US and Asia Pacific: The New Strategic System – Bilateral, Multilateral or both?

Bilateralism

Whether or not the Asia-Pacific becomes a zone of cooperation depends on the new strategic system that eventually replaces the current arrangement. Some commentators predicted that as a consequence of the end of the Cold War, multilateral arrangements would, before long, replace traditional bilateral approaches to security.

The US, it was thought, would lose interest in providing security for its traditional allies, and Asian states would conclude that bilateral alliances no longer met their interests for they failed to allow for pragmatic approaches for dealing with new security concerns.37 This has not been the case.

Instead, the Clinton administration has moved to strengthen its key bilateral security arrangements, while acknowledging that multilateral security dialogue also plays an important role. The efficacy of a multilateral approach to security issues is dependent on solid bilateral foundations.

Even if the regional security order in the twenty-first century becomes less reliant on bilateral military alliances than it has been in the past fifty-three years, the US-Japan security partnership will continue to provide the fundamental basis for strategic stability in the Asia-Pacific.

With the end of the Cold War, the original rationale for the security arrangement between Washington and Tokyo disappeared. But, as is well-known, new risks and uncertainties have emerged to replace the Soviet threat, providing both the US and Japan with plenty of good strategic reasons for maintaining the alliance. Given the potential for instability in East Asia, the US and Japan have no choice but to strengthen both military cooperation and policy consultations. Close security ties between the US and Japan are crucial to regional stability, especially as a deterrent to aggressive moves by North Korea or China.

Policymakers and analysts must continue to examine the ways in which the US-Japan alliance can be revitalized and redefined, strategically and economically, so that the region can continue to gain maximum benefit. No nation, not even the world’s only superpower can go it alone.

Multilateralism

The Asia-Pacific has in place some useful tools for coordinating policies and airing regional concerns. Regional security apparatus, such as the ARF, play an important role in heightening confidence and enhancing transparency. The ARF, for example, allows Asia-Pacific countries, including Japan and China, to discuss wide-ranging security issues within a structured multilateral institution. But the ARF does have major limitations. Most significantly, it lacks a direct mechanism for dealing with conflict prevention, arms control and other key regional concerns. In the eyes of its detractors, “the ARF is that most uplifting of optical illusions – an optimistic illusion.”The ARF’s inertia over the Taiwan Strait crisis in 1996 provided its critics with further proof of its limitations.

Second track or nonofficial groups, such as the Council on Security and Cooperation in the Asia-Pacific (CSCAP), also serve an important purpose. Among other things, they provide an opportunity for analysts, academics and others to put forward their views and countries’ perceptions, and explore common approaches to traditional and nontraditional security concerns. But in terms of dealing with key regional issues, this track two process has had even less success than official mechanisms like the ARF. While there is a good deal happening at the track one and track two levels, and the regional environment may over the long-term be shaped by multilateral networks, Paul Dibb, Gerald Segal, Ralph Cossa and others have warned that anything resembling an Asia-Pacific regional society to manage tensions is a long way off. It is for all these reasons that multilateralism must not be seen as a substitute for existing bilateral mechanisms that have served the region well, especially the US-Japan security partnership. Rather, it can serve as a useful ancillary mechanism.

Source: Dibb, “The Emerging Strategic Architecture in the Asia-Pacific Region, Segal.