The ASEAN Regional Forum was founded as a venue and mechanism for ministerial-level consultation and dialogue among states in East Asia and others with interests in it on political and security issues in the Asia-Pacific. The only region-wide security forum for the Asia-Pacific, the ARF was established in the early 1990s in the light of and in response to the new regional security environment that had developed at the time. This new environment had emerged from the end of the Cold War, the break-up of the Soviet Union, the removal of United States forces from their bases in the Philippines, the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Cam Ranh Bay, the opening up of China and the accompanying surge in China's economy, military power and political influence, and Japan's policy foray into regional security multilateralism from an almost total dependence on the Japan-United States security treaty. Vietnamese forces had pulled out of Cambodia, the Cambodian conflict had been politically settled, and the Southeast Asian divide had been narrowed. At the same time, certain “flashpoints” remained in the region. This was an environment in which stability required not only traditional alliance-building and balance-of-power manoeuvers but also regional multilateral processes to supplement, if not supplant or transcend, them.

The ARF is neither a military alliance nor a defence pact. It has no adversary, actual or potential, against which to devise military plans, conduct military exercises, or direct weapon systems. Indeed, all possible adversaries in the Asia-Pacific are inside the ARF fold; that is the whole point of the forum. However, the principal reality and consideration from which the ARF proceeds is the fact that the strategic interests of the major participants differ and diverge, differences that produce misunderstandings and mutual suspicions, if not political, diplomatic or military collisions. The ARF's main objectives are to reduce the chances of these differences, misunderstandings and suspicions leading to conflict and to ensure that inter-state relations all around, especially among the major participants, progress towards a certain degree of stability. A related goal is to expand the area where their interests converge and cooperation becomes possible.

For this purpose, ASEAN, Japan and the so-called “middle powers”, Australia, Canada and New Zealand, succeeded in roping both China and the United States into the forum — to engage China in the regional security process and keep the United States engaged in it.