Writing Resources
The post cold war refers to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 to the present To discuss the security challenges facing Southeast Asia in the post war era there is necessary to mention about how the security challenges change from the cold war era to post cold era During the Second World War the security order within the Southeast Asia was mainly influenced by the two superpowers which were the USA and the USSR As the WWII ended the Cold War begins the Southeast Asia region was quickly carved out by the former colonial powers as their sphere of influence Since the USA had played an important role that liberates the Southeast Asia during the WWII the USA started to act as a dominant role that claimed to safeguard the independence of the countries and prevent the communist from invading the region In other words the USA wanted to stop the USSR and China from entering the Southeast Asia Although the USA was defeated in Vietnam War it continue to maintain an off shore presence in Southeast Asia region On the other hand from 1967 Thailand Malaysia Philippines Indonesia and Singapore established Association of Southeast Asian Nations ASEAN Until today over five decades ASEAN has been a significant regional organization that pursuing particularly the region security and peace in order to develop their economic As Adam Malik stated ASEAN can be seen as reflecting the growing political will of the nations of this region to take charge of their own future to work out problems of their development stability and security together and to prevent their region from continuing to remain the arena and the subject of major power rivalry and then conflict qtd in Shee 754 However at that time the fundamental of the ASEAN system was still very weak and turbulent and if ASEAN wanted to construct their region security they had to rely on the external forces Therefore there still have been many fragmentary conflicts
