Multilateralization of Regional Security in Southeast and Northeast Asia: TheRole of the Soviet Union

摘要

This paper attempts to sketch the architectural structure of the regionalsecurity systems of Northeast and Southeast Asia and to define the roles currently played by the Soviet Union within them. These regions will be viewed from two contrasting perspectives. On the one hand, each will be treated as a separate system, with its own particular security problems, rivalries, and dynamics. The overall conclusion to be drawn from this level of analysis is that no one or even two states, through collision or collusion, is capable of defining the overall security regimes of these regions. Regional powers, great or small (including insurgents like the Khmer Rouge), have the resources and will to veto unilateral coercive attempts, characteristic of Cold War politics, to dictate how these security systems should be organized or whose strategic, political, or economic preferences should prevail.