NTS-Asia Consortium was launched in January 2007 as a network of think tanks and research organisations working on non-traditional security (NTS) issues. The RSIS NTS Centre leads and coordinates this Consortium as its Secretariat, headed by Associate Professor Mely Caballero-Anthony as its Secretary-General.
The aims of the consortium are as follows:
- To develop a platform for networking and intellectual exchange between regional NTS scholars and analysts
- To build long-term and sustainable regional capacity for research on NTS issues
- To mainstream and advance the field of non-traditional security studies in Asia
- To collate and manage a regional database of NTS publications and other resources
NTS issues include the challenges to the survival and well-being of peoples and states that arise from non-military sources, such as climate change, resource scarcity, infectious diseases, natural disasters, irregular migration, food shortages, people smuggling, drug trafficking and transnational crime. These dangers are transnational in scope, defying unilateral remedies and requiring comprehensive – political, economic and social – responses, as well as the humanitarian use of military force. Non-traditional security studies also looks at the multi-dimensional civilian angle to security in conjunction with state, military and governmental actors.
