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The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is one of the greatest challenges of our lifetime. Quite appropriately, the pandemic has been declared a non-traditional security (NTS) threat in many countries in Europe and Asia. Beyond its detrimental effect on public health, COVID-19 is testing the international resolve to cooperate and represents a particularly tricky challenge to regionalism. Due to the nature of pandemics, regional pandemic management is imperative. However, the two most successful regional organisations, the European Union (EU) and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), have not been able to match the resolve of their individual member states, and there is a substantial gap between timely and robust national pandemic management and inadequacy at the regional level. This is a paradox that merits further investigation. To what extent and why diverged early national and early regional responses to COVID-19? This article identifies a causal relationship between robust national pandemic management as a result of early securitisation and ensuing paralysis on regional level, a process which I call the 'selffulfilling prophecy of realism'-a vicious cycle of national self-help responses paralysing regional cooperation. This article contributes early to the impact of COVID-19 on regionalism by analysing EU and ASEAN pandemic management efforts, investigating what has hindered or facilitated successful regional cooperation and identifying room for meaningful interregionalism.

The Covid-19 pandemic is a global challenge calling for a global response. But the actual responses of states, while exhibiting considerable international cooperation, are predominantly competitive and self-centered. This raises important questions about the utility of our basic intellectual tools—in the form of International Relations Theory (IRT)—for understanding the pattern of these responses. IRT analyzes inter-state dynamics and explains the extent to which states and institutions do or do not cooperate. This critique focuses on theories that stress competition (realism), those that focus on cooperation (liberalism) and those emphasising ideational constructions that could go either way (constructivism and normative theory). It seeks to elucidate the relative strengths of these theories—what they can tell us and what they cannot—in understanding responses to the current pandemic. It concludes that, while all the identified approaches have something to offer, realist theory, which highlights the prioritization of national interests over collective action, provides the most optimal approach for a full understanding of global responses to Covid-19. The analysis helps draw lessons for policy responses to this and other global crises, such as climate change.

The rise of and increasing assertiveness by China presents a significant structural challenge in the Indo-Pacific region (IPR). In an effort to retain the status quo, a number of states have signed-up to the ‘free and open Indo-Pacific’ (FOIP). In support of FOIP, operational mechanisms have emerged—most importantly the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad). The United States, Japan, Australia and India have come together in this informal format to exchange views on current security challenges and coordinate their strategic approaches. This article analyses both form and function of Quad and argues that both the diplomatic and military arrangements between Quad members are a direct response to ever-increasing Chinese assertiveness. Alongside a detailed empirical analysis of Quad, this paper addresses the question why Quad 2.0 will thrive although previous attempts at security networks failed. Balance of threat theory will illuminate why informal quasi-alliances vis-à-vis China are going to be the structural new normal for the IPR.