Defence Diplomacy and Security Cooperation in Southeast Asia: Managing Smaller Powers' Strategic Space

Defence diplomacy is an increasingly important tool for strategic engagement used by states in Southeast Asia. This approach underpins simultaneous cooperation and competition in the contemporary Indo-Pacific region amid major power rivalries and growing activity in Southeast Asia and the South China Sea.

The rise of China and the intensifying Sino–US competition has caught Southeast Asia at a geostrategic pivot where smaller states’ strategic autonomy is increasingly difficult to manage. To...