Non-traditional security challenges, regional governance, and the ASEAN Political Security Community (APSC)

A slew of emerging non-traditional security (NTS) challenges – de�?ned as challenges to the survival and well-being of peoples and states that arise primarily out of non-military sources, such as climate change, infectious diseases, natural disasters, irregular migration, food shortages, smuggling of persons, drug trafficking, and other forms of transnational crime1 – are now confronting Southeast Asia. Aside from being non-military in nature, these challenges share other common characteristics: they are transnational in scope (neither purely domestic nor purely inter-state); they arise at very short notice and are transmitted rapidly as a result of globalization and the communication revolution; they cannot be prevented entirely, but can be mitigated through coping mechanisms; national solutions are often inadequate, and thus regional and multilateral cooperation is essential; and �?nally, the object of security is no longer just the state (state sovereignty or territorial integrity) but also the people–their survival, well-being, and dignity, at both individual and societal levels.2.