Cooperating in the Energy Security Regime Complex

Existing work on energy security tends to overemphasise the prospect of competition and
conflict over resources while under-exploring the promise of cooperation among global
and regional economies. Viewing energy security through the spectre of armed conflict
traps policy planners in a zero-sum analysis, which strongly suggests that the energy
security of one country can only be achieved at the expense of another. Yet such a
conclusion is fundamentally flawed, since it ignores the increasingly complex
interdependence in the energy and product trade chain among countries, globally and
regionally.
This paper provides an analytical framework for understanding and explaining energy
security and highlights some building blocks for crafting energy cooperation in East Asia.
There is no integrated regime to address issues related to energy security. Instead, there
is a patchwork of loosely coupled rules, regulations and institutions, overlapping and
sometimes competing, which amount to a regime complex.
Since efforts to build a comprehensive energy security regime – one governed by a single
authority – are unlikely to be politically feasible, it is most likely that such a regime complex
will persist. Framing energy security as a regime complex raises important policy
implications that need to be addressed. This paper asserts that an energy security regime
complex may have advantages over any integrated regime, most notably in terms of
adaptability, flexibility and voice. These features are particularly pertinent in an
environment of high vulnerability and uncertainty.