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Final month, Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam carried out the first-ever iteration of a joint rescue drill between them, an train that was years within the works. Although the interplay was simply certainly one of many developments throughout the ties between these three mainland Southeast Asian nations, it nonetheless spotlighted ongoing efforts by the three nations to spice up trilateral protection cooperation between them, regardless of lingering bilateral challenges and an more and more complicated and contested regional and international setting.
Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam, three mainland Southeast Asian nations with a posh historical past and a few unresolved border administration points between them, have nonetheless been working by means of methods to handle shared alternatives and challenges by means of a variety of cooperative mechanisms. Whereas this had initially been formed by means of economics-focused mechanisms such because the Cambodia-Laos-Vietnam (CLV) improvement triangle space, there have additionally been efforts to construct out safety cooperation throughout their militaries in addition to different actors together with legislatures.
That is occurring amid different evolving dynamics, together with China’s rising protection hyperlinks with Cambodia, as evidenced by its presence on the nation’s Ream Naval Base, and Vietnam’s personal efforts to spice up safety ties with Cambodia and Laos. It is usually a working example relating to how, amid the concentrate on minilateral mechanisms just like the Quad or AUKUS, Southeast Asian states themselves have additionally tried to develop numerous safety configurations of their very own with a view to advance their very own pursuits.
Final month, this manifested with the holding of the first-ever joint rescue drill of its variety between the three nations. The drill in query, which happened in Naxaithong district in Laos’ Vientiane prefecture, had been an final result of the Cambodia-Laos-Vietnam protection ministers’ assembly that was held in Hanoi again in 2019, the place the respective nations all agreed to prepare a collection of interactions and actions to spice up their safety ties. Per The Vientiane Instances, the train noticed the participation of practically 500 troops from the three militaries, with personnel performing search and rescue work pertaining to floods, landslides, and collapsed building with poisonous chemical substances. The closing ceremony of the train was attended by the protection ministers of the three nations and the internet hosting chief, Lao President Thongloun Sisoulith, and members had been in a position to watch an indication and go to a simulated area hospital.
The interplay just isn’t with out significance. As talked about, that is the first-ever joint rescue drill of its variety between the three nations, and whereas it comes years after it was agreed and after an ebb in reside engagements on account of COVID-19, it nonetheless is notable on this respect. Extra usually, it spotlights the rising trilateral protection cooperation between these nations, in a context the place neighborly relations stay essential, as evidenced by the newest protection white papers of Vietnam and Cambodia, revealed in 2019 and 2022, respectively.
The content material of this collaboration was evident within the interactions between the three protection ministers held on September 14 in Vientiane, the place they addressed a variety of subjects together with rising exchanges between their militaries in border area provinces in addition to enhancing coordination in responding to non-traditional safety challenges similar to human and drug trafficking and smuggling. This additionally supplied a window into upcoming engagements, together with Vietnam’s promotion of a global protection exhibition to be held by its protection ministry in Hanoi in December.
To make sure, what precisely this implies for wider trilateral cooperation and the way it will evolve sooner or later stays unclear. Trilateral protection cooperation between Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam has so far developed fairly regularly, and it has typically taken a number of years for extra bold strategic concepts to take maintain even because the density of engagements and interactions on the bottom will increase in areas like border exchanges. Moreover, whereas official public readouts might play up the progress made inside trilateral cooperation, they’ll additionally understate the numerous challenges that stay. These embody lingering border administration and warfare legacy-related points that may sometimes flare up, the better geopolitical penetration of mainland Southeast Asia by different powers together with China, and the balancing acts that Laos and Cambodia are performing relative to their bigger mainland Southeast Asian neighbor inside trilateral ties and the dynamics of these uneven relationships.
Nonetheless, developments on this entrance will probably be essential to observe within the coming months and years. Whereas it’s little doubt essential to proceed to evaluate the results of intensifying main energy competitors on mainland Southeast Asia within the wake of developments similar to U.S.-China rivalry and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it’s equally important to pay shut consideration to the evolution of intraregional dynamics as properly and the engagements that they produce. Other than the sensible contributions that these engagements could make in advancing capacity-building and selling better belief, they’ll additionally reveal particulars concerning the indigenous initiatives being superior by particular person nations to reply to the alternatives and challenges that they see of their geopolitical setting.
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