ABSTRACT
During the 1990s, many countries were forced to revise their defence policies fundamentally. Alliances disintegrated, as in the case of the Warsaw Pact, or, as with NATO, were compelled to reassess their role. Institutions such as the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and NATO’s Partnership for Peace (PfP) have started to build a new non-confrontational security architecture. Since threat perceptions have become more diffuse, the resources allocated to defence have shrunk, the need for more cost-effective defence procurement has grown and national defence industries have been forced to restructure. The new geopolitics, technological developments associated with the Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) and resource constraints have led many European states to reassess the usefulness of conscription and, in some cases, to follow the US and UK by professionalising their militaries. In contrast, changes in defence policy in Pacific Asia have generally unfolded incrementally, rather than dramatically, and have been influenced by quite different factors.
