This authoritative volume evaluates post-Cold War approaches to security in the Asia Pacific. Leading specialists first examine traditional security concerns-military capabilities, balance of power, territorial and resource disputes, the effects of new technologies on military strategy, and the problems involved in maintaining sovereignty in the face of globalization. They then introduce the new security agenda of economic and financial stability, the effects of environmental degradation, human rights and political stability, and the impact of transnational crime. Their wide-ranging and incisive discussions will be of interest to policymakers, scholars, and students alike.

From internal oppression in Burma to interstate conflict in the South China Sea, the people of Southeast Asia face a range of threats. This book identifies and explains the security challenges -- both traditional and nontraditional -- confronting the region. Collins addresses the full spectrum of security issues, discussing the impact of ethnic tensions and competing political ideologies, the evolving role of ASEAN, and Southeast Asia's interactions with key external actors (China, Japan, and the United States). The final section of the book explores how the region's security issues are reflected in two current cases: the South China Sea dispute and the war on terrorism.

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 examines the strategic interactions among China, the United States, Japan, and Southeast Asian States in the context of China’s rise and globalization after the cold war. Engaging the mainstream theoretical debates in international relations, the author introduces a new theoretical framework—institutional realism—to explain the institutionalization of world politics in the Asia-Pacific after the cold war. Institutional realism suggests that deepening economic interdependence creates a condition under which states are more likely to conduct a new balancing strategy—institutional balancing, i.e., countering pressures or threats through initiating, utilizing, and dominating multilateral institutions—to pursue security under anarchy. To test the validity of institutional realism, Kai He examines the foreign policies of the U.S., Japan, the ASEAN states, and China toward four major multilateral institutions, Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Regional Forum (ARF), ASEAN Plus Three (APT), and East Asian Summit (EAS). Challenging the popular pessimistic view regarding China’s rise, the book concludes that economic interdependence and structural constraints may well soften the "dragon’s teeth." China’s rise does not mean a dark future for the region. Institutional Balancing in the Asia Pacific will be of great interest to policy makers and scholars of Asian security, international relations, Chinese foreign policy, and U.S. foreign policy.

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.

This book is a critical analysis of how the discursive and material practices of the "War on Terror" influenced security politics in Southeast Asia after 9/11. It explores how the US-led War on Terror, operating both as a set of material practices and as a larger discursive framework for security, influenced the security of both state and non-state actors in Southeast Asia after 9/11. Building on the author’s own critical security studies approach, which demands a historically and geographically contingent method of empirically grounded critique, Writing Southeast Asian Security examines some of the unexpected effects that the discourses and practices of the War on Terror have had on the production of insecurity in the region. The cases presented here demonstrate that forms of insecurity were constructed and/or abetted by the War on Terror itself, and often occurred in concert with the practices of traditional state-centric security. This work thus contributes to a larger critical project of revealing the violence intrinsic to the pursuit of security by states, but also demonstrates pragmatic opportunities for a functioning politics of theorizing security. This book will be of much interest to students of critical terrorism studies, critical security studies, East Asian, and Southeast Asian politics, US foreign policy, and IR in general.

The recent proliferation of theories of international relations has transformed analyses of Southeast Asia’s international affairs. A new generation of scholars has promoted a lively and illuminating debate which has seen the traditional realist/ neorealist approach, which continues to hold centre stage, challenged by constructivist analyses. In turn, constructivists have found themselves under fire from an array of competing approaches. This collection engages this emerging debate. It underscores the point that Southeast Asia is now an important site for applying new theories of international relations. It also demonstrates that theoretical frameworks originally developed in North America and Europe have to be adapted to the specific circumstances found in places like Southeast Asia and that this process can enrich theory building. The chapters in this book focus on the realist/neorealist, constructivist, English School and critical approaches. The resulting debate helps to shed light on ways of analysing Southeast Asian relations as well as on the evolution of these key theoretical frameworks. This book was published as a special issue of The Pacific Review.

Helen James considers security in Myanmar/Burma. She uses the ideas put forward in the United Nations Development Programme's 1994 report, of human, as opposed to state and security, going on to argue that freedom from want, and freedom from fear (of the regime) are in fact mutually supportive ideas, and that the security of the people and the security of the state are in fact in a symbiotic relationship with each other. Presenting new and significant information of the security concept of Myanmar/Burma, James’ original work considers economic development, health, education, environmental issues, the drugs trade, human rights, minority peoples and political, social and economic reforms, arguing that improved governance, the development of civil society and economic development would both strengthen the state and ensure the security and well-being of its citizens.

The world has undergone significant change since the end of the Cold War. One such development is that the Asia-Pacific has become increasingly prominent in international affairs. This comprehensive study provides a detailed understanding of key issues, actors and future trends in the region.