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For the last ten years, Japan and China have tried to work together toward a “mutually beneficial relationship” based on common strategic interests but have failed to accomplish this for a number of reasons. The two historical neighbors are separated by no more than a strip of water and have come a long way to be the third and the second largest economies in the world, respectively. Along with political economic aspects, relations between the two countries are of critical importance in regional and global security contexts. With that in mind, the following paper will: (1) overview trends in Sino–Japanese relations over the last ten years; (2) look at trends in China's military capabilities and activities and the implications; and (3) discuss key issues and courses of action for Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Asia-Pacific has seen the emergence of a new security dilemma, as geopolitical friction increases due to escalating crises. Significant tensions between China and many of its Asian neighbors have arisen due to maritime disputes, the North Korea nuclear crisis, and a military arms race. There are three main areas of the common security challenges in the Asia and Pacific region today: Chinese military growth, the U.S. military dominance and strategic “rebalance,” and conflicts or hot spots in the region. The future way out of the Asia-Pacific's current security dilemma depends heavily on how the U.S., China, and Japan can work together. This paper seeks to examine three issues: 1) the logic of China's military growth and how serious a threat it has posed to other countries in the region; 2) the major barriers that hold back military exchange programs between China and the U.S.; and 3) the intervening factor, the strengthening of a U.S.-Japan alliance and its repercussions for China. It will provide proposals to establish a collective framework including more specific security dialogues and cooperation in this region. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Despite calls over the years for the Asia-Pacific region, or some subset of it, to develop a regional security regime, no deliberate action to achieve this has been taken. This paper considers the possible ends of a regional security regime and the means towards achieving them. The ends themselves would differ according to whether any regime focused on security, traditionally and narrowly conceived, on comprehensive security or on human security. No matter which approach is taken, if the regime is to be successful in any sense beyond that of rhetoric, some of the region's cherished norms such as non-intervention as that is currently interpreted will have to be at least modified, if not completely scrapped. Even if the region collectively decides it needs a security regime and can agree on its ends, there are many alternative ways of achieving the ends and the processes of working out detailed rules will be difficult and time-consuming. None of this is to say that establishing a regional security regime will be impossible. It is to say that it will involve a lot of work, and a lot of compromise by state policy-makers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on regional identity and regional coordination in Pacific counties. Topics discussed include management of national security and international threats, collaboration with nongovernmental organizations, and Pacific regionalism. Also mentioned are personal experience of Greg Urwin, former Secretary-General of the Pacific Islands Forum, on regional identity, social and economic development of Pacific countries, and citizenship as regional identity.

The article discusses the impact of climate change on the armed forces in the Asia-Pacific region, focusing on Southeast Asia. The author argues that climate change will add burdens to the region's natural resources, the infrastructures of the region's political, economic, and social alignments, and increase domestic and foreign security threats. The author asserts that the increased threats and demands upon the political and economic systems of the region will add to the necessity of devoting military resources to humanitarian relief, domestic security, and policing maritime military actions. It is argued that the traditional application of national security does not apply because climate change can lead to the necessity to adapt military policy unconventionally.

This article explores changes in Japan's conception of and policy toward security multilateralism 1 in the Asia-Pacific region after the end of the Cold War with special reference to the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF). It makes the observation that notwithstanding Japan's active role behind the establishment of the ARF in the early 1990s and continuing public expression of strong support for Asia-Pacific security multilateralism since that time, in actuality, Japan's enthusiasm for it has dwindled from the late 1990s onwards. This article argues that this has been due primarily to Japan's disappointing experiences in the ARF, evinced by its abortive efforts to promote meaningful cooperative security measures and the failings of multilateral security diplomacy in addressing its security concerns. Consequently, Japan's conception of regional security multilateralism has shifted from an optimistic liberal to a more pessimistic realist perspective from which the ARF can, at best, be seen as a venue contributing only to a minimal level of confidence building among regional countries or, to put it more cynically, ‘a talking shop’. This has made Japan's ARF policy more tentative and less energetic. Japan's enthusiasm has also been diluted by a number of internal and external constraints on ARF policy, including US misgivings about Japan's tilt toward regional security multilateralism, its domestic organizational limitations, growing dissent within the Japanese government over the value of security multilateralism, the lack of political support for bureaucratic initiatives and the unexpected frictions between bilateral and multilateral security approaches in Japan's overall security policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Both the Hawke and Keating Labor governments (1983-96) gave some attention to the development of Asia-Pacific "security regionalism" as a means of strengthening the regional focus in Australia's security policies. While the rhetoric has changed, in terms of substance the Howard coalition government has continued many of the policies of its predecessor. At the same time, this government has had to adjust to the changed circumstances in Indonesia, and particularly the crisis in East Timor. Papua New Guinea, especially Bougainville, has been a concern for both governments; new problems have also arisen in Fiji and the Solomon Islands. The emphasis on security regionalism complements the continuing importance of Australia's security relationships with both the United States and New Zealand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the regional security trends and the requirements for regional order in Southeast Asia's post-Cold War security environment. Some scholars of the Asia/Pacific region have used the security community concept to describe the Association of Southeast Asian Nation (ASEAN) which is considered as the world's most successful experiment in regional conflict regulation and cooperation. However, regional security communities may be distinguished from two other types of regional security systems such as security community and security regime. The author said that Southeast Asia used a modified version of the Deutschian notion of pluralistic security communities as the basic conceptual framework for regional security community.

The central argument of this article is that constructivists in particular underestimate or even ignore the importance of the ‘real’ structural inheritance that shapes state (and the political elites that represent them) behaviour. Even though the future is indeterminate, some outcomes are decidedly more likely than others, especially where policymakers believe they inhabit a strategic universe of zero sum outcomes and where self-reliance and assertion remain important. I suggest that ‘critical realism’ offers a way of accounting for the institutional structures that shape international behaviour. The first half of this article makes the case for a critical realist approach. The second half illustrates the possible importance of this claim with reference to the contemporary geopolitics of the Asia-Pacific region. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

China’s rapid economic growth is facilitating massive increases in its military spending and causing increased security concerns in Asia and the Western Pacific. But there is uncertainty over how large China’s military spending is relative to other countries, or how fast it is growing in real terms. We address this issue by deriving a relative military cost price index based on the relative unit costs of inputs. We find that China’s real military spending is much larger than suggested by exchange rate comparisons, and even larger than standard purchasing power parity comparisons. We also find, however, that the real growth of China’s military spending has been smaller than conventionally thought. This is due to rapidly growing wages in China and the large share of personnel in China’s military budget. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article focuses on the U.S.-Japan-Australia Trilateral Strategic Dialogue (TSD), which is the first formal trilateral security mechanism in the Asia-Pacific and was vital in the fostering a stronger defense and security ties between Australia and Japan. Topics discussed include the place of TSD in the Asia-Pacific Maritime Security Strategy of the Obama administration, its future under the presidency of Donald Trump, and challenges facing the U.S. and its Asia-Pacific allies.

To what extent can we speak of a distinctively 'European' security approach towards the Asia-Pacific region? In order to address that timely question, this article examines how Britain, France, Germany and the European Union (EU) are framing their evolving security roles in the Asia-Pacific region, and how those individual perspectives intersect with each other. The article identifies a number of important common features in Europe's approaches towards security in the Asia-Pacific, namely the tendency of most European actors to emphasize the economic and diplomatic nature of their contribution to regional security, their promotion of regional multilateral security fora, their rejection of the notion that China's rise is inherently challenging for regional and global security, and their willingness to signal their differences towards Washington's emphasis on military power and alliance-based approach. However, and despite the existence of common traits, individual European actors show different degrees of closeness vis-à-vis the US and China and feature different perspectives regarding which security relationships they should prioritize in the region (if any), or the appropriate balance between diplomacy and security and defence cooperation. Such divergences prevent Europeans from developing a coherent security profile in the region and preclude us from speaking of a distinctively European security approach towards the Asia-Pacific. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of order in regional security is often characterized as hierarchical, consensus-based, or some hybrid middle-road. The debate largely focuses on how major powers, specifically China or America, can individually build an accommodating order. This article explores the causation of order-building in reverse by asking if the Sino-US relationship can create order as a by-product of individual attempts to build and manage security. It examines Chinese and American responses to North Korea and the South China Sea to demonstrate that order can be constructed through a complex set of negotiated interactions, which encompass cooperative, hierarchical, and consensus-building approaches to order-building. This “unhappy coexistence” implies that order as a by-product of state interaction is a useful but incomplete framework to understand security order-building. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Alliances continue to occupy a prominent place in the Asia-Pacific's security architecture. For many regional states such as Australia and Japan, their respective alliances with the USA are the unchallenged foundations of their security. But when the rise of China is causing major change in the region, and when many countries are increasingly reliant on China economically, is the region's network of alliances any longer appropriate or useful? This article reviews alliances in theory and practice, and argues that, while alliances are unlikely to disappear, their utility is nothing like as clear-cut as many of their supporters would have one believe. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Philippine strategic culture has traditionally been characterized by its emphasis on internal security through asymmetrical warfare in confronting military challenges and a reliance on alliance in addressing the country's strategic inadequacies. Philippine strategic culture is rooted in the country's archipelagic geography and isolation from continental Asia, its colonial history, and liberal-democratic political system. It is a culture long shaped by the strategic decisions of a small group of elites – about 400 families that have dominated local politics, economy, and society since the Philippines became independent in 1946. Their preferences have been reflected in the Armed Forces of the Philippines' (AFP) seven-decade campaign against insurgent groups, lack of conventional capabilities, low defence budget, and dependence on the United States for military assistance and security guarantees. The changing dynamics of security in the Asia-Pacific region and strained Philippine–China relations due to the South China Sea dispute suggest the possibility of erosion of these strategic preferences. The doctrinal shift from internal security to territorial defence has gained momentum. Careful analysis of the Aquino administration's efforts to refocus the AFP from internal security to external defence shows greater continuity than discontinuity in Philippine strategic culture. Despite grand claims, government plans to acquire a new weapons system and to build up the navy and the air force are designed only to achieve a modest deterrence posture. Philippines policy remains consistent with deeply embedded strategic cultural orientations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article adopts an historical socio-cultural lens to analyse the United States' strategic cultural tendencies. It traces the roots of the mutually constitutive relationship between technology and political structures in the United States to explain the dominant tendency of the United States to substitute technology for strategy in war as a predisposition of national strategic culture. This predisposition was seen particularly in network-centric warfare and effects-based operations. I conclude that the United States risks strategic failure due to the limitations of its ethnocentric security paradigm. Over-reliance on technology obscures strategic understanding of the people and cultures of the world, including those of the Asia-Pacific region. The development of the AirSea Battle is a case in point, a direct application of technology to strategic concerns in the Asia-Pacific region. The strategic pivot towards the Asia-Pacific may be characterized as reflecting more historical continuity than change in America's strategic calculus. The emerging Asia-Pacific security dynamic is no different a challenge for American policy-makers in that regard than challenges presented elsewhere in the world. Perhaps the biggest challenge for American leaders is to overcome institutional intransigence or the lure of ideological conformity when addressing military requirements and budgetary commitments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reflecting the culturalist turn in security studies, this special issue shows how one of the most powerful tools of security studies illuminates the origins and implications of the region's difficult issues, from the rise of China and the American pivot, to the shifting calculations of other regional actors. Strategic culture sometimes challenges and always enriches prevailing neorealist presumptions about the region. It provides a bridge between material and ideational explanations of state behaviour and helps to capture the tension between neoclassical realist and constructivist approaches. The case studies survey the role of strategic culture in the behaviours of Australia, China, Japan, the Philippines, South Korea, and the United States. They show the contrast between structural expectations and cultural predispositions as realist geopolitical security threats and opportunities interact with domestic elite and popular interpretation of historical narratives and distinctive political-military cultures to influence security policies. The concluding retrospective article devotes special attention to methodological issues at the heart of strategic cultural studies, as well as how culture may impact the potential for future conflict or cooperation in the region. The result is a body of work that helps deepen our understanding of strategic cultures in comparative perspective and enrich security studies. As disputes intensify over territory and resources, as regional militaries develop and leaders adjust their strategic calculus and defence commitments, the dovetailing of culture and politics in the Asia-Pacific shows through. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reflects on application of the concept of strategic culture to supply analytical and policy-relevant guidance to those who ponder the future of security relations in the Asia-Pacific. Argued here is that, notwithstanding some obvious problems with the concept, there is utility in the application of strategic culture to the analysis of regional security challenges. To claim that strategic culture may not be equally applicable to all states in the Asia-Pacific region is not the same as saying it has no applicability at all, especially if the states to which it is applicable are important regional actors. This article suggests that both an old approach derivative of national character, and a new one associated with path dependence, might together prove fruitful for policy analysts and policy-makers alike, as they wrestle with what many assume to be the fundamental question of the coming half-century in the Asia-Pacific, namely whether a great power war in the region can be averted. Although there is much variation in the manner with which authors apply the master concept of strategic culture to their specific Asia-Pacific cases, each takes seriously the utility of a cultural approach to national strategic choice. So while the quest for reliable causality and predictive capability on a region-wide basis may remain that of the will-o’-the-wisp, there can be no gainsaying that, on a case-by-case basis, the authors show that the approach can demonstrate valuable insights into the policy dilemmas of cultural provenance and content confronting the Asia-Pacific. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since late 2011, the United States has pursued a policy of "rebalancing toward Asia," taking steps to expand its already significant role in the region. However, Washington has failed to check - and may have unwittingly provoked - new Chinese measures to erect multiple layers of security around contested areas in the South and East China Seas. The United States should, therefore, consider new bilateral security initiatives with China and its neighbors to ensure security cooperation catches up with economic cooperation in the dynamic Asia-Pacific rim. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the U.S. pivot towards the Asia-Pacific, which according to Chinese officials and analysts, is a strategy to contain China despite of the claim of the U.S. that it does not focus on a particular country. The origins and the evolution of this U.S. pivot is examined based on a study conducted by the Office of Net Assessment (ONA). An analysis of the Asian security and Sino-American relations, the rational for the pivot and China's role in the Asia-Pacific strategy of the U.S. is also discussed.

China's rise over the past decade has corresponded with the decline of the United States in the liberal in-ternational system, both economically, and after two wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, diplomatically. From the 2010 National Security Strategy to the 2011 National Military Strategy, the highest levels of national power within the United States recognize the importance of forging and strengthening new and exist-ing alliances. A critical component of the November 2011-announced "rebalance" to Asia is the insistence that partner nations shoulder a larger portion of their security burden in the future. The challenge for American diplomats, in and out of uniform, is to reassure our allies in the Asia-Pacific region without emboldening them toward confrontation with China. Like-wise, American diplomacy should not irresponsibly challenge China's inevitable ascent within the region. The National Guard's State Partnership Program (SPP), with a robust 20-year track record of cementing regional alliances, is a low-cost, high-yield initiative that should be expanded in PACOM, particularly dur-ing this period of resource constraints. The SPP establishes enduring theatre security cooperation relationships by pairing state Air and Army National Guard (NG) troops with partner nation counterparts. Utilizing an innovative and small footprint methodology, the SPP targets repetitive engagements, between two to three times per year, to establish partnerships of trust and reciprocity that simply cannot be achieved on a larger scale, or within the active duty military, where leadership swap-outs are routine. In an almost "under the radar" fashion, SPP relationships hedge against uncertainty by laying soft power steps that can lead to a hard power path if required in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

East Asian governments have long recognized that national security must incorporate a reduction of their vulnerability to the disruption of essential imports. The rapid economic growth of China and India has intensified competition for increasingly scarce resources, elevating resource security once again to the top of the international agenda. Issues that were previously regarded as ‘technical’ have been ‘securitized’ as state elites perceived possible conflicts over availability and pricing of natural resources as threats to national security. International institutions have the potential to contribute to the defusing of tensions over the supply of commodities by providing, through various means, assurances regarding the behaviour of partners. Only the global institutions concerned with commodities trade, the International Energy Agency (IEA) and the World Trade Organization (WTO), have legally binding arrangements and the authority to impose sanctions on states that fail to comply with their obligations. But both have weaknesses: the IEA's membership is limited; the WTO's rules relating to raw materials trade are far from comprehensive. Most of the regional institutions in this field seldom go beyond information exchange or the setting of aspirational targets. At the bilateral level, government attempts to enhance resource security through minerals chapters in preferential trade agreements have had little success. Bilateral investment treaties are the only instances of cooperation at the sub-global level that incorporate legally-binding provisions. The cooperation on resources issues in which countries have engaged has reflected the core characteristics of Asia-Pacific bilateral and regional intergovernmental institutions. The shallowness of cooperation reflects perceptions on the part of state elites that their interests in the resources sector are best served by national rather than collective action and that current cooperative arrangements fail to provide sufficient incentives to prevent states from succumbing to opportunistic behaviour in the event of a short-term clash of interests. The potential gains to be made from a cooperative approach to resource security remain largely unrealized. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Asia-Pacific remains a region of central importance for US foreign policy. In this vital region, core US geopolitical, security and economic interests intersect. US policy in the Asia-Pacific not only seeks to maintain and develop its security and economic relationships with long-standing allies and partners, but also to confront its most powerful rival and competitor, China. Offshore balancing has always been a very important, and mostly effective, way for the United States to protect its interests in different regions. Currently, the United States is building more comprehensive engagement in the Asia-Pacific in an attempt to balance against increasing Chinese power and influence in the region. The leading edge of this approach is a more comprehensive suite of diplomatic initiatives aiming to integrate defence, diplomacy and development. This is the framework for Obama's Smart Power strategy, which seeks to employ both the hard and soft power assets held by the United States, but in reality it is just another manifestation of offshore balancing strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on threat to regional security in the Pacific region due misuse of firearms which has resulted in socioeconomic harm and damage to governmental institutions. Topics discussed include the role of small arms to in order to understand the black and grey market, illicit weapons, and the international and regional framework for small arms proliferation, and the presence of World War II weapons and transnational trafficking of small firearms.

The article examines the conceptualization of region in Russian thinking in relation to the former Soviet space, and New Zealand and Australian thinking in relation to the South Pacific. Topics discussed include development of integration in the post-Soviet space, national security and national identity, and regional integration in the South Pacific. Also mentioned are Soviet foreign policy, the Soviet Union's cultural identification with both Europe and Asia, and regionalism.

The United States' strategy in the Asia-Pacific stands at a historic juncture. How the new Obama administration conceives and implements its Asia-Pacific policy during its first term of office will have major and enduring ramifications for America's future. The new administration must have a clear vision of its country's national security interests in the Asia-Pacific as well as a better appreciation of the evolving dynamics of the region. To this end, it should continue to underwrite its bilateral security commitments, albeit through a less threat-centric lens, and be more cognisant of the region's multilateral overtures by further anchoring US participation in regional multilateral institutions. This shift from a position of bilateral primacy to one of engaged bilateral and multilateral partnership—a 'convergent security' approach—is the best strategy for Washington to advance its strategic interests in the Asia-Pacific. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article critically reviews the literature on Track 2 security dialogue in the Asia‐Pacific and suggests a number of possible avenues for further research. From almost a standing start, Track 2 security dialogue in this part of the world has burgeoned over the past decade and a half. As these institutions and activities have grown, so too has a body of scholarship grown around them which has striven to stay abreast of them and – at least in the case of some of the more prominent second track institutions and activities – to evaluate their influence and effectiveness. Just as viable second track processes must constantly adapt in response to changes in the regional and global security environment, however, this article contends that the scholarship on Track 2 security dialogue needs now to evolve beyond its heavy emphasis upon on the “success” of these institutions and activities. While this criterion remains vital, the article argues that greater analytical attention should also be given to differentiating between the many and varied Track 2 security processes that are currently active in the Asia-Pacific; to developing a closer understanding as to the operating modalities of these institutions and activities; and to better comprehending longitudinal trends in regional Track 2 security dialogue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses the impact of Cold War on the Asia-Pacific security environment and the issue of international order in the region. Tension across the Taiwan straits and on the Korean peninsula; Responses of regional governments to the issue; Pragmatic policies of few Asian countries.

As the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) governments are facing new challenges, the need to re-evaluate the significance of the track-two activities has been recognised. As there has been insufficient research on the ASEAN Institutes of Strategic and International Studies (ISIS), this article analyses their role in the development of security cooperation. It shows that ASEAN-ISIS has contributed to the establishment of the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) by analysing the common/cooperative security thinking, the establishment of an inter-governmental forum for a security dialogue, and the extension of ASEAN's diplomatic style over a larger geographical area. As ASEAN-ISIS has contributed to inter-governmental cooperation by promoting ideas, this article concludes that the significance of their activities in contemporary Asian politics should be understood in terms of the introduction and promotion of such innovative ideas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses the U.S. policy regarding Taiwan and its implications for American security strategy in the Asia-Pacific region. Plan of the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush to use the Taiwan issue to contain China; Impact of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on U.S. security policy regarding the region.

Explores the major security challenges that the United States faces in the Asia-Pacific region. Conflicts between China and Taiwan; Arms race and nuclear proliferation; Generational transition; Review of foreign policy of President Bill Clinton's administration.

The article discusses the study which explores some implications of democratization for national and regional security in the Asia/Pacific region. It states that democratization aims to have a pacifying influence between interstate behavior however, it is called as a double-edged sword because it often constrains the policy space as well as the political authority of leaders in administering foreign policy. In addition, it is important to have deepening commercial ties, an increasing political pluralism, and networks of transnational contact to limit armed conflict.

The article discusses the interrelationship between economics and security in the Asia/Pacific region. It states that the economic influences on situations have increased while its economic motivations for conflict have lessened. The author stresses that the links between economic power and military potential are more ambiguous because of the costs of relevant military actions and the limited benefits. Moreover, strategic attention attempts to take an opponent than to localized conflicts designed to influence larger political or economic outcomes or to the spill-over effects of internal conflicts.

The article looks into the developments in the Asia/Pacific region within theoretical frameworks that were constructed on the patterns of strategic interaction. According to the author, there is a problem in dealing with the study of the Asia/Pacific region because it has not been proven yet that the theories of international behavior will provide information to their assessments of history and geography. Thus, a new research is needed to examine the regional security outlook with distinctive regional modes of conflict avoidance and crisis management.

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