Arms, Politics, and the Emerging Asian Balance of Power

Abstract

F or over half a century, the balance of power in Asia has been determined to a great extent by factors and actors outside Asia. From the southwest (Afghanistan and Iran) to the northeast (North and South Korea), countries in the region looked, or were forced to look, at external powers in pursuing their own security. In that regard then, the Asian countries, with the exception of China, have been objects, rather than subjects, in the international system. Countries that attempted to insulate themselves from cold war politics ended up frustrated. India and Indonesia, two architects of nonalignment, are good examples. Although nonalignment existed nominally and did have a certain symbolic significance, there can be little doubt that those countries' fates were still shaped by a larger power struggle. Following General Suharto's takeover in 1966, after the overthrow of the stridently anti-Western President Sukarno, Indonesia's foreign and security policy orientations shifted dramatically and became strongly tied to the United States. Indonesia did not enter into any formal security arrangements, but its bilateral and multilateral relations, particularly as a member since 1967 in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), placed it in the Western camp along with a number of its Southeast Asian neighbors. That strategy of realpolitik was intended to balance the rise of Communist China and Communist Southeast Asian coun-