THINK PIECE 18 SUMMARY • ortheast and Southeast Asia ­form East Asia where countries­are economically interconnect­ed, but regional powers are competitive in geostrategic terms. Although the military has no political role in most countries, in practice it dab­bles in politics particularly in Southeast Asia. There is no monopoly for the use of force in practice. delegation of security provision to an external actor in East Asia is highly unlikely now, or in the foreseeable future due to geostrategic realities enhanced by power shifts from the West to the East and major power rivalries, in and outside East Asia that affect the region. the region’s se­curity sector must respect con­text-specific sensitivities, given the distinctive differe­ nces between countries located in East Asia. cooperation in non-traditional security issues particularly in humanitarian­assistance and disaster re­sponse, pandemics, and environmental protection has increasingly crowded East Asia’s security agenda. 01 Mapping Security Provision in Southeast Asia by Carolina G. Hernandez The monopoly of the use of force theoretically lodged in the state is more likely than not to be a myth in most contemporary states. This general observation applies to Southeast Asia, a sub-region con­sisting—for the purposes of this presentation—of Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam, countries that constitute the Association of Southeast Asian Nations(ASEAN). Security provision is strictly understood to refer only to the statutory security forces(i.e., military, ­police, intelligence, and paramilitary forces), to non-statutory security forces(e.g., the armed wings of rebel, insurgent, or separatist groups, private armies of political families and clans, or village or neighbor­hood watch groups), and to for-profit private security providers(e.g., security guards for commercial companies and gated communities/ private homes, bodyguards, or mercenaries such as private military and security companies[PMSCs]). Of the 10 countries in Southeast Asia, only Singapore might conform to the theoretical state monopoly of the use of force. Its armed forces and police are almost the sole security providers for Singaporeans, except for the use of private security guards for commercial com­panies, schools, and the like. On the other hand, Brunei’s external security is provided by the Royal Brunei Armed Forces(ground, naval, and air commands), and its internal security by the Royal Brunei Police forces. In; in addition, it has a few hundred Gurkhas in the reserve force, as well as British and Singaporean troops. The Philippines is the only state in which a domestic communist insurgency has persisted to the present day. Consequently, it has more non-statutory security forces than Malaysia and Thailand which put an end to communist insurgency in the 1970s-1980s. Although Indonesia also did so, it continues to have non-statutory security forces that are organized by its ethnic separatist groups, like in the Philippines. Leninist-style one-party states like Vietnam and Laos have their own military and police forces and, although technically better able to exercise a monopoly over the use of force, they also face the phenomenon that this monopoly is increasingly undermined by other security providers, including armed opposition groups. Recently-returned Hmong from