ABSTRACT
The emerging centrality of Asia in American foreign policy is a relatively recent phenomenon. A number of factors precipitated the change in American strategic perceptions and focus. The Far East is the most economically successful region in the world. The recovery of Japan and Korea and the vitality of other Asian economies stimulated an awareness of the region's importance for overall global security. Recognition of the increasing importance of the strategic zones challenges American policymakers to devise new approaches to regional diplomacy and to global strategic planning to meet the new reality. In the postwar era American foreign policy has been anchored in the preponderant Atlantic connection. For much of the postwar era, the East-West conflict has been dominated by contests that involved first a westward and then an eastward Soviet push. The strategic implications of the Soviet entrance into Afghanistan, therefore, are far-reaching but not new.
