Tsunami and non-military security: Fostering international cooperation in the face of natural disaster
Xu Qiyu

The earthquake-induced tsunami disaster that struck without any warning on 26 December 2004 brought huge loss to the Indian Ocean rim countries. Nearly 300,000 people were killed and millions were injured, bereaved, made homeless and deprived of their livelihood. Thanks to the modern mass media, the magnitude of casualties and devastation were quickly known by the whole world, and thus sparked an unprecedented aid and humanitarian response worldwide.
This catastrophe itself and the consequent relief efforts revealed the pressing need to cope with the threat of natural disasters, or in a greater sense, the non-military threats through international cooperation. Further, it also raises questions of what should be the best approach to dealing with these natural disasters on the one hand, while controlling and managing “traditional” elements during international cooperation on the other.
The necessity and possibility of international cooperation
This tsunami strike once again illustrated that we are living in an interdependent and interconnected world in which a disaster will affect much wider area than it originally did. In 2003, the SARS epidemic was a severe check for China as well as its “neighbor” right across the whole Pacific Ocean – Canada. This time, with the ferocious tsunamis attack, not only the local inhabitant suffered great casualties, but many of the tourists worldwide are also injured or killed. For example, the Swedish death toll following the Tsunami is the highest number of lives lost following one single event in a hundred years for Sweden. The fact that the natural disaster and commutable diseases disregard all national boundaries makes the international cooperation for dealing with those non-military threats more urgent.
It is also fully demonstrated that no country in the world can successfully meet such threats single-handedly. Taking the early warning system of earthquake and tsunami as an example, to establish such a system not only demands large sum of money and sophisticated technique, but also needs an efficient intelligence-sharing channel and widespread monitoring network. This could not become feasible if without international cooperation. In this respect, the developed countries’ participation is extremely valuable. Fortunately, in the wake of the tsunami, some of these countries have already taken active actions to offer both financial and technological help. On March 14, for instance, Germany signed a joint declaration with Indonesia concerning the realization of a tsunami early warning system and pledged to provide up to 25 seismometers, 10 GPS stations, 10 GPS-controlled tide gauges, 10 GPS buoys and up to 20 ocean-bottom pressure sensors.
However, to establish early warning system or efficient international fast response system is far from sufficient. Environmental protection is also essential in dealing with the natural disaster or other non-military threats, since many studies have already illustrated that natural disasters are often caused or magnified by people’s over-exploit of nature resources. But, to strike a balance between economic growth and environment is by no means an easy task, especially to those developing countries facing a tricky task of fighting poverty. Successful environmental protection requires the coordination between concerned countries on the one hand, and financial and technological aids from other member of the international community on the other.
With the necessity of international cooperation becoming more and more obvious, the feasibility of fostering an efficient cooperation is also growing. Firstly, the non-military security issues are, at least in theory, less politically charged than those traditional security concerns, and so are inherently more suitable subjects on which nation-states can foster cooperation. Secondly, as this tsunami disaster demonstrated, it has created great impetus in pushing most countries to take this kind of issue more seriously: to establish a tsunami warning system for the Indian Ocean has become one of the most important topics in the regional affairs; and even in Europe, the European Union is also provoked to consider establishing a rapid reaction disaster relief force. In addition, although the tsunami “has not affected the security outlooks of even the most severely affected states in any fundamental way”, as some analyst put it, there are also some signs of adjusting the security priorities. For instance, the TNI (Indonesian armed forces) postponed purchasing new combat aircraft in favor of acquiring transport planes and helicopters suitable for relief efforts. These things combined, it seems there emerges a favorable environment in which the international cooperation on non-military security may successfully grow.
The “traditional” vs. the “non-traditional ”
Although fighting against the natural disaster, serious epidemics and other non-military threats falls into the so-called non-traditional category, the effort is still deeply affected by the “traditional” concerns. Generally speaking, in a world composed of sovereign state-nations, to develop effective international cooperation has never been an easy task, even if this cooperation focuses on the non-traditional issues. When elements like the sovereignty, geopolitical consideration, military security and low-key competition among powers are involved, nations are always prone to keeping a wary eye and reluctant to participate in cooperation even they can get real benefits through it. Therefore, to control and manage those “traditional” elements have to be taken into consideration in order to reach a smooth international cooperation.
In the wake of this tsunami disaster, many regional and ex-regional powers have made huge efforts in the disaster relief and rehabilitation of the devastated community. However, despite their undoubted humanitarian concerns, many governments involved in the relief efforts have more or less geopolitical considerations and thus generated a somewhat “traditional” competition which undercurrents the relief and rehabilitation process.
The traditional competition for influence started right after the occurrence of tsunami. By 28 December, the US had delivered sizeable military forces to the tsunami-affected region to carry out the disaster relief, with its main focus on Aceh, where a carrier strike group was deployed. It is apparent that the US military helicopters have played a key role in distributing emergency supplies and made big contribution to the whole relief efforts. In the meantime, the US also quickly announced the intention to establish a “core group” which is comprised by itself and a collection of its traditional politico-military allies or associates – Japan, Australia, India, Canada and Netherlands – under an ostensible claim to coordinate relief efforts. This proposal met resistance at the 6 January summit in Jakarta, during which European and some Asian states backed the UN to play a leading role in coordinating the relief and rehabilitation efforts. Also at this summit, Kofi Annan, the Secretary-General of the UN, called for nearly $1 billion to be put into UN-led relief programmes aimed at preventing disease outbreaks and rehabilitation and more than 70% of this sum was subsequently pledged by donor countries. Against such a backdrop, the US, in the wake of the 6 January summit, made clear the point that the UN needed to act more effectively and thus abandoned its “core group” initiative. The US’ action has highlighted its strategic interests in the region, besides the humanitarian concerns. It is a good opportunity for the US to improve its image in the world’s most populous Muslim state, which became more and more necessary when the US’ images have been continuously tarnished in Muslim world since the Iraqi War. Moreover, the US always sees Indonesia as strategically important because of its geographic position and oil resource, and keeping an influential position in this country and the whole region is essential to Washington’s global strategy.
The tsunami-affected region is also strategically important for some other powers. Japan has exercised both its substantial “soft power” and “hard power” in the tsunami relief efforts, through its large donation and displaying its growing military deployment capacity. With huge donation and military deployment for relief efforts in Aceh, Australia focused on reaching a good improvement in the relationship with its most crucial neighbor – Indonesia, which has experienced significant declining since Canberra played a leading role in the UN-backed intervention in East Timor in 1999 and Australia’s active collaboration with the US in the Iraq War in 2003. In sum, the disaster relief efforts reflected the traditional interests and considerations of many powers as well as their humanitarian concerns.
In some cases, the traditional consideration and competition are displayed even in the military dimension. For example, some Indonesia leaders were convinced that the US and Australian military forces deployed in Aceh for disaster relief efforts were not exclusively for the relief purpose, but also tried to collect intelligence of Indonesia. They declared that the end of March was the deadline for the presence of foreign military forces in Indonesia. Although such a deadline had been retracted shortly after its announcement, it nonetheless showcased the huge wariness of the governments of some disaster-hit countries to any possible encroachment of their sovereignty. In addition, even to establish a tsunami early warning system also involved traditional competition among powers for prestige and influence. It was pointed out that only a month after the tsunami catastrophe, India, Indonesia and Thailand were already competing to act as host to tsunami warning system, while the US, Germany and the UN all acclaimed themselves as leaders of the project.
These traditional elements were, to a large extent, obstacles to fostering effective international cooperation on meeting non-military security threats. However, to totally get rid of them would be unrealistic. Since it is difficult to move away from the traditional interest-based approach to the international relations, the traditional elements should be given much attention and carefully managed in order to mitigate their negative effect. When the international community is facing a new world that people never knew before, and finds itself still not out of the problems and dilemmas lasting for thousands of years, there should be more combination of realism and idealism in policies of world nations, and reach a balance between the tradition and future.
Some suggestions on enhancing the cooperation
To enhance international cooperation on non-military threats, nation’s sovereignty should be upheld and respected as the essential principle. As has mentioned above, the traditional competition among nations, as well as the wariness to other powers’ strategic intention, has been a major obstacle to forming an effective international cooperation. However, such obstacle does not stem from the sovereignty but from the anarchic nature of the international system and therefore could not be solved by merely neglecting the sovereignty. On the contrary, respect for sovereignty would push forward the cooperation among nations through alleviating nation-states’ mistrust and suspicion, particularly to the smaller and weaker states involved. In the case of Indonesia’s announced deadline, Indonesia’s suspicion was natural enough. To most developing countries, the sovereignty, which serves as the last bulwark to protect them from the influence of a still unequal world system, is a very sensitive issue.
The UN’s leading role is necessary in international cooperation on coping with the non-military security threats. As the largest international regime incarnating collective security, the UN is much more qualified than any single power to play such a role. Further, other related international organizations should also play important roles in such cooperation to coordinate the relief efforts and foreign aids. As illustrated by this tsunami relief, many donations are issued through bilateral channel while quite a few countries wanted to channel their assistance through multilateral channels, for example through the multidonor trust fund managed by the World Bank. This is also a good way to tone down the competition among powers for “traditional” purpose.
Regional organizations should further enhance their capacity building in early warning of serious natural disaster and relief efforts. In respect of regional cooperation on security issues, ASEAN Regional Forum has already made great contribution. For the recent decades, there has been much discussion on the “non-traditional” security in the Forum, which served to enhance public concern across the region. However, for various reasons, the capacity against the non-military threats such as natural disaster and severe epidemic still remained unsatisfactory. In this tsunami attack, the internet-based earthquake and tsunami alert system established by ASEAN in 2000 was not developed sufficiently to lessen the impact of the disaster, while the US base at Diego Garcia, mainly relying on the warnings issued from the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii, weathered the disaster without impact to facilities and personnel. Moreover, capacity building also needs establishing some particular mechanism. In this tsunami relief, the international coordination and cooperation were in large part on the ad hoc basis. To improve the effectiveness, some specialized mechanism against natural disaster and severe epidemic should be established, focusing on planning, coordinating precautions of respective countries, pooling relative intelligence and technology, etc. Such a mechanism is undoubtedly the result of international cooperation, while it will also prompt more effective international cooperation in return.

(Major Xu Qiyu, researcher of Institute for Strategic Studies, National Defense University, PLA. )