Between balance of power and community: the future of multilateral security co-operation in the Asia-Pacific

This paper explores the logic behind US and Japanese approaches to regional security and the prospects for a more comprehensive co-operative security order in the Asia-Pacific. The current security order in the region bears the marks of long-established and distinctive American and Japanese approaches. These approaches do hold out some hope in building a more inclusive and co-operative order, but for years to come the Asia-Pacific will be a region that will exist somewhere between a balance of power and a community-based security order.