ABSTRACT
For over half a century, the predominant means for organizing security cooperation in the Asia-Pacific region has been through the creation and maintenance of bilateral defence arrangements. The United States’ network of bilateral security alliances with Japan, Australia, South Korea, Thailand and the Philippines – often referred to collectively as the ‘San Francisco System’ – and Washington’s more recent intensification of its bilateral security relations with Singapore has been and remains the most conspicuous example of this trend. It reflected a conscious choice by key regional security actors (especially maritime powers) to ‘bandwagon’ with American power and prosperity at the Cold War’s outset.1
