ABSTRACT
Throughout the Cold War period, bilateralism remained the dominant mode of security cooperation in the Asia-Pacific. Its leading institutional manifestation took the form of the US-led network of bilateral alliances, which was and still is often referred to as the San Francisco System (for further reading, see Calder 2004). Efforts were made to implement multilateral security structures – such as the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization – yet these efforts ultimately failed to gain much traction. The region for much of this time was generally regarded as being too diverse and too distrustful to accommodate such ventures. Indeed, the prospects for multilateral security cooperation in the Asia-Pacific remained bleak until at least the early 1990s.
