Asia's Challenge to American Strategy

The post-Cold War era is being built on the ruins of the Soviet empire and on the achievements of dymanic, capitalist nations. The era is defined by new balances of power, revised perceptions of power, and far greater diplomatic complexity. The era is one in which regions have a more distinct identity within global affairs than they did during the Cold War, and international leadership is more ambiguous in structure and often in the way it is exercised. Asia epitomizes, and is largely responsible for creating, these circumstances.

As befits a region possessing enormous historical consciousness, the new era in Asia is overshadowed by continuities with the past. Contemporary Asian leaders tend to react cautiously to sudden developments that disrupt international affairs. These leaders are predisposed to search for historical precedents that may offer lessons based on past cycles of human experience. They possess a healthy skepticism about the uniqueness of post-Cold War events and display a tendency to fit them into a historical context of much greater duration than the Cold War.

Because of the dispersion of power to and within Asia during the 1970s and 1980s, a condition of “skewed multipolarity” has developed. The region is characterized today by a complex multipolar structure highlighted by Japanese industrial and American military strength. Asians have treated this dispersion of power as a precursor of a return to normalcy in world affairs. When the contest between the Soviet Union and the United States became complicated by Asian economic competition, some Asian leaders seized the opportunity to begin reasserting their geopolitical power. For example, Japanese leaders became more assertive at international fora, and other Asian leaders increased the political agendas of Asian regional economic organizations. Moreover, across Asia the recognition by Westerners of Asia’s new economic prominence was used by Asian leaders as leverage with the West.