DE LOS EFECTOS DE LA LOCACION

Trade, Canberra, December 1989.

12 Cheeseman, G. , "The Military Dimensions of Australia's Regional Security Posture” in Fry, G., (ed) Australia's Regional Security,

US Secretary of State wrote to his Australian counterpart suggesting that Australia was naively being manipulated by the Soviet Union. 13 This initial hostility has since been

tempered in public statements. The US seems at least ready to look at multilateral security proposals, perhaps given the uncertainty surrounding the future of their military presence and influence in the region. Secretary of State James Baker has qualified the US position, giving tacit support for a new security architecture "without locking ourselves into an overly structured approach" . 14

But even more problematic is the assumption that the US- Japan relationship will continue to be manageable on both the economic and security fronts. This seems unrealistic given forecasts that the bilateral trade imbalance will continue (discussed below), and the dissolving of the Cold War glue which has been the basis of the relationship. The security relationship has provided a stable underpining to the economic relationship. Were it to be undermined, difficulties inherent in managing the economic relationship could increase. If the US-Japan relationship were to deteriorate, the major power support necessary for underwriting a new economic or security regime would likely erode, dashing the hopes of the neoliberal school. A breakdown in the US-Japan alliance would also likely rekindle latent regional fears of a resurgent 'Pax Napponica'.

Pax Americana Phase 2 or 'roughly more of the same'

The second vision of the future is based essentially on the status quo, with some amendments following the demise of the Cold War. Not surprisingly this tends to be the public view adopted by the Australian, US and Japanese governments. 15 It acknowledges the region's growing

Lague, D., "US opposes security plan", Financial Review, April 11, 1991; Lague, D., "US tells Evans regional 'dialogue' plan not on"

Financial Review, April 24, 1991.

^ Baker, B., "America in Asia: Emerging Architecture for a Pacific Community" Foreign Affairs, Winter, 1991.

■^See a) Australia - Evans, G,. Regional Security Statement, op cit;

Evans, G. , Australia's Regional Security Environment, Address by Senator the Hon. Gareth Evans, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, to the Conference on Strategic Studies in a Changing World, Australian National University, 31 July 1991; Evans, G . , Australia's Asian Future, Address by Senator the Hon. Gareth Evans, Minister for Foreign

prosperity, which is seen as enabling individual nations to shoulder more alliance burdens. No major security crises are forecast, thus leading to optimism that progress will be made toward some multilateral solutions - such as CBM's - to the region's security problems. 16 But

caution remains the watchword and there is general endorsement of the continuing rationale for existing bilateral security structures.

Monash University, 19 July 1990; Evans, G., Managing Australia's Asian

Future, Address by Senator the Hon. Gareth Evans, Minister for Foreign

Affairs and Trade, to the Asia-Australia Institute, University of New South Wales, 3 October, 1991; Hawke, R.J.L, Australia's security in

Asia,The Asia Lecture, The Asia-Australia Institute, University of New

South Wales, Sydney, May 24, 1991.

b) US - United States Defenses: Reshaping Our Forces, Speech by President of the US to the Aspen Institute, Aspen, Colorado, August 2, 1990; A Strategic Framework for the Asia-Pacific Rim: Looking Toward the 21st Century, President's Report to the Senate Armed Forces Committee,Department of Defense, USA, April 1990; Baker, op cit; National Security Strategy of the US, Washington, August 1991; Solomon, R.H., Asian security in the 1990's: Inzergration in Economics; Diversity in Defence, Address by Richard H Solomon, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, to the University of California, at San Diego Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies, October 30, 1990; Ford, C., Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense Carl Ford, before the Senate Foreign Relations East Asian and Pacific Affairs Sub-Committee hearing on "US Security Policy in East Asia", October 30, 1991; ADM Jeremiah, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Address to the RUSI

National Seminar: Realignment of World Order - Implications for Asia- Pacific Security, October 1991.

c) Jaoan - For recently translated statements see: Nakayama, T.,

Foreign Policy Speech, delivered to the 120th session of the National

Diet, 25 January 1991; Murata, R. , Address by the Japanese Ambassador to the United States, Ryonei Murata, to a Brookings Institute Forum entitled "Japan's Political and Economic Posture in the Emerging World Order", Reuters transcript; Nakayama, T. , Statement by Minister for

Foreign Affairs of Japan to the ASEAN PMC, Kuala Lumpur 22 July 1991.

Some academics have proposed instead of a CSCA concept, which they believe is premature, a "building block" approach, " - a mulitplicitv of sub-regional arrangements dealing with various security issues and involving memberships, building on the wide range of bilateral and limited multilateral arrangements already in place and addressing the common security concerns already being identified in the region" . They argue this approach is more suitable to the sub­ regional nature of the Asia-Pacific, and that a CSCA will ultimately flow from these. Ball, D., and Bateman, Commodore W.S.G., "An Australian Perspective on Maritime CSBMs in the Asia-Pacific Region", a paper presented to the Naval Confidence - and Security -Building Regimes for the Asia-Pacific Region Workshop, Organised by Peace Research Centre ANU, Canberra, and ISIS, Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, 3-10 July 1991.

In Takashi Inoguchi's version of this scenario, which he terms "Pax Americana phase 2", the US is still seen as the leading global power and the multilateral institutional framework of the Cold War order remains relevant and reliable.17 Japan's role continues to be primarily economic with the US continuing to shoulder most of the security burden. Security cooperation between the US and Japan might be expanded but the basic division of labour will be unchanged. Inoguchi also suggests that:

Japan's role will be to link the US economy with the Asian-Pacific economies in a more balanced manner. At the same time, Pacific Asian nationalisitic anti-Americanism will be restrained.18

The statement on regional security issued by Australia in December 1989 is illustrative of this middle-of-the-road approach. While the Australian government has been optimistic in its analysis of the future economic climate, it is more guarded on the emerging security environment. The regional security statement is generally cautious, noting the emerging multipolarity of the region, particularly the growing role of Japan, and acknowledging a possible US withdrawal from the region. Although a "multidimensional approach" to security is flagged, the statement is almost solely devoted to military security.19 This emphasis on traditional military instruments does not, however, proscribe multilateral approaches to regional security, such as C3Ms and limited arms control measures.

Following the statement's release the government openly advocated a formal multilateral security process, in the form of a CSCA.20 However the Australian government has

17 Inoguchi, T. , "Four Scenario's for the Future" International

Affairs, Vol.65, No. 1, Winter 1988/89.

18 ibid.

^ For a number of critiques of the statement see the collection of papers in Fry, G. , (ed) Australia's Regional Security, (Allen and Unwin, Australia, 1991).

20 Senator Evans first articulated the notion during an Address entitled "Australia's Asian Future" to Monash University, 19 July 1990. He followed the address up by calling for consideration of a new Asia-Pacific modelled on the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe in "ASEAN broaches taboo topic of security" Australian

since backed away from this concept. In late 1990 Senator Evans told the Australian parliament that it was not "appropriate to jump too quickly to conclusions as to what, if any, particular institutional structures might be appropriate in the Asian region in order to advance the cause of regional security".21 More recent official statements have said that an Asian security system does

not mean an organization, or even an ordered group of organizing principles...(but)...rather a set of arrangements and relationships which together maintain regional security. Some of these arrangements will be formal, others informal. Some will be bilateral, others trilateral or multilateral. Some of these

relationships will have no explicit

manifestation. . .22

This retreat from advocacy of a CSCA reflected divisions within the bureaucratic community responsible for Australian security policy.23 While the the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade,and his Department, initated the concept, in keeping with a more optimistic outlook on the future of Australia's security environment, both the Department of Defence and the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet remained wedded to Australia's bilateral security relationship with the US, reflecting a more gloomy prognosis on the post-Cold War in the Asia-Pacific.

Official statements from the US government reflect the latter perceptions. While acknowledging that Asia is evolving toward a multipolar pattern of power relations, the US argues that the bilateral framework and forward deployments which have served it so well in the past remain necessary. The US has stated that it will continue to remain strategically engaged in the region, despite the cutbacks in its regional forces and the loss of Subic Bay Naval Base and Clarke Air Base in the Philippines. Richard

Financial Review 30 July 1991. A similar theme was expounded in, "What Asia needs is a European Style CSCA" International Herald Tribune 27 July 1991.

21 Cited in Findlay, T . , "Asian cool toward CSCA", Pacific Research, November, 1991.