South China Sea Strategies for other nations (Not China)

Indonesia Will Defend South China Sea Territory With F-16 Fighter Jets

Indonesia will deploy U.S.-made F-16 fighter jets to the Natuna islands to ward off “thieves”, the defense minister said less than two weeks after Chinese coast guard vessels clashed with an Indonesian boat in the area.


The move is part of a military buildup on islands overlooking the South China Sea that will see a refurbished runway and a new port constructed, Ryamizard Ryacudu said in an interview on Thursday with Bloomberg News. It also involves the deployment of marines, air force special force units, an army battalion, three frigates, a new radar system and drones, he said.

The planned stationing of five F-16s reflects a new level of Indonesian concern about territorial disputes in the South China Sea that are pitting Beijing against several of its Southeast Asian neighbors. Indonesia is not a claimant, but the clash with the Chinese coast guard last month over the detention of a Chinese fishing boat showed the potential for it to be drawn into conflict.

“Natuna is a door, if the door is not guarded then thieves will come inside,” said Ryacudu, a former army chief of staff. “There has been all this fuss because until now it has not been guarded. This is about the respect of the country.”....... to read more

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Gunmen seize four tugboat crew off eastern Malaysia

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April 2, 2016


MANILA (Reuters) - Gunmen seized four Malaysian crew of a tugboat off the coast of the eastern state of Sabah, a week after a similar attack on a Taiwanese tugboat in the southern Philippines, media reported on Sunday.

The four were taken at gunpoint on Friday evening and brought by speed boat to the southern Philippines, the Philippine Daily Inquirer said, quoting an unnamed military official. Three other crew were left behind.

The gunmen, suspected to be Abu Sayyaf militants, also took laptops, mobile phones and unspecified amounts of cash. The tugboat returned to Sabah when the gunmen left.

"We confirm receiving reports of this incident," military spokesman Major Filemon Tan told reporters. "We have coordinated with our Malaysian counterparts."

It was the second attack in a week on tugboats in the waters that border of Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines. Ten Indonesians were abducted when a Taiwanese tugboat was intercepted in the southern Philippines.

The Abu Sayyaf, known for kidnappings, beheadings, bombings and extortion, has demanded 50 million pesos ($1.09 million) for the freedom of the Indonesian crew. The al Qaeda-linked group is one of the most hardline Islamist militant groups in the Muslim south of the largely Christian Philippines.

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SamuraiBlue said:

Here is a response from Indonesia as well;



Looks as if more and more nations are showing frustration and saying "NO MORE!!".

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• Would the F-16s actually strike the first blow against CCG vessels with the F-16s? The answer is no, Jakarta knows it would be too provocative to Beijing.
• Would Indonesia send the F-16s drop bombs over the nearest Chinese mailtary garrison? The answer is no, Jakarta knows it would be too provocative to Beijing.
• Would Indonesia F-16s buzz Chinese naval ships, just over the horizon? The answer is no, Jakarta knows it would be too provocative to Beijing.
• Would other ASEAN states back Indonesia and join it with their own aircrafts? The answer is no, everyone knows it would be too provocative to Beijing.

Why Taiwan and China Agree on South China Sea Sovereignty

To understand today’s conflicts, it is essential to look at the region’s colonial history.
By Ryan Mitchell
March 29, 2016

Islands stir up all sorts of passions. Introducing South China Sea territorial disputes to its readers, one Chinese periodical sets forth enthusiastically about how the dazzling white sands of the Spratlys are paired with gorgeous shells, an abundance of exotic and beautiful fish, and pieces of bright coral “red as a young girl’s rouge make-up.” Another publication alters a photograph of one of the larger maritime features by covering it with a set of pasted-on Chinese flagpoles, with the caption: “Lovable national flag! What day, what hour, can you be inserted into the Nine Southern Islands?!“

What’s most remarkable about these undoubtedly arousing discussions of national territory is their date. Both pieces (and many others like them) were published in Republic of China media in 1933, and the foreign invaders mentioned in each are not any of the powers currently contesting Chinese territorial claims, but rather the (then) aggressively expansionist French Empire.

At the time, French seizure of the southern islands was grouped together in patriotic discourse with the Japanese takeover of Manchuria in 1931, and other territorial encroachments by foreign powers with colonial aspirations. Collectively, these losses of what was perceived as Chinese territorial sovereignty, and the lackluster opposition of China’s rulers, were referred to as 国耻—“national humiliation.”

Today, both political successors to China’s then-government maintain territorial claims over the South China Sea that are based most closely on maps (including clear predecessors of the famous “nine-dash line”) that were first broadly disseminated in these 1920s and ‘30s nationalist protests against French and Japanese attempts to colonize the Spratly and Paracel island chains. There is, in fact, great continuity throughout the legal arguments and popular passions implicated in the dispute, stretching from this period of colonial pressure through the present day. Western powers’ failures to acknowledge and take seriously these continuities may seriously hamper efforts to deescalate regional tensions.

Colonial Legal Structures

Imagine yourself in the middle of the South China Sea at any point in the early 20th century before World War II. It was quite a cosmopolitan place even then. You could travel in any direction and end up in a different country: Head west to French Indochina, south to British Malaya or Dutch Indonesia, east to the American-annexed Philippines, southwest to British Singapore, northeast to Japanese-controlled Taiwan, or, finally, north to China (perhaps passing through British-controlled Hong Kong).

Save Thailand, and a Japan that had rapidly joined the ranks of colonizing Western powers (having declared its intention to “leave Asia,” or datsu-a 脱亜), China was in effect the only Asian state left as an independent polity. This status was, however, extremely precarious. Western states, and then Japan, had long enjoyed extraterritorial rights and control over “leased” territories, and had long justified their conquest of much of the world with a set of legal arguments that were originally crafted precisely to allow the maximum extension of European sovereignty.

The principle of “terra nullius”—or unclaimed land open to be taken by whichever Western power “discovered” it—was the basic concept which allowed conquest of vast swathes of the Americas, Africa, and parts of Asia (and was invoked by both France and Japan in disregarding Chinese claims to control of the South China Sea island chains). This legal principle was theoretically universal: whoever discovered unused territory could lay claim to it. But in practice, it led to highly particular effects. Only European “discoveries” counted, and prior “native” uses to or claims over thus-discovered territories were generally disregarded.

The principle of the “free sea” operated in a similar manner. Indeed, the concept was first presented in its modern form by the great jurist Hugo Grotius precisely to justify the activities of the Dutch East India company (VOC) as it sought to end the Portuguese monopoly over trade in Asia. Grotius’ innovation allowed powerful companies like the VOC, or anyone else who could reasonably claim to represent a European sovereign, to wage “private war” against whomever interfered with their commercial activities—be they other Europeans or locals who mistakenly thought they had the right not to trade away their land and resources (or to ban foreign imports such as opium).

By the 1930s, China was used to these and other neutral-sounding arguments being deployed in ways that led to denials of its status as an equal Westphalian sovereign power. The French and Japanese attempts to conquer the South China Sea were seen as one more such case; Chinese claims of frequenting and exerting control over these island chains for centuries were not only rejected, they were not even granted the opportunity to have a legal or diplomatic hearing. This led to voluble calls among Chinese nationalists to “take back sovereignty” over the region, and those calls have never stopped. Today’s arguments on both sides of the Strait, right or wrong, are rooted in that decolonizing movement.

The Best Chance for Multilateralism?

Today, China and Taiwan both continue to articulate claims to sovereignty over the Spratly and Paracel island chains. The modern form of these claims stems from the above-noted early 20th century nationalist literature. Just recently, Taiwan has sought to further publicize the issue by inviting foreign media to Itu Aba (the largest feature in the entire South China Sea, and one specifically, formally claimed by the Republic of China in 1946, when most of today’s other disputants were still Western colonies) in order to prove its status as an “island” as opposed to the Philippines’ arbitration claim that it is a mere “rock” under UNCLOS, and also by issuing an official position paper on its sovereignty claims in general.

Holding fresh water, crops, a hospital, an airport, and a permanent population of a few hundred Taiwanese military personnel, Itu Aba may very likely qualify as an “island” under UNCLOS, and thus generate territorial waters and an exclusive economic zone (EEZ). That EEZ, in turn, would cover a fairly wide swathe of the disputed South China Sea territories, including all of China’s recently-constructed artificial islands. This is one reason why the artificial island issue is, in and of itself, largely a red herring.

Treaties like UNCLOS leave many things undecided—which legal issues must be determined first in order to arbitrate a dispute, for example, or definitional questions like the “island/rock” distinction—because they are multilateral agreements among equal powers, whose practices then gradually create further norms of interpretation. Divergent practices by one or a handful of powers (like China’s views, shared with several other states, over limitations on military freedom of navigation in EEZs) do not per se represent wholesale rejections of UNCLOS, let alone “international law” as a whole. Arguing otherwise is disingenuous, for international law has always consisted of a plurality of interpretations.

China and Taiwan will continue to assert their claims for the foreseeable future, at minimum based on a few fairly clear-cut “islands” (France and Japan, among others, certainly treated them as such when trying to permanently annex them) which, legally, must now belong to someone. In China’s case, those claims are now often presented in a strategically ambiguous manner, which leaves unclear their exact relation to UNCLOS and its set of legal concepts—a major factor contributing to regional uncertainty. Taiwan, because it is a Western-friendly power with no discernible expansionist ambitions, has every interest in further specifying its sovereignty claims and eventually committing them to some kind of fair and neutral arbitration with other claimants. But when U.S. or other commentators argue that the issue of sovereignty should be ignored, or press the “island/rock” distinction in order to use UNCLOS as a back door to eliminate the possibility of China or Taiwan ever having their sovereignty arguments heard and vindicated, the chance for multilateral dialogue is wasted. Like “terra nullius,” these particular forms of lawfare can operate to silence disputants rather than actually engaging them in a discourse of justifying principles.

The “freedom of navigation” and “island/rock” principles, among others, appear universal. But they are only ever defined in particular ways, by particular states, pursuing particular interests. A true ‘rules based global order’ is one in which no state—be it China or the United States—can act as the unilateral enforcer or interpreter of these ostensibly universal rules. What is needed is more dialogue, including over the issue of sovereignty: if we can manage that as a global community, then we may really be “post-colonial.” Taiwan’s arguments should thus be considered very carefully.

Ryan Mitchell is a Mellon Foundation Humanities Fellow and Ph.D. in Law candidate at Yale, where his research focuses on political philosophy and international law. He is also an attorney admitted to the State Bar of California.

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Deino said:

Interesting ...

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America’s New Maritime Security Initiative for Southeast Asia
A look at the Southeast Asia Maritime Security Initiative as it gets underway.
By

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April 02, 2016

On March 18, Amy Searight, the deputy secretary of defense for South and Southeast Asia, told reporters at the opening session of the U.S-Philippine Bilateral Security Dialogue that the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) had submitted a notification to Congress as it prepares to roll out a new maritime capacity-building initiative for Southeast Asian states near the South China Sea (See: “

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”). With that notification, the United States will soon begin implementing the so-called Southeast Asia Maritime Security Initiative (MSI) which was initially announced last June.

While U.S. defense officials have remained tight-lipped on the exact details of MSI with a congressional notification pending, its goal is to build regional capacity to address a range of maritime challenges – including China’s growing assertiveness in the South China Sea – through various means such as improving regional maritime domain awareness, expanding exercises, and leveraging senior-level engagements. Even though MSI is significant both for the five main Southeast Asian states involved – Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam – and the Obama administration’s rebalance to the Asia-Pacific more generally, it is also facing a number of challenges as it gets underway.

Background

The essence of MSI – building ally and partner maritime capabilities – is not new. Even before the advent of this initiative, the Obama administration had accelerated U.S. maritime security assistance to Southeast Asian states as Chinese assertiveness in the South China Sea became clear, with efforts such as helping the Philippines build its National Coast Watch Center; assisting Vietnam in constructing a coast guard training center; and bolstering the maritime surveillance and radar capabilities of Indonesia and Malaysia.

MSI is also just one of various sources of funding for U.S. maritime capacity-building efforts, from the general foreign military financing (FMF) program to pools of money under specific departments or bureaus. In December 2013, for example, U.S. secretary of state John Kerry announced expanded U.S. assistance for maritime capacity building of $32.5 million in FMF for Southeast Asian states. Also in December that year, the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs designated $25 million to develop the Southeast Asia Maritime Security Law Enforcement Initiative (MLE). MSI, by contrast, is funded with DoD money.

The most distinguishing component of MSI relative to other capacity-building initiatives of its ilk, those familiar with the initiative say, is its focus on enhancing regional maritime domain awareness (MDA) and moving towards establishing a common operating picture (COP). Put simply, Washington is working with Southeast Asian states to improve their ability to detect, understand, react to, and share information about air and maritime activity in the South China Sea, eventually leading to a common and regularly updated picture so that the nations concerned are on the same page.

Specifics about how MSI aims to do this or what kind of investments will be made this year have yet to be revealed publicly because DoD’s congressional notification is still being reviewed, defense department spokesman William R. Urban said in response to a detailed inquiry. But one source with intimate knowledge of the initiative, speaking on condition of anonymity, toldThe Diplomatin an interview that, broadly, U.S. officials are thinking about how investments can increase the ability of allies and partners to “sense, share and contribute” in the maritime domain.

Speaking generally due to the sensitivity of the issue, the source said that more advanced intelligence, surveillance and radar (ISR) capabilities might enhance ‘sensing’ of allies and partners in the South China Sea; technical “supporting infrastructure” would facilitate ‘sharing’ maritime information across the region to build a COP; and expanded exercises, training and other engagements would lead to more ‘contributing’ from allies and partners. MSI is more about equipment, supplies, training and small-scale construction that fit within this broad approach, rather than hardware.

“What you hear is improving the ability of allies and partners to sense, share and contribute,” the source said.

How exactly this might work is still unclear. The “big picture,” the source said, would be to work towards a COP in the South China Sea starting with the Philippines’ National Coast Watch Center and out onto the rest of the region, with willing countries as initial connective nodes eventually leading to a network that actors can “plug into.” (See: “

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“).

“This is more about building a system, a network where countries can plug in if they want to,” the source said, stressing that MSI was still very much in its early stages.

Enhancing regional MDA and building a COP in the South China Sea is an idea that has been floating around for years and had already been discussed at previous U.S. interactions with Southeast Asian states, including at the first ever meeting of ASEAN defense ministers in Hawaii in April 2014. There have also been ongoing engagements exploring various aspects of this since, including several workshops held by U.S. Pacific Command (PACOM) with ASEAN countries. But MSI is the clearest and most concrete manifestation of this U.S. objective yet.

MSI itself originated initially not from DoD, but the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) led by John McCain who has long been a key voice on Asia security policy. It has since been adopted by DoD, and was first publicly unveiled by U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter at the Shangri-La Dialogue – Asia’s premier security summit – in Singapore in June 2015 (See: “

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“).

“Today, I am pleased to announce the DoD will be launching a new Southeast Asia Maritime Security Initiative. And thanks to the leadership of the senators here today and others, Congress has taken steps to authorize up to $425 million for these maritime capacity-building efforts,” Carter said in his remarks.

MSI has since been officially incorporated into DoD’s Asia-Pacific Maritime Security Strategy which was released last August. Within the DoD’s overall U.S. regional maritime security strategy, MSI falls into the broader category of maritime capacity-building – one of the four so-called “lines of effort” – with the other three being strengthening U.S. military capacity; leveraging military diplomacy; and strengthening regional security institutions.

Following this, MSI was incorporated as part of the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2016. Under section 1263, MSI, which actually appears as “South China Sea Initiative,” authorizes funds for assistance and training for the purpose of increasing maritime security and maritime domain awareness of countries along the South China Sea – Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam. Specifically authorized elements of assistance for these countries include equipment, supplies, training and small-scale military construction. The authorization also includes additional “covered countries” – Brunei, Taiwan and Singapore – which may participate in training and other activities.

Section 1263 also specifies a 15-day congressional notification period for MSI, where the Secretary of Defense would submit a notification to congressional defense committees containing details for the year such as the recipient foreign country, a detailed justification of the program and its relationship to U.S. security interests, the budget and a timetable of expenditures, and program objectives. On March 18, Searight, the deputy secretary of defense, told reporters at the opening session of the sixth U.S.-Philippine Bilateral Security Dialogue in Washington, D.C. that DoD had notified Congress a day earlier and was now awaiting for the congressional notification period to expire before moving forward with the initiative.

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Significance

Though MSI will gradually be rolled out over the next few months and – assuming the next administration chooses to continue it – take shape in subsequent years, its potential significance is clear. By devoting funding to maritime security capacity-building in Southeast Asia over several years, MSI is at once a tangible demonstration of the U.S. rebalance at work, a sustainable American resource commitment during a challenging budgetary environment, and a big step towards a broader strategic objective of creating a common maritime operational picture in the region.

First, optics-wise, the allocation of $425 million in DoD funding is tangible proof that the United States is willing to devote resources to making the rebalance a reality. With funds already allocated for the next five years – as of now,The Diplomatunderstands from a source familiar with the initiative, $50 million for fiscal year 2016; $75 million for fiscal year 2017; and $100 million each of fiscal years 2018, 2019 and 2020 – it sends a strong message that Washington is committed to sustaining its efforts to aid maritime capacity-building efforts in the region.

“It says we’re willing to put our money where our mouth is, and that’s a powerful signal,” the source, who preferred to remain anonymous, toldThe Diplomatin an interview.

Though the amount itself is admittedly a modest start, it is by no means insignificant. For perspective, for 2016, $50 million is being set aside just for MSI alone, while the Obama administration announced last November ahead of the president’s trip to the Philippines for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit that thetotalamount of assistance it would provide for this year would be $140 million, a slight increase from the $119 million committed in 2015 (See: “

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“).

Second, bureaucratically, MSI creates a pool of pre-allocated DoD funding that is both insulated from the fierce battles over foreign assistance as well as geared towards a specific goal. That itself is a notable feat given the difficulty of resourcing the rebalance at a time of budgetary difficulties.

The $425 million for the initiative comes from existing DoD money, which means that these defense funds will not need to be administered through the Foreign Military Financing (FMF) program which is run by the State Department, with implications for authorization as well as allocation. Pulling money out of other accounts like FMF – where a paltry 1 percent of total global funding went to the Asia-Pacific in 2015 – is a challenge that officials know well. In addition, congressional authorization also enabled Carter to then make an even stronger case for the reallocation of funds within DoD to resource MSI.

“It’s significant in that we’ve found a way to secure funding despite the challenges that come with how the United States does foreign assistance,” Brian Harding, a former defense official in the Obama administration who worked on Southeast Asia, toldThe Diplomat.

“This creates a very focused, regional pot of money, and it makes it easier to get support for it,” Harding, who is now director for East and Southeast Asia at the Center for American Progress, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, said.

Third, strategically, as mentioned earlier, MSI represents a big step towards a broader U.S. objective of enhancing MDA to create a regional COP. DoD’s 2015 Asia-Pacific Maritime Security Strategy technically specifies several lines of effort for MSI of which this is only one – others include providing supporting infrastructure for maritime response operations; expanding maritime exercises and engagements; strengthening maritime institutions, governance and personnel training; and identifying modernization or new systems requirements for critical maritime security capabilities.

There is also predictably no direct mention of it being directed at a particular threat – the goal is framed as building regional capacity to address “a range of maritime challenges.”

Yet to those familiar with MSI, it is nonetheless clear that a major thrust of it is to build maritime domain awareness and a common operating picture to help Southeast Asian states deal with or even counter China’s growing assertiveness in the South China Sea. While greater individual and regional awareness would also be useful for other objectives as well including countering illegal fishing, cracking down on transnational crime, and responding to natural disasters, it would both reduce the vast asymmetry that exists between these countries’ capabilities and China’s as well as enable them to better deter gray zone coercion by Beijing both individually and collectively.

“There’s no doubt a big part [of this] is about helping countries deter and deal with China, because capacity is an issue still,” a source toldThe Diplomat.

Challenges

But if the significance of MSI is already apparent, so too are its challenges. Indeed, policymakers will have to navigate past a range of issues that exist at home, in the region, and in their specific consultations with U.S. allies and partners.

At home, beyond the perennial question of the sustainability of such new initiatives beyond this administration, the concerns chiefly relate to resourcing and bureaucratic politics. On funding, $425 million for five years – the initial authorization runs up to September 30, 2020 – is not a lot of money, especially if Washington wants to realize its goal of building a COP in the South China Sea anytime soon. MSI will likely need to be supplemented with additional funding either from DoD or other sources.

“The problem with MSI is that it’s ‘budget dust’ in Pentagon speak; you can’t do much with $425 million,” Van Jackson, a former Pentagon official who served in the Obama administration from 2009 to 2014 and a regular contributor toThe Diplomat, said.

Overcoming that financial hurdle is possible, says Jackson, now an associate professor at the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies in Honolulu as well as an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), a Washington, D.C.-based think tank. With additional resources as well as partnerships with the private sector in Silicon Valley, Jackson says, Washington could create a good-enough common operating picture – as opposed to a military-grade COP requiring significant ISR capabilities which would cost billions of dollars. At present, though, that kind of partnership does not yet exist.

“It’s been difficult for government to bridge the divide with the tech sector though. Silicon Valley is completely aloof of the Pentagon’s strategic problems like the South China Sea,” said Jackson, the lead author in a report on constructing a common operational picture in the South China Sea released by CNAS in March.
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The other domestic concern among some relates to whether MSI could inadvertently be contributing to the creeping militarization of U.S. foreign assistance. Since MSI is being financed with existing DoD money, rather than administered through the FMF program run by the State Department, there are those who worry whether this undermines State’s lead role in doling out foreign assistance, thereby leading to the approval of security funds that might contradict broader U.S. foreign policy interests such as preserving human rights. Indeed, some voices within Congress have even reportedly called for MSI to be moved over to the State Department.


To those familiar with MSI, this is rather overblown. As one source put it, claiming that less than half a billion dollars spread over the next five years (in a nearly $600 billion DoD annual budget) across an entire subregion is going to reshape U.S. foreign assistance policy seems like quite an exaggeration. Furthermore, as was mentioned earlier, the money will be spent on things like facility construction and training rather than weapons or hardware.


“We’re talking about peanuts in a budgetary sense, and despite the bureaucratic contentiousness of it all, there is a basic consensus about what the money should be spent on,” the source, who preferred to remain unnamed because of the sensitivity of the issue, toldThe Diplomat.


Publicly, both DoD and State say they are on the same page when it comes to MSI. Though the initiative is housed under DoD, David McKeeby, a spokesperson for the State Department’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, toldThe Diplomatthat the concurrence of the State Department is required on all MSI proposals, a requirement that Congress wrote into law to ensure foreign policy coordination.


“[D]oD and State have committed to work closely together to determine what assistance will be offered through its MSI to our allies and partners,” McKeeby said.


“The coordination of security assistance within a foreign policy framework remains a vital aspect of its delivery – no less in a politically sensitive region like this one.”


MSI could face regional challenges as well as it seeks to build this common operating picture. Some Southeast Asian countries may be hesitant to share information with their neighbors, not just due to sensitivities but other reasons as well including rivalries between them. The clearest example of this is the Regional Cooperation Agreement on Combating Piracy and Armed Robbery Against Ships in Asia (ReCAAP) concluded in 2004, which now includes 20 Asian states. Malaysia and Indonesia are still not official members up till today, in part due to disagreement on the location of the headquarters of the information sharing center in Singapore.


There is also the concern that MSI could be perceived as a U.S.-led tool directed against China even if it is not publicly presented as such, thereby complicating both the relationships these individual countries have with Beijing as well as regional MDA efforts. It is worth noting that while MSI has a much more ambitious goal of developing a COP in the South China Sea, the region does already have a few more modest initiatives of its own, from systems like Singapore’s Information Fusion Center (IFC) to multilateral cooperative endeavors such as the Malacca Straits patrols. For Washington, striking a balance between raising the bar to work towards a COP while also not getting too far ahead of regional MDA efforts will be a tricky one.


“It depend on how it [MSI] evolves – it can lead to more security or more instability, but the point is that it is us in the region who have to live with either of those,” one official from a Southeast Asian state involved in MSI toldThe Diplomat.


The challenge of securing adequate buy-in and being sensitive to regional perceptions is not a new one. The cautionary tale of the Regional Maritime Security Initiative (RMSI) – a proposal launched in 2004 during the George W. Bush administration which was initially meant to be a voluntary partnership between states to promote information-sharing and early warning to counter maritime transnational threats – is a case in point. Media reports that the-then PACOM commander Admiral Thomas Fargo had said that U.S. special forces and marines would patrol the Malacca Strait led to angry responses by both Malaysia and Indonesia, undermining the initiative and eventually leading to its demise soon after. Though there are some significant differences between RMSI and MSI, the point here is simply that the case nonetheless illustrates the importance of optics and messaging which is a useful lesson to remember.


Washington and Southeast Asian states have also encountered challenges in their initial efforts working together on MSI. More than one of the MSI members toldThe Diplomatthat they initially did not have a clear sense of what the initiative was and was not – including specifics about its objectives and kinds of assistance they could seek.


Part of the problem on the U.S. side, a source toldThe Diplomat, was because DoD only had a few months this time around to finalize a list of projects and send them over for a congressional notification. This may have left less time than would have been preferred for partner countries to have time to think about projects that would fit under the initiative for the year. It was partly because of this that Manila ended up getting the “lion’s share” of the $50 million sought for 2016, as Searight told reporters March 18.


“It was difficult to understand but we also did not have enough time to decide on our side this time,” an official from another one of the five main countries involved in MSI admitted.


To a certain extent, that was to be expected and is not entirely Washington’s fault. For instance, an MSI country like Vietnam is a relatively new U.S. security partner, which means Hanoi does not possess as thorough of an understanding of U.S. bureaucratic processes as do other U.S. partners.


During his remarks commemorating the 20th anniversary of the normalization of U.S.-Vietnam relations at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C. last April, U.S. ambassador to Vietnam Ted Osius himself acknowledged that it might take some time for Vietnam to become familiar with complex U.S. procurement procedures (See: “What’s Next for U.S.-Vietnam Defense Relations?“). Vietnam also has its own internal considerations beyond MSI, such as what it would specifically like from Washington relative to its more traditional defense partners like Russia. As with other Southeast Asian cases – consider U.S.-Indonesia defense relations, for instance – it will take some time before this process of familiarization to gradually occur.


Conclusion


We will likely hear more details about MSI over the next few months, particularly with U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter’s upcoming visit to the Philippines in April as Manila lies right at the heart of the initiative. But the significance of MSI is already clear. By committing itself to a multi-year maritime security capacity-building initiative in Southeast Asia with the key objective of creating a common operational picture in the South China Sea, Washington is tangibly demonstrating that the U.S. rebalance has real weight behind it and can serve both U.S. interests as well as those of regional states.


Though it is still early days and challenges remain, with the Permanent Court of Arbitration set to rule on the Philippines’ case against China on the South China Sea in May or June and the Shangri-La Dialogue coming up in early June as well, MSI’s rollout will certainly coincide with some interesting security developments in the region (See: “Does the Philippines’ South China Sea Case Against China Really Matter?“).


Prashanth Parameswaran is Associate Editor atThe Diplomatbased in Washington, D.C., where he writes mostly on Southeast Asia, Asian security affairs and U.S. foreign policy in the Asia-Pacific. He is also a PhD candidate at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.

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Vietnam seizes Chinese vessel for intruding its waters

HANOI, Vietnam — Vietnam's coast guard in a rare move has seized a Chinese vessel for allegedly intruding in its waters.

The Thanh Nien newspaper reported Monday that the vessel has been towed to the northern port city of Hai Phong, and that the ship, its captain and two sailors, all Chinese, are under the supervision of Vietnamese authorities.

The newspaper says the vessel was disguised as a fishing boat and was carrying 100,000 liters of diesel oil near Bach Long Vi island in the Gulf of Tonkin on Thursday..... to read more

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