ABSTRACT
Lord Salisbury once observed that the most common political error is ‘sticking to the carcasses of dead policies’. This tendency is identifiable among those policy-makers responsible for planning the United States’ post-Cold War defence posture in the Asia-Pacific. The posture statements of both the Bush and Clinton administrations reflect the logic of ‘more of the same, for less’. These statements are unanimous on three mutually inconsistent points: that the Asia-Pacific region is undergoing dramatic structural change; that the US has had to reduce the size of its Asia-based forces to meet established budget targets; and that the San Francisco system of US-dominated bilateral treaties must be preserved as the primary source of Asia-Pacific security.
