The Military Situation in the Asia-Pacific Region

　

 Characteristic of the Asia-Pacific region is geographical and historical diversity During the Cold war, there was no structure of military confrontation to match that in Europe, where the East-West opposition took the form of collective security systems constructed by each camp. Instead, the main emphasis was on the formation of bilateral alliances with either the United States or the Soviet Union.

 After the end of the Cold War, the United States has maintained its presence in the region. However, Russian quantitative strength has been in consistent decline. In the early 1990s, the Republic of Korea established diplomatic relations with Russia and then with China, and the United States normalized its diplomatic relations with Viet Nam. And there has been a considerable improvement in Sino-Russian relations. Most of the border disputes between them were settled.

 Nevertheless, military forces remain present in the region on enormous scale, including nuclear weapons. Issues that remain unresolved include the continuing tension on the Korean Peninsula, Taiwan Straits, the Spratly Islands and so on. Given such circumstances, bilateral alliances and friendly relations centering on the United States, and the presence of U.S. Forces continue to play an important role in maintaining the peace and stability in the region. In recent years, interest in the political and security issues of the region provides greater opportunities for bilateral military exchanges such as those between the United States and China, and between Russia and China. Meanwhile, multilateral dialogue on regional security, such as the ASEAN Regional Forum(ARF), are also taking root.

　

Multilateral Dialogue in East Asia

　

 Attempts at comprehensive regional stabilization along the lines of steps taken in Europe to bring about arms control and disarmament are absent in East Asia. But in recent years, interest in its own political and security issues has grown within the region itself, in turn bringing an increase in opportunities for bilateral military exchange and encouraging attempt at multilateral dialogue on regional security.

 The ASEAN Regional Forum(ARF) provides the arena for the region's attempt at multilateral dialogue. At the ASEAN Foreign Ministerial Conference and the ASEAN Post Ministerial Conference of July 1993, 17 countries and the former European Communities agreed that the ARF should be established as a forum for dialogue on political and security matters in the Asia-Pacific region. The ARF meeting has since been held on an annual basis since the first meeting in July 1994, with the member of participants gradually rising. During high working level talks in May 2000, North Korea's application for admission into ARF was judged as something that would contribute to the development of ARF and peace and stability in the region.

 In its present state, the ARF can hardly be described as a regional security framework on the European model, and its progress is only moderate. But it provides a unique arena in the Asia-Pacific region for cooperative dialogue on the politics and security of the region as a whole in which the foreign ministers of all countries participate. It is also crucial in the sense that it allows for a variety of intergovernmental meetings to take place with the participation of defense officials. The ARF is now expected to host more serious discussions of approaches to prevent diplomacy, and attention will be focused on how effective it is in finding solutions to the region's security issues.

　

Effectiveness of Security Dialogue and Cooperative Security

　

 An international political and security dialogue is effective in maintaining peace and stability. Promoting political and security dialogue would ease mutual distrust and alleviate complicated historical problems among the countries concerned. In Northeast Asia, China, Russia and Japan are historical rivals.

 The significance and effectiveness of political and security dialogue is to promote mutual understanding of threat perceptions held by the countries. By increasing communications among participating countries, worst case scenario and security dilemma can be avoided. Contact without communication would bring frictions to the region. Considering the fact that one's own security cannot be ensured without taking into account the security of other states, the significance of multilateral security dialogue cannot be neglected. Moreover, sustained security dialogues are expected to help develop confidence-building and conflict-preventing measures that are indispensable pillars for a multilateral, cooperative security regime.

 A cooperative security regime in East Asia, built on the basis of political and security dialogues among regional states and resultant confidence-building measures, can mitigate an inherent defect observed in alliance system. Depending on its managements, the alliance, whose fundamental function is deterrence and defense, tends to give rise to unnecessary misunderstandings and anxieties among third parties and has the potential to provoke an arms race. This is because a country that comes to believe it has been targeted by the reaction to the April 1996 U.S. -Japan Joint Declaration on Security and subsequent works on the review of the Guideline for U.S.-Japan Defense Cooperation. Conducting political and security dialogue is one promising measure to dispel such misunderstandings. Besides, if region-wide confidence-building and conflict-preventing measures built by sustained security dialogues among regional states grow to function as stabilizing institutions, relations among regional states are likely to be less hostile.

　

Problems of Security Dialogue and Cooperative Security

　

 However, it is not easy to make political and security dialogue effective and workable. It is true that bilateral political and security dialogues could not alleviate mutual distrust and help resolve various problems rooted in hostile and confrontational history, but bilateral dialogues are liable to reach mutual understanding of interests and tend to give rise to suspicion on other states. In order to achieve the objectives of security dialogues, one of which is to enhance transparency of political intentions and defense policy, a security dialogue forum that involves all regional major powers should be created. Similarly, it is not easy to build necessary norms of conduct between regional states that can develop into confidence-building and conflict-preventing measures. All the major powers involved in East Asian affairs do not always give their all-out support to building these processes. The United States is not positive about going as far as establishing CBMs in the military field despite that the United States has evolved into a supporter of multilateral security cooperation. This is because, in sharp contrast to Europe, East Asia's strategic environment is essentially maritime, so that any military-related CBMs in the region could lead to rules and regulations on U.S. naval operations.

 Also, China is not enthusiastic in institutionalizing the agreed-upon agenda in political and security forums. China carries considerable historical experiences to its contemporary international involvement. Because of their experience of suffering from semi-colonization in the latter half of the 19^th century and confusion in the former half of the 20^th century China's leaders stick to sovereignty as sacred, and power as essential, tends to avoid international norms and regulations for fear that they might infringe on China's sovereignty and freedom of maneuver externally. In addition, China's clear preference for bilateral rather than multilateral approaches to resolving its international conflicts, which has been shaped by China's increasing confidence in its power, diminishes the prospects for an effective promoting regional stability and cooperative security. But Chinese officials argue for establishing a cooperative security regime based on the long-standing Chinese formula called the "Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence" and voluntary arms control. Here again a tendency can be observed that China likes to assert its own rules and norms, rather than to be constructive at the rule-making tables of regional security forums.

 Moreover, military-related CBMs that are indispensable for a multilateral cooperative security regime are hard to establish in East Asia where the United States alone enjoys powerful power projection capabilities. The necessity for CBMs arises in an international security environment where each of power projection-capable state holds its own sphere of influence.

 More importantly, any type of multilateral cooperative security should not be regarded as an attempt to supplant deterrence and defense mechanisms. This is because a multilateral security institution as the ultimate security guarantor, as opposed to cooperative security regime whose mission at best is to maintain and improve the security environment, is not likely to materialize. Among various cooperative security frameworks, collective security is the only concept that directly tries to deal with actual military conflict. However, the logic of collective security is fatally flawed and the working assumptions are so demanding and idealistic that the plausibility for its success is simply negated. Firstly, a collective security concept does not fully consider the fact that nation state cannot help being self centered in the real world without any supra-national authority to control sovereign states. Collective security demands a spirit of self-sacrifice and surrender of national egoism, both of which cannot be expected on every occasion. Secondly, as an operational defect, there can be a military conflict, such as one over disputed territory, that is difficult to judge if invasion is really occurred and thus collective military sanctions cannot be easily employed. In addition, if a trouble maker is a military powerful state, other member states would find it difficult to cope with it.

 Another weaker point of multilateral cooperative regime is found in its inherent fragility. Although any cooperative regime purports to facilitate cooperation among member states, it is at the same time a scheme in which interests of respective member states collide with each other. Owing to this, a multilateral cooperative institution tends to be neutralized by the difference in relative gains or unilateral actions by an influential member state. This risk applies to a cooperative regime on security, compared to a cooperative regime on trade and economy where conflicts of interests among member states do not have direct impact on security. In fact, looking back in history since 19^th century a regime of multilateral political and security cooperation was created whenever major wars were terminated. However, regardless of its nature and formula, based on either a concept of powers or more idealistic concept, such a regime malfunctioned as time passed because of emerging clashes of interests among major powers.

　

Northeast Asian Strategic Environment in the 21^st Century

　

 It is not easy to build a multilateral cooperative security regime and, even if created, it is likely to be powerless in dealing with actual military conflicts. Furthermore, as history shows, the function as well as the fate of a multilateral cooperative security regime will be at the mercy of major powers. In terms of its role in maintaining regional peace and stability, a cooperative security regime can at best play a role of easing confrontational relations and alleviating the exclusiveness of alliance systems.

 East Asian states are required to visualize measures to make the shift of power balance a peaceful one. In order to achieve this, East Asian countries must facilitate the process by which China integrate itself into the regional affairs.

 Besides, since a rising major power seeks to change status quo and to establish new political arrangements that more accurately reflect its expanded power and influence. Chinese do not forget that before 19^th century, China was a hegemon in East Asia.

 At the same time, however, whether through its own resources or with the help of other countries, each East Asian country should maintain a viable but non-provocative deterrence and defense mechanism that assures regional peace and tranquility. Nothing but viable and non-provocative deterrence and defense mechanism can assure peaceful and incremental change of power balance. Among the deterrence and defense mechanism in East Asia, the U.S.-Japan alliance is the most powerful and endurable one that enables stationing of U.S. force in the region. And the U.S. force is the only force whose presence is welcomed as an indispensable stabilizer by most East Asian countries. In this sense, the security benefits derived from the maintenance of the U.S.-Japan alliance is not confined merely to bilateral relations, but extended to East Asia as a whole.