ABSTRACT
In scale and variety the problems of China, India and South-East Asia—making up half the world’s population—are immense. Under the traditional doctrine of balance of power, maintenance of peace depended on preventing a nation or an alliance from becoming so powerful that it could impose. The main centres of power are no longer in Western Europe. In its old form, balance of power was a stratagem discussed and used by the weak to frustrate the strong. Now the Russians, some years after the Americans, are reshaping their forces to cover a wide range of operations most strikingly illustrated by their increased attention to sea power. Wars in which the major military powers might be engaged therefore became less likely though more terrible. With the stationing of Russian naval units in the Eastern Mediterranean the Soviet Union is openly using military power to gain a foothold in the Mediterranean and in the Levant.
