ABSTRACT
To search for a single Asian security paradigm is a fruitless enterprise. The region is too vast and variegated; and although there may be commonalities between the effects on their respective neighbors of a Soviet-occupied Afghanistan and the Russian garrison force in Etorofu, differences in these security environments far outnumber similarities. Instead of a single Asia, then, the security analyst must seek links among subregional situations. Equally important, the analyst should be sensitive to unique features of tension areas—those which cannot be ascribed to the interests and activities of more distant Asian members. Assessing Asian security, then, is more than an exercise in aggregation. Primary subregional military situations must be identified and assessed in local contexts and only then compared along such dimensions as the intrusion of outside actors and subregional linkages.
