INTERNATIONAL
Upping defense spending to 5 percent: A US lunacy set to compel ASEAN into confrontation with China
A US Air Force B-2 stealth bomber returns after the US attacked key Iranian nuclear sites, at Whiteman Air Force Base, Missouri, US June 22, 2025 in a still image from video. - ABC Affiliate KMBC/via REUTERS.
WHEN US defence officials recently floated the idea that Asian countries—particularly those in the Indo-Pacific—should raise their defense spending to 5 percent of GDP, many analysts in Southeast Asia were left stunned.
AI Brief
This is not a policy recommendation rooted in realism. It is strategic lunacy, one that threatens to unravel decades of regional stability, force ASEAN into an unwanted confrontation with China, and sabotage the very neutrality that makes ASEAN central to Indo-Pacific diplomacy.
This proposal represents more than a misreading of Asia’s political and fiscal realities. It is an attempt to militarise Southeast Asia, using financial pressure and security rhetoric to drag the region into an American-led containment strategy against China. For ASEAN—a region defined by strategic ambiguity and diplomatic agility—this is an unworkable and perilous proposition.
The 5 Percent Fallacy
The idea of spending 5 percent of GDP on defense is not merely economically absurd—it is historically unprecedented for peaceful societies.
Only nations engaged in active wars, such as Israel or Russia, or those preparing for high-level conflict spend anything close to that figure. For Southeast Asian countries like Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam, the average defense spending remains between 1 and 1.5 percent of GDP.
Raising it to 5 percent would require either massive borrowing or the gutting of public spending on education, healthcare, digital infrastructure, and climate adaptation—all of which are far more urgent for human security.
This is not about national capacity. It’s about strategic sense. Upping defense spending to 5 percent would damage sovereign credit ratings, inflate fiscal deficits, and expose these countries to deeper debt traps—all to serve a Washington playbook designed for a Cold War that never truly ended in the minds of US hawks.
Forcing ASEAN into a Collision Course with China
Let us be blunt: Washington’s push for 5 percent defense budgets is not about regional security.
It is about constructing an economic and military bulwark to contain China. The problem is that ASEAN does not want to be part of a new Iron Curtain—this time drawn across the Asian Pacific.
ASEAN member states, particularly Indonesia and Malaysia, have consistently pursued a path of balanced engagement.
They cooperate with the US on maritime security and counterterrorism, while simultaneously working with China on trade, technology, infrastructure, and multilateralism through mechanisms such as the ASEAN-China Free Trade Area (ACFTA), the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), and the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Forcing ASEAN countries to militarise and isolate China would amount to abandoning their core diplomatic identity—and ASEAN will not do it.
Even the Philippines, despite its deepening defense ties with the US, has drawn lines it will not cross.
President Marcos Jr., while allowing more access to US forces under the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA), has insisted that the Philippines is not America’s launching pad for a war with China. The rest of ASEAN shares that sentiment, if not more emphatically.
Militarisation Risks Reawakening Authoritarian Shadows
An equally troubling risk of US-induced militarisation is the re-empowerment of the military as a political institution. Many ASEAN states have spent decades trying to professionalise their armed forces, subjecting them to civilian control and stripping them of political power. But sudden increases in defense budgets, especially under US strategic pressure, could reverse that trajectory.
History is replete with warnings: Thailand’s repeated coups, Indonesia’s New Order under Suharto, Myanmar’s current descent into military tyranny. The lesson is simple—militaries grow unruly when fed too much power and too little accountability. A 5 percent defense budget is a blank cheque for the resurgence of authoritarianism in uniform.
ASEAN’s True Security Priorities
What ASEAN truly needs is not more missiles and frigates, but more investment in climate resilience, green transition, pandemic preparedness, and digital governance. These are the issues that define 21st-century security. Not great power rivalry, not obsolete notions of deterrence rooted in Cold War military build-ups.
Moreover, ASEAN’s own security doctrine—codified through the Zone of Peace, Freedom, and Neutrality (ZOPFAN) and the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation (TAC)—prioritizes diplomacy, neutrality, and peaceful settlement of disputes. These principles are not weaknesses; they are ASEAN’s greatest strengths. They allow it to convene summits, lead dialogue, and remain a vital pivot in global diplomacy.
Forcing ASEAN to abandon these principles to pursue a Pentagon-decreed arms race would destroy the very foundation of its regional centrality.
Weaponising Debt and Dependence
There is also a geopolitical irony at play. By pushing ASEAN nations to spend excessively on defense, the US risks pushing them into unsustainable debt, which could paradoxically make them even more dependent on Chinese credit, markets, and capital. Washington’s zero-sum logic forgets that financial overreach and economic overextension have been the undoing of empires—from Athens to the Soviet Union. It is unlikely that countries like Malaysia, Vietnam, or Indonesia would be willing to replicate this mistake in the name of a war that is not theirs to fight.
Conclusion: ASEAN Will Not March to America’s Drumbeat
No matter how hard Washington insists, ASEAN countries will not become pawns in a confrontation they did not start and do not want. ASEAN is not NATO. Its members are not vassal states. They are sovereign nations with strategic cultures grounded in prudence, pragmatism, and peaceful coexistence.
If the United States truly seeks a stable and secure Indo-Pacific, it must work with ASEAN on its terms—not by issuing defense spending ultimatums, but by supporting inclusive regionalism, multilateral cooperation, and sustainable development.
Upping defense spending to 5 percent of GDP is not strategy. It is lunacy. And ASEAN must resist it with every diplomatic tool it has.
Phar Kim Beng, PhD, is Professor of ASEAN Studies at the International Islamic University Malaysia and a Cambridge Commonwealth Fellow.
** The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the position of Astro AWANI.
Dapatkan berita terkini di sini
AI Brief
- Raising ASEAN defence budgets to 5% of GDP is economically unsustainable and would force cuts to vital sectors like health, education, and climate resilience.
- US pressure risks dragging ASEAN into a Cold War-style containment of China, undermining its diplomatic balance and regional peace role.
- History warns that bloated military budgets in Southeast Asia often erode civilian oversight and revive authoritarian tendencies.
This is not a policy recommendation rooted in realism. It is strategic lunacy, one that threatens to unravel decades of regional stability, force ASEAN into an unwanted confrontation with China, and sabotage the very neutrality that makes ASEAN central to Indo-Pacific diplomacy.
This proposal represents more than a misreading of Asia’s political and fiscal realities. It is an attempt to militarise Southeast Asia, using financial pressure and security rhetoric to drag the region into an American-led containment strategy against China. For ASEAN—a region defined by strategic ambiguity and diplomatic agility—this is an unworkable and perilous proposition.
The 5 Percent Fallacy
The idea of spending 5 percent of GDP on defense is not merely economically absurd—it is historically unprecedented for peaceful societies.
Only nations engaged in active wars, such as Israel or Russia, or those preparing for high-level conflict spend anything close to that figure. For Southeast Asian countries like Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam, the average defense spending remains between 1 and 1.5 percent of GDP.
Raising it to 5 percent would require either massive borrowing or the gutting of public spending on education, healthcare, digital infrastructure, and climate adaptation—all of which are far more urgent for human security.
This is not about national capacity. It’s about strategic sense. Upping defense spending to 5 percent would damage sovereign credit ratings, inflate fiscal deficits, and expose these countries to deeper debt traps—all to serve a Washington playbook designed for a Cold War that never truly ended in the minds of US hawks.
Forcing ASEAN into a Collision Course with China
Let us be blunt: Washington’s push for 5 percent defense budgets is not about regional security.
It is about constructing an economic and military bulwark to contain China. The problem is that ASEAN does not want to be part of a new Iron Curtain—this time drawn across the Asian Pacific.
ASEAN member states, particularly Indonesia and Malaysia, have consistently pursued a path of balanced engagement.
They cooperate with the US on maritime security and counterterrorism, while simultaneously working with China on trade, technology, infrastructure, and multilateralism through mechanisms such as the ASEAN-China Free Trade Area (ACFTA), the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), and the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Forcing ASEAN countries to militarise and isolate China would amount to abandoning their core diplomatic identity—and ASEAN will not do it.
Even the Philippines, despite its deepening defense ties with the US, has drawn lines it will not cross.
President Marcos Jr., while allowing more access to US forces under the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA), has insisted that the Philippines is not America’s launching pad for a war with China. The rest of ASEAN shares that sentiment, if not more emphatically.
Militarisation Risks Reawakening Authoritarian Shadows
An equally troubling risk of US-induced militarisation is the re-empowerment of the military as a political institution. Many ASEAN states have spent decades trying to professionalise their armed forces, subjecting them to civilian control and stripping them of political power. But sudden increases in defense budgets, especially under US strategic pressure, could reverse that trajectory.
History is replete with warnings: Thailand’s repeated coups, Indonesia’s New Order under Suharto, Myanmar’s current descent into military tyranny. The lesson is simple—militaries grow unruly when fed too much power and too little accountability. A 5 percent defense budget is a blank cheque for the resurgence of authoritarianism in uniform.
ASEAN’s True Security Priorities
What ASEAN truly needs is not more missiles and frigates, but more investment in climate resilience, green transition, pandemic preparedness, and digital governance. These are the issues that define 21st-century security. Not great power rivalry, not obsolete notions of deterrence rooted in Cold War military build-ups.
Moreover, ASEAN’s own security doctrine—codified through the Zone of Peace, Freedom, and Neutrality (ZOPFAN) and the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation (TAC)—prioritizes diplomacy, neutrality, and peaceful settlement of disputes. These principles are not weaknesses; they are ASEAN’s greatest strengths. They allow it to convene summits, lead dialogue, and remain a vital pivot in global diplomacy.
Forcing ASEAN to abandon these principles to pursue a Pentagon-decreed arms race would destroy the very foundation of its regional centrality.
Weaponising Debt and Dependence
There is also a geopolitical irony at play. By pushing ASEAN nations to spend excessively on defense, the US risks pushing them into unsustainable debt, which could paradoxically make them even more dependent on Chinese credit, markets, and capital. Washington’s zero-sum logic forgets that financial overreach and economic overextension have been the undoing of empires—from Athens to the Soviet Union. It is unlikely that countries like Malaysia, Vietnam, or Indonesia would be willing to replicate this mistake in the name of a war that is not theirs to fight.
Conclusion: ASEAN Will Not March to America’s Drumbeat
No matter how hard Washington insists, ASEAN countries will not become pawns in a confrontation they did not start and do not want. ASEAN is not NATO. Its members are not vassal states. They are sovereign nations with strategic cultures grounded in prudence, pragmatism, and peaceful coexistence.
If the United States truly seeks a stable and secure Indo-Pacific, it must work with ASEAN on its terms—not by issuing defense spending ultimatums, but by supporting inclusive regionalism, multilateral cooperation, and sustainable development.
Upping defense spending to 5 percent of GDP is not strategy. It is lunacy. And ASEAN must resist it with every diplomatic tool it has.
Phar Kim Beng, PhD, is Professor of ASEAN Studies at the International Islamic University Malaysia and a Cambridge Commonwealth Fellow.
** The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the position of Astro AWANI.