Introduction

We are barely nine years into the new millennium and many are already calling the twenty-first century the “Asian century”.1 There is no gainsaying the growing strategic significance of Asia to the global strategic order. Driving this seeming resurgence of Asia is the phenomenal economic growth of China and India. Indeed, both countries – which together account for more than a third of the world’s population – are projected to emerge as global economic, and possibly political, powerhouses by 2050. The rapid growth of China and now India promises to shift the global distribution of power in the direction of Asia and poses potential challenges to American global strategic pre-eminence in the twenty-first century. In addition, Japan’s post-Second World War pacifist disposition in international and regional security affairs is coming under increasing strain in the domestic political sphere as pressure mounts for Tokyo to assume a more activist role as it returns to “normal statehood.” In response to these shifts – both real and potential – and in an attempt to avert the rivalry that neorealists are predicting for the region, Southeast Asia has attempted to actively engage these major powers, positioning itself and its much-vaunted “ASEAN Way” as a model for regional order and stability. At the same time, the terrorist attacks in Mumbai and resultant escalation of tensions between India and Pakistan, the health scare stemming from the export of contaminated Chinese products, and persistent tension on the Korean Peninsula serve as grim reminders that the nature of “security” in the region, be it the traditional or non-traditional variant, remains precarious. According to power transition theory, this shift of focus from the West to the East is

likely to result in conflict.2 More traditionalist variants of realist international relations theory, on the other hand, would suggest that the rise of China and India would generate the necessary countervailing forces to sustain the balance of power in Asia.3 Still other theorists, particularly of the institutionalist or constructivist mould, would view the emergence particularly of China as taking place within institutions and constrained by norms, and, as such, the likelihood of them being status quo rather than revisionist is much higher.4 Critics of attempts by mainstream international relations theory to speak to or explain trends in Asia point to a number of crucial features of politics and security in the region that are insufficiently addressed by these theories. Some of these features include the prevalence of weak states and strong societies, increasing salience of nontraditional security threats that overshadow traditional security concerns that fixate mainstream international relations theory, and the historically hierarchical nature of regional order that is merely replaying itself today. To be sure, the region is also fraught with every conceivable form of conflict. These

range from a series of unresolved territorial disputes, both maritime and inland, irredentist

claims, intra-state conflicts, transnational terrorist movements and nuclear rivalries. The region is also the site of several states on the verge of failure and others in the incipient stage of national construction. This strategic flux that characterizes the Asian region has also reignited interest in a range of theoretical concepts and frameworks – the most popular being “hierarchy”, “bandwagoning”, “enmeshment”, and “hedging” – that, though in some respects still lacking in analytical precision in their application to Asia, nevertheless demonstrate the existence of a vibrant intellectual milieu that is furthering security studies scholarship at a conceptual level. Notwithstanding the strengths and limitations of the perspectives sketched above, the

point is that as the international system evolves further into the twenty-first century, Asia will for all intents and purposes play a more prominent role, both shaping and being shaped by emergent trends. This alone means that a more considered and conceptually informed understanding of Asia – and specifically, the dynamics of Asian security – is urgently required. It is with this in mind that this collection of essays, written by subject matter specialists and framed topically and according to the three generally accepted “sub-regions” that make up Asia, has been compiled. In terms of structure, the chapters in this anthology have been divided into four sec-

tions. The first three sections deal with the specific “subregions” of Northeast Asia, South Asia, and Southeast Asia. Cognizant of the fact that some issues are transregional in nature, a forth section addresses broader security dynamics such as the nuclear question, non-traditional security, and great power rivalry in a manner that bridges the study of these subregions and explores the geopolitical interstices linking each of them.