United States Security Strategy For The East Asia Pacific Region

Enunciates America's basic principles, strategy & vision for Asia-Pacific security. The 1998 East Asia Strategy Report outlines a multifaced regional security strategy. It includes: maintaining comprehensive engagement: "presence plus"; enhancing our regional relationships; promotion of democracy & regional security; proliferation of weapons of mass destruction; the search for comprehensive security; transnational security challenges for the 21st century; & sustaining U.S. engagement: U.S. strategic vision for a new century. Illustrated.

Ongoing shifts in geopolitical power from West to East make the Asia-Pacific region more important to the United States today than ever before. The region is already an engine of the global economy, and major Asian countries are becoming global economic and political actors. Yet, as Asia's importance has grown over the last decade, Washington has often been focused elsewhere. The Obama administration needs a more active approach to the Asia-Pacific region that recognizes the new geopolitical realities and positions the United States to deal effectively with the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead. Such a strategy must build upon America's long-standing positive engagement in Asia and articulate a vision that can advance U.S. interests and attract support from countries in the region.

Ongoing shifts in geopolitical power from West to East make the Asia-Pacific region more important to the United States today than ever before. The region is already an engine of the global economy, and major Asian countries are becoming global economic and political actors. Yet, as Asia's importance has grown over the last decade, Washington has often been focused elsewhere. The Obama administration needs a more active approach to the Asia-Pacific region that recognizes the new geopolitical realities and positions the United States to deal effectively with the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead. Such a strategy must build upon America's long-standing positive engagement in Asia and articulate a vision that can advance U.S. interests and attract support from countries in the region.

Barack Obama’s "rebalancing" or "pivot" strategy, intended to demonstrate continued US commitment to the Asia-Pacific region in a variety of military, economic, and diplomatic contexts, was launched with much fanfare in 2011. Implicit in the new strategy is both a focus on China – engagement with, and containment of – and a heavy reliance by the United States on its existing friends and allies in the region in order to implement its strategy. This book explores the impact of the new strategy on America’s regional friends and allies. It shows how these governments are working with Washington to advance and protect their distinct national interests, while at the same time avoiding any direct confrontation with China. It also addresses the reasons why many of these regional actors harbour concerns about the ability of the US to sustain the pivot strategy in the long run. Overall, the book illustrates the deep complexities of the United States’ exercise of power and influence in the region.

From the war on terror to the rise of China, this book unlocks the major strategic themes and security challenges of the early twenty-first century. Strategy and Security in the Asia-Pacific provides the analytical frameworks needed to make sense of this complex but exciting strategic universe. Offering a unique mix of global strategic thinking and Asia-Pacific security analysis, this book is for readers from Sydney to Seoul who want to put their own local security challenges in a wider regional and global context. It is also for North American and European readers requiring an understanding of the dynamic security developments in the Asia-Pacific region around which so much of global strategy is increasingly based. The really vital questions facing the international community are dealt with here: Why do governments and groups still use armed force? Has warfare really changed in the information age? Why should we be concerned about non-traditional security challenges such as water shortages and the spread of infectious disease? Is a great clash imminent between the United States and China? What are the prospects for peace on the Korean peninsula and between India and Pakistan? Can Southeast Asia survive the challenges of transnational terrorism? What does security mean for the Pacific island countries and for Australia and New Zealand? With contributions from leading commentators and analysts, Strategy and Security in the Asia-Pacific offers a comprehensive and authoritative introduction to the field.