Shifting Patterns of Alignment in the Asia Pacific: Developing a Conceptual Taxonomy.

The paper examines the evolving security architecture of the Asia-Pacific region in an effort toward constructing a conceptually based taxonomy of alignment systems. The paper identifies three primary systems of alignment: alliances, security communities and strategic partnerships. First, it considers how alliances, traditionally analyzed in reference to the Cold War models of NATO and the Warsaw Pact, need re-conceptualizing to reflect the state of the current twenty first century security environment. Second, it critically considers security communities to determine the continued tenability of this concept. Thirdly, it aims to promote some conceptual clarity with respect to the widely employed but poorly understood notion of ‘strategic partnerships’ as a form of alignment. In order to empirically test and reinforce the conceptual base of the paper, the following Asia-Pacific alignments are examined as representative archetypes of these three alignment systems: the US hub/spoke ‘alliance’ network, the ASEAN ‘security community’ and the Sino-Russian ‘strategic partnership’. Through this composite conceptual-empirical process the paper seeks to advance a better conceptual understanding of the dynamic security architecture of the Asia Pacific region. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]