ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the notion of balance among the various tools available, or potentially available, to the states of the Asia-Pacific to meet a common interest, namely a robustly stable security environment. Over the past quarter of a century, Australia made significant progress toward a more diversified or balanced portfolio of instruments to provide for its security. More recently, in the 1990s, it was among the most active, ambitious, and optimistic proponents of developing a culture of cooperative security in the Asia-Pacific region, especially through the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF). This portfolio of instruments is still in place. A new government and changed regional circumstances notably the Asian economic crisis and the political fallout from East Timor resulted in some important adjustments to the balance of the portfolio. Strategic trends in the Asia-Pacific since the end of the Cold War have already exposed the limitations of the traditional instruments in coping reliably with the longerterm challenges to regional stability.
