Long divided by cultural, economic, and political differences, the Asia-Pacific region has little history of multilateral cooperation. Alliances that once linked individual countries with one or the other superpower fostered deep mistrust among neighbouring states. The end of the Cold War, however, has created new opportunities for multilateral coo
In the turbulent decade since the ending of the Cold War in Europe, a new element of the international relations of Asia and the Pacific has been the emergence of multilateral security dialogues. Both in governmental arenas such as the ASEAN Regional Forum and numerous "track two" channels including the Council for Security Co-operation in Asia-Pacific, it has been a decade of creative interaction and new thinking. The Asia-Pacific Security Lexicon identifies the key phrases and ideas that have been the foundation of these dialogues, looking at their origins in international diplomacy and tracing their specific adaptation and modification to the conditions of a trans-Pacific setting. Of interest to both theoreticians and practitioners, the Lexicon is at once a handbook for regional diplomacy and an assessment of the factors that have shaped regional discussions.
"[Ten] papers presented at ... the Third CSCAP Meeting on Comprehensive Security, organised by the Centre for Strategic Studies ... held in Wellington, New Zealand, in December 1996"--P. 5.
The ending of the Cold War opened a new debate across the Pacific about the meaning of security and the new regional multilateral institutions that were beginning to emerge. The first edition of the The Asia-Pacific Security Lexicon, published in 2002, identified and defined the key concepts and ideas central to security discourse in the region. This second edition updates all of the entries and examines the origins and meanings of some of the new terms in common usage in a different historical setting, among them "e;terrorism"e;, "e;pre-emption"e;, "e;preventive war"e;, "e;a la carte multilateralism"e;, "e;coalition of the willing"e;, and China's "e;peaceful rise"e;. And it looks at how concepts such as "e;human security"e; and "e;non-traditional security"e; have evolved and found new adherents. Both a diplomatic handbook and theoretical exploration, the Lexicon is based on the analysis of more than 3,000 books, articles, conference reports, and speeches. It does not aim to resolve the disagreements about how words are used. Rather, it makes their evolution clearer for academics and practitioners seeking consensual knowledge.
New developments in the Asia Pacific are forcing regional officials to rethink the way they manage security issues. The contributors to this work explore why some forms of security cooperation and institutionalisation in the region have proven more feasible than others. This work describes the emergence of the professions in late tsarist Russia and their struggle for autonomy from the aristocratic state. It also examines the ways in which the Russian professions both resembled and differed from their Western counterparts.
The term comprehensive security goes beyond simplifications such as us and them; it accounts for all aspects vital to national stability; food, energy, environment, communication and social security. Confidence building methods, preventive diplomacy, energy security, second order cybernetics, transparancy of financial markets are all means to enhance overall stability. Comprehensive Security has become a concept particularly suited for a continent with many powerful countries. An important contribution to one of the key issues of contemporary (Asian) politics.