Reassessing Security Cooperation In The Asia Pacific

Experts examine changing security arrangements in the Asia-Pacific region, particularly the rise of multilateral efforts at cooperative security.

New developments in the Asia Pacific are forcing regional officials to rethink the way they manage security issues. The contributors to this work explore why some forms of security cooperation and institutionalisation in the region have proven more feasible than others. This work describes the emergence of the professions in late tsarist Russia and their struggle for autonomy from the aristocratic state. It also examines the ways in which the Russian professions both resembled and differed from their Western counterparts.

This book traces changes in the concept of security in Asia from realist to cooperative, comprehensive, and human security approaches, and assesses a number of policy alternatives to management of both old and new security threats. It surveys not only orthodox security threats such as tensions between regional powers or armed ethnic antagonists but also new sources of anxiety such as resource scarcity, economic instability, irregular migration, community fragmentation, and international terrorism. Security policies of major powers such as China, Japan, and the United States, and the moderating roles of regional organizations such as ASEAN, ARF, SCO, and KEDO are evaluated in historical and contemporary perspectives. Contributors proffer policy-relevant insights where appropriate. The book concludes that traditional security approaches remain valid but need to be adapted to the new challenges, and offers suggestions for incorporating fresh Asian security perceptions into the agendas of policy-makers, analysts, and scholars.

Long divided by cultural, economic, and political differences, the Asia-Pacific region has little history of multilateral cooperation. Alliances that once linked individual countries with one or the other superpower fostered deep mistrust among neighbouring states. The end of the Cold War, however, has created new opportunities for multilateral coo

The security architecture of the Asia/Pacific region is in a profound transformation. Such changes are not without problems, which are discussed here.

Report and commentary on the Second Conderence on Security Cooperation in Asia-Pacific.

These essays, written between 1990 and 2000, cover the most significant phase of multilateral institution-building in the Asia Pacific region. Addressing the most challenging issues of regional order, the book articulates an institutionalist understanding of the international relations of the Asia Pacific and should be useful to both schools and policy-makers interested in Asia Pacific security.