Thailand, Indonesia and Myanmar have three of Southeast Asia’s largest militaries. They are also countries in which the dominance of the army has likely diminished the navy’s growth prospects.
With Southeast Asian nations facing a deteriorating external security environment and increasing Chinese maritime assertiveness, many commentators have predicted a widespread naval expansion in the region. Yet to date these predictions have fallen short. Instead, there has been a stagnation in Southeast Asian naval development. This can, with some irony, be explained by examining the region’s armies.
While there have been some capability increases across Southeast Asian navies, such as in submarines, most of the growth has been isolated to smaller classes such as patrol boats and fast attack craft. The number of larger offshore surface combatants — like frigates — have fallen across the board. In personnel terms, Southeast Asian navies remain proportionally small — on average about a fifth of the size of their army brethren. By contrast, Western navies are on average close to half the size of their land force counterparts.