ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the factors that led to collective action in the war against terrorism in the Pacific by taking into consideration of the various theoretical presuppositions. In order to provide a lens to the issue of security cooperation in the Pacific, this chapter examines the question of how collective action in international relations is possible?. It discusses the most important arguments of existing theories of international cooperation. All theories must meet the criterion of being principally falsifiable on the basis of the available empirical findings. The chapter formulates hypotheses to be tested in the analysis. Empirically, it tries to solve the problem by looking at international security cooperation in the Pacific after 11 September. The chapter then tries to shed light on the development of security cooperation in the Pacific region since 11 September 2001. All three levels (regional, interregional, global) of the security constellation are in play at the same time, and is considered in the empirical study.
