitment to the process which trickles down to the policy planners or the commanders on the ground. Without clear instructions to the commanders on the ground on what rules of engagement to apply in time of crisis, they will do what they have been trained to do, to assert to the best of their abiiity their mission. To prevent trigger-happy commanders from taking actions on their own that couid prejudice the larger national concern for regionalism this paper has argued a case for INCSEA to be introduced among some countries, on a step-by-step basis. Currently the Maritime Institute of Malaysia and the Royal Malaysian Navy are engaged in informai dialogues as a preliminary process to widen the scope of INCSEA in the region. While this is not a new idea as the matter has .received wide support at the WPNS forums, it is very much a second track initiative. The success of this initiative wiil depend very much on poiitical support, as navies are not free agents.
At the geo-strategic level, the primary motivation for introducing the CBM process in the Spratlys like ARF and CSCAP is to prevent some large maritime powers from pursuing own security agenda in the disputed region unilaterally.
The paper has examined the extent to which China has complied with the various multilateral cooperative mechanisms. We came to the conclusion that China has only paid lip service to them. Despite this dismal outlook, we need to continue with the multilateral security fora as the alternative to dialogues could be adverse to regionalism. Nonetheless, like many other security analysts we are convinced that the secondary consideration for promoting the CBM process in the Spratlys has produced positive results among the other non-claimant parties especially between the competing ASEAN states. If not for any reason, it is important to support this "building block" approach as it could lead to the evolution of a more comprehensive regional security measures. This, in turn, could lead to stronger commitment to regionalism.
* Director-General of the Maritime lnstitute of Malaysia. Kuala Lumpur. The views and opinions in this paper are entirely the personal opinions of the author concerned. The author thanks Capt. Mohd Taib Yassin. Royal Malaysian Navy, for his thoughts on INCSEA. This paper has been revised from an earlier paper presented at the SLOC International Conference. Seoul. Korea from 6-8 April 1999.
