Refers to a concept closely related to the family of confidence- and security-building measures. While TBMs is not a new term — in fact it was used as long ago as the Camp David process in the Middle East — some scholars have suggested they offer a “more indigenous” Asia-Pacific alternative to confidence-building measures (CBMs) or confidence- and security-building measures (CSBMs).

Trust-building measures were the subject of the first ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) inter-sessional seminar held in Canberra in November 1994. The term has been used extensively by Paul Dibb, Head of the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre (SDSC) at the Australian National University, and chair of the 1994 meeting. According to Dibb, “dialogue and political trust are necessary preconditions for developing specific security measures” in the Asia-Pacific. His understanding of TBMs includes both military and non-military measures designed to promote that trust. Dibb argues that “multilateral security dialogue is itself the first and perhaps most important regional trust-building measure.”

Dibb suggests that specific TBMs discussed by the ARF and the ARF-Senior Officials Meetings (SOMs) fall into two groups: those that involve information-sharing; and those that require specific measures of constraint. Of these two types, he groups TBMs into three baskets. Measures in Basket 1 include exchanges of strategic perceptions; military-to-military contacts; observers at military exercises (on a voluntary basis); and participation in the United Nations Conventional Arms Register. These measures should be “relatively easy” to get agreement on. Basket 2 measures include exploration of a regional arms register; the establishment of a regional security studies centre; the publication of Defence White Papers; and the creation of maritime information databases. Dibb labels these as a “little less easy” and says they would need to be implemented in the medium term. Basket 3 measures, the most difficult to implement, include notification of major military exercises and maritime surveillance cooperation. Like CBMs and CSBMs, trust-building measures have the broad objective of promoting confidence, reducing uncertainty, misperception, and suspicion in the region and lowering the chances of armed conflict occurring.