What Are the Key Security Challenges Faced by the Southeast Asian States?

What are the Key Security Challenges Faced by the Southeast Asian states?
The states that make up the region of Southeast Asia play a significant role in both economic and security issues throughout all of Asia. Though Southeast Asia as a region is largely an artificial academic construction, the states involved are commonly understood to be Thailand, Burma, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Brunei and East Timor. While many of the members of Southeast Asia vary greatly in their political structure or economic production, the region does share a large amount of similar security issues. The key security challenges that threaten Southeast Asia vary by state but primarily remain in the sphere of non-traditional security. The security challenges that are most commonly seen in SEA are dissident or terrorist groups, ethnic and religious tensions, IDPs(internally displaced people), drug trafficking, maritime piracy and territorial disputes. The demographics of many of these states as well as rampant poverty allow for these dissident groups and transnational criminals to continue to thrive somewhat unhampered. While all of the security challenges mentioned are very significant, the most significant threats to the future stability and growth of SEA are terrorist groups, global warming and the outcome of the political jousting in the region between the United States and China.
While many of the security threats facing the countries of SEA are similar, it is important to understand that the region is an artificial construct made up of very different ethnic, cultural, and linguistic groups. Apart from demographics the states themselves are also very different, from their political and economic systems to their size and power disparities. As a result, it is difficult to consider the same security threats for Laos, a small landlocked country with a nominal GDP of $9.269 billion, to Singapore, a city state economic hub with a nominal GDP of

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