The Russian Federation and a New Security Order in the Asia-Pacific Region

Abstract

The end of the Cold War removed many threats and concerns of international security, but at the same time produced a new set of security challenges at the regional, as well as global, level.1 Regions have met these challenges with varying degrees of success, most notably the two regions whose security concerns used to be most closely affected by the former Soviet Union: Europe and the Asia-Pacific region (especially Northeast Asia). The European countries seem to have made more progress than those in the Asia-Pacific region in adapting to the transformed security environment that has emerged as a consequence of the end of the Cold War, even though this adaptation may still be incomplete. In the Asia-Pacific region, by comparison, countries have yet to agree on the earliest concrete measures towards a new regional security order. Here many historical factors make the task more difficult than in Europe. In that region, where countries were for the most part divided into two ideologically-based camps, regional security arrangements were relatively straightforward. By contrast, in the Asia-Pacific area regional security arrangements were complicated by the China factor in addition to the competition between the US and the Soviet Union. Furthermore, the complicated and hostile relations that have existed among smaller countries in the Asia-Pacific region, and which had been kept in the background by the Cold War, have only added to the diversity of issues that constitute the security agenda for this region.