Luis Enrique Ascui Teo Chee Hean, Singapore’s minister for defense.

Improved international cooperation is essential to combating security threats in the Asia-Pacific region, particularly the threats of global terrorism and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, said Teo Chee Hean, Singapore’s minister for defense.

An effective defense against these challenges must be multinational, Teo said Feb. 22, kicking off the Asia Pacific Security Conference 2004 here. “The need for international cooperation cannot be overstated, especially in fighting terrorism and proliferation,” he said. “No country acting alone can hope to deal with these problems effectively.”

The Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies, a think-tank affiliated with Singapore’s Nayang Technological University, and Asian Aerospace Pte. Ltd. jointly produced the conference. Defense News is the official media partner for the event.

Barry Desker, director of the institute, said the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and transnational terrorism are matters of concern to all nations in this part of the world. “The Asia-Pacific region is not immune to any of these challenges,” he said during his welcome address.

Many nations in the region are contributing personnel or other support to the reconstruction effort in Iraq and Afghanistan. Most recently, Japan deployed its troops to Iraq and South Korea, formally agreeing to send 3,000 troops. Southeast Asian nations are dealing with the direct consequences of terrorism, particularly in Indonesia and the Philippines.

The campaign against terrorism — the “most immediate threat” — requires more than security forces; an ideological campaign must also be fought for the hearts and minds of would-be terrorists, Teo said.

To keep weapons of mass destruction, particularly nuclear technology, from terrorist hands, Singapore’s defense chief called for an international counterproliferation regime as far-reaching and complex as the network reportedly built over decades by Abdul Qadeer Khan, father of Pakistan’s nuclear program.

“The global proliferation network is intricate and sophisticated,” Teo said. “The counterproliferation effort has to be as sophisticated and wide-ranging.”

Among the responses to these new security trends across the Asia-Pacific region is a Pentagon effort to alter its military posture here, particularly by repositioning many of its troops currently in South Korea and Japan and reducing the total number of forward-deployed personnel in the region.

While Pentagon officials maintain the purpose of this Global Defense Posture Review is to enhance U.S. military capabilities, Teo said Washington must pay close attention to the perceived U.S. commitment to security in the region this review creates.

“The upgrading of defense capabilities has meant that many states in the region are in the market for significant spending on defense.”

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