The US says ships and submarines trump summits. South-east Asia politely says ‘no’

SINGAPORE – On a day dominated by talks of strategic stability and maritime security, Nobel Peace Prize winner Jose Ramos-Horta had a simple but sharp rejoinder to the idea that military hardware matters more than dialogue.

Delivering a special address at the 23rd Shangri-La Dialogue (SLD) on May 30, the Timor-Leste President pointed out that when nations race to raise their defence spending, they struggle to spend the same on factors that may actually prevent conflict.

“A missile can deter an adversary but cannot hold back the sea. A tank can defend a border, but it cannot restore a failed harvest,” Ramos-Horta said. “A submarine can patrol an ocean, but it cannot rebuild trust in a society displaced by disaster and conflict.”

The remarks landed just hours after US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth denigrated summits such as the SLD as being inferior to military hardware. They neatly captured the many ways South-east Asian countries diplomatically pushed back against Washington over the course of the weekend.

“Alliances are not judged by the number of flags but by the number of formations. We don’t need more conferences; we need more combat power,” Hegseth said in the first plenary session on May 30.

“I’m sorry to say this here, but less Shangri-La – more ships, more subs,” he said, as he excoriated the US’ European allies for what he termed “freeloading” on American taxpayers’ military spending.

According to him, “those who long for peace must prepare for war”.

Ramos-Horta, the peacebuilder, had a different idea. “(Peace) requires defence, yes, but it also requires prevention. It requires national strength but also practical cooperation across borders through patient diplomacy,” he said.

He added that peace also requires rules and trust. The same two concepts had featured prominently the night before in the keynote address by Vietnamese President To Lam, as he called for nations to address what he described as a deepening crisis of strategic trust.

Lam had stressed that the SLD itself was one of the pathways to remedy this.

“The Shangri-La Dialogue should remain a platform where nations listen carefully to one another, clarify intentions, seek common ground and manage differences, not merely one for restating positions,” he said.

How South-east Asia ranks in the US’ eyes

Hegseth’s remarks earned stifled snorts from some delegates – inside and outside the ballroom where they were delivered. Yet they dominated conversations that The Straits Times had with delegates on the sidelines of the SLD.

Of particular note was his roll call of “model allies” – countries the US considers to have stepped up in sharing the burden of regional defence. This was either by raising their core military spending closer to the NATO benchmark of 3.5 per cent of their gross domestic product (GDP) or by increasing their commitment to security in the region.

The order of the roll call said something. Among ASEAN members, the Philippines came closest to the top, with Hegseth lauding President Ferdinand Marcos Jr for raising its defence budget by 12 per cent. Manila increased its 2025 defence budget by 12.3 per cent to 271.9 billion pesos (S$5.6 billion) – just around 1 per cent of its 2025 GDP. It has raised the defence budget by a further 8.6 per cent for 2026.

Singapore was praised for “punching above its weight”. Indonesia followed, having signed a major defence cooperation partnership with the US in April. Hegseth did not mention it, but Jakarta had also signed a controversial letter of intent for the blanket sharing of its airspace with the US.

Then came Malaysia – praised twice. The first was for leading the ASEAN observer team deployment to monitor the Thai-Cambodian border. The second was a broader commendation for supporting what Hegseth called US President Donald Trump’s “historic peace deal” in the region.

That double mention prompted one Malaysian delegate to remark that Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s viral dance with Trump on the airport tarmac ahead of the ASEAN Summit in Kuala Lumpur in October 2025 “may have worked after all”.

Yet there was also unease. One Malaysian delegate raised concern that the US may use this new ranking of defence spending as leverage in trade negotiations – much as tariffs had been wielded before.

Tricia Yeoh, director of the Asian Institute for Policy and Engagement at the University of Nottingham Malaysia, told ST that smaller states may not be able to commit financially while grappling domestically with other fiscal pressures.

“While security and trade are increasingly intertwined, using one as leverage for the other may go against the very international rules-based order principles the US seeks to protect,” she said on the sidelines of the SLD.

The concerns were not unfounded. Malaysian Defence Minister Mohamed Khaled Nordin was pressed to clarify to the domestic media what exactly Putrajaya’s commitment meant. With nearly RM22 billion (S$7 billion) allocated to defence in Budget 2026, this amounted to just around 1 per cent of its RM2 trillion GDP.

“Like Malaysia, we take care of our own defence, and because we are neutral, we receive many programmes from many countries to build our capacity. We don’t really depend on other countries to help us in our defence,” he told reporters on the sidelines on May 30.

“We must make sure that we are capable ourselves,” he added, referring to Hegseth’s assertion that the US will now only help countries that help themselves.

Khaled reiterated in a plenary session on May 31 that, as a developing country, Malaysia has to be judicious with its spending rather than racing to meet the US’ spending recommendation. This came even as it discussed with the US an alternative to a naval missile system contract cancelled by Norway, despite Malaysia having already paid €126 million (S$188 million) towards it.

“If America asks NATO to increase its spending, we can understand. But for a country like Malaysia, a not wealthy country, we have other sectors that we need to develop,” he said in a reply during his plenary session.

Vietnam came last among its regional neighbours in Hegseth’s list, but only because he wished to draw a contrast between Hanoi’s military modernisation efforts and its communist political system. This meant Thailand was effectively at the practical bottom of the rankings.

Would that worry Bangkok? Not necessarily.

With the country already reeling from political instability and a sluggish economy, opting out of a US-driven defence commitment may actually “allow Thailand room to manoeuvre its strategic interest”, Seksan Anantasirikiat, adviser to Thailand’s Regional Studies Association, said on the sidelines of the SLD.

Room for South-east Asian-centric solution

Scepticism towards Washington’s spending benchmarks does not mean South-east Asian countries are ignoring strategic stability or maritime security, particularly in the South China Sea.

The Philippines, for one, has warned that it has not felt any let-up in pressure from China, despite warming ties between Beijing and Washington following the Trump-Xi summit.

Philippine Secretary of National Defence Gilberto Teodoro Jr said the US and China can have respect for each other as they see each other as military equals. Countries such as the Philippines have no such luxury, he told Reuters in an interview on the sidelines of the SLD.

“We are a smaller country. It would be foolhardy for us to initiate any encounters,” he replied during his plenary session on May 31, when a Chinese academic accused the Philippines of sending personnel to occupy uninhabited island reefs in the South China Sea.

“Unfortunately, the encounters are caused by an occupant without any right or any legitimate claim,” he added.

Ramos-Horta, meanwhile, expressed faith that a Code of Conduct for the South China Sea would eventually be realised, but also challenged his regional neighbours over their ambition to declare it a “zone of peace”.

“That’s not necessarily that everyone has to abandon their legitimate historical and legal claims, but do not allow these claims to freeze initiatives that would build confidence and lessen tensions,” he said.

In his keynote, Lam similarly reminded the audience that the seas provide more than strategic advantage – they provide livelihoods, and no country benefits when maritime routes become “theatres of coercion, confrontation or displays of power”.

It was a point echoed by the Indonesian National Armed Forces Chief of Staff on Territorial Affairs, Lieutenant-General Bambang Trisnohadi, in a plenary session on littoral security: “A secure coastline begins with a secure coastal population.”

With the South China Sea a perennial issue for South-east Asia, the best solution would be one that comes from within – echoing Lam’s call for the Asia-Pacific to tackle the polycrisis behind the current global instability.

Seksan told ST: “The ASEAN way is the most preferable solution, but (the) political will of relevant stakeholders also matters.

“There is an urgent need to foster confidence-building measures to avoid any miscalculation and misperception. In principle, ASEAN should reaffirm its opposition towards any unilateral action in the area.”

In his speech during the plenary session, Khaled conceded that South-east Asian nations are under mounting pressure to take sides. Both the US and China are intensifying their competition for influence in the economic, military and institutional domains in the region.

“ASEAN was never built upon coercion. ASEAN was never built upon dominance. And ASEAN was never built upon transactional politics,” he stressed.

There is an argument for making the SLD more South-East Asian-centric, as even Ramos-Horta, the region’s most eloquent advocate for dialogue over deterrence, conceded the limits of ASEAN’s forum format.

“ASEAN has too many meetings. Our officials are tired of it,” he said to some laughter when asked how he would reform the grouping. “But that is the cost of multilateralism. Everyone has something to offer; everyone has to be heard.”

Asked by Nikkei commentator Hiroyuki Akita during the concluding plenary session the familiar question of whether ASEAN is pro-US or pro-China, Singapore’s Defence Minister Chan Chun Sing said unequivocally, to applause: “We are not pro-US or anti-US. We are not pro-China or anti-China. We are pro-ASEAN.”

He added: “So sitting here, I thought of a limerick:

“Words without action, nothing is achieved.

“Action without communication, trust is destroyed.

“No action, no communication, everything is impossible.

“Action and communication, nothing is impossible.”