Renewed Military Buildups Post-Asian Crisis: The Effect on Two Key Southeast Asian Bilateral Military Balances

Southeast Asia's security dynamics, rather than getting simplified in the post-Cold War era, have become more complex and multifaceted. Though the ten states of Southeast Asia are now part of the unitary structure of ASEAN, an undercurrent of tension and suspicion continues. This has been one of the reasons, if not the central reason, for the ongoing process of the modernization and expansion of arsenals in Southeast Asia. This paper looks at that process through the rubric of two key military balances, that between Myanmar and Thailand, on the one hand, and Malaysia and Singapore, on the other. It is developments in the armed forces of these four states which have generated the overall military buildup in the region.