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The Changing Face of Security in Asia
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17701 |
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Section : |
CURRENT ISSUES
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6 / 1990 |
3,017 Words |
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Stephen A. Garrett
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There is no question that the rapid unraveling of the communist bloc in Eastern Europe, the move toward German unification, and the travails of Mikhail Gorbachev are exceedingly important and deserve close attention. At the same time, it would be wise not to ignore patterns of change occurring in Asia that may be less dramatic but no less important to the future of the international system.
Actually, there is a curious symmetry between events in Europe and those in Asia. In each instance, what we are witnessing is in effect the ending of an era in world politics - the dissolution of a distinct pattern of international relations dating back to World War II and its aftermath. In the period 1939-1945, the United States sought to prevent Germany from establishing hegemony in Europe and Japan from doing so in the Far East. In each instance, Washington allied itself with the Soviet Union and China, respectively, in order to accomplish this. After World War II, this set of relationships was gradually reversed: Germany became an ally to prevent Soviet expansion in Europe, and Japan was seen as a bastion against the threat of Chinese communist imperialism.
This phase in international politics clearly has ended, and it is uncertain what will replace it. One might argue that in Asia the "old phase" of international relations began to change with the new American relationship with the People's Republic of China (PRC) beginning in the early 1970s. In any case, it is interesting and important to examine current security trends in Asia not only in terms of the evidence they provide about a quite different era of international relations in the Pacific but also in terms of the challenges they present to American policy in the region.
SUPERPOWERS' ROLE
One common strain in the current security situation in Asia is the increasing pressure that both the Soviet Union and the United States are feeling to reduce their economic and military role in the region. These pressures have somewhat different origins, but together they foretell a greatly altered relationship between the superpowers and Asian diplomacy in the coming years.
This is not to say that Moscow and Washington have beat all their swords into plowshares in the pacific. The United States, for example - from naval bases in the Aleutian Islands southward to Subic Bay in the Philippines - still maintains force of some 107 warships and 51 submarines, which obviously represents a fairly formidable projection of sea power. Moreover, there are some 120,000 American ground forces stationed in Asia, mostly in South Korea, Japan, and Okinawa.
The Soviets, for their part, continue to maintain a Pacific fleet of 77 ships and 120 submarines, with access to ports in North Korea as well as their home facilities in Vladivostok. At the former U.S. naval base at Cam Ranh Bay in Vietnam, Moscow has in recent years berthed another 20 warships along with a formidable array of long-range aircraft, including 14 Badger bombers, a squadron of 14 MiG-23s, and several Bear antisubmarine and reconnaissance aircraft. The Soviets have more than 700,000 troops stationed along their border with China as well as contingent of 10,000 in the Northern Territories just off Japan that were seized in 1945.
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