ABSTRACT
Analysts of security institutions in the Asia-Pacific have employed contending theoretical frameworks for decades. For Europeanists security multilateralism had been embedded in NATO since the 1950s within a remarkably stable balance of power, but the situation in the Asia-Pacific seemed more ephemeral. From the 1950s onward regional security arrangements were created and dissolved with disturbing rapidity. For the most part, only US-led bilateral arrangements persisted. This record of weak security multilateralism was persuasively documented by one of Asian realism's most prominent analysts, Michael Leifer. A hallmark of Michael Leifer's distinguished career was his skepticism about the utility of multilateral regional security institutions in Asia for resolving core security concerns of the region's members. Purposefully imitative of the ASEAN Post-Ministerial Conference, the ASEAN Regional Forum objective was to develop a predictable and constructive pattern of relationships in the Asia-Pacific.
