Luis Enrique Ascui Lord Bach, U.K. minister for defense procurement.

Asia-Pacific nations need closer cooperation to maintain security in the waters through which one-third of the world’s commerce transits, said Lord “Willy” Bach of Lutterworth, the United Kingdom’s minister for defense procurement.

This issue “is seen in the U.K. as a crucial part of the security puzzle in the Asia-Pacific region,” Bach said Feb. 23 at the Asia Pacific Security Conference 2004 here. Organized piracy and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction on the high seas pose challenges that require a collaborative response.

“There is increasing agreement for the need of a multilateral approach to this issue,” said Bach.

More than a dozen nations — including Singapore, Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Liberia, the United Kingdom and the United States — have signed onto the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI). This effort, proposed by Washington last year, aims to coordinate actions to halt shipments of dangerous technologies via sea, air and land.

“This program, open to all states, must now urgently be translated into practical programs to frustrate would-be terrorists. I can’t over-emphasize the importance of regional cooperation in this area,” said Bach.

Another key to forging security in the region is to adopt a different view of deterrence, said David Ivry, a retired Israel Air Force general and former ambassador to the United States who now runs Boeing Co.’s operation in Israel. Ivry said that traditional approaches to deterrence used by conventional militaries are not effective against terrorists, such as a suicide bomber, for example.

Prevention, not deterrence, should be an objective in countering the new threats, he said. A “war of terror is a war of prevention.”

Bach and Ivry participated in the conference’s first panel discussion, “Security Challenges in the Asia Pacific.”

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.

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