Sea Power, January 1998 But if local military forces were at peace, that could hardly be said of the region's economies, many of which endured the financial equivalent of bloodbaths. Collapsing markets and currency devaluations swept Southeast Asia in the summer and autumn. In Northeast Asia, the stagnant Japanese economy ended 1997 with stock indexes below where they had stood a decade earlier, North Korea staggered through another year of famine, and Russia struggled to cope with the economic consequences of communism's collapse. The meltdown of East Asia's economic "miracle" brought renewed doubts about the competence and longevity of several regional governments, which in turn raised questions about how durable the area's military tranquility would prove to be. Against this peaceful but nonetheless unsettling backdrop, three issues dominated the diplomatic landscape. First, how would China's emergence as a major economic and military force in the region unfold in the future? Second, would the growing desperation of North Korea's atavistic police state result in violent upheaval or a manageable transition to peaceful reunification on the Korean Peninsula? And third, would the waning fortunes of many of East Asia's market economies provide the stimulus needed to reform corrupt and incompetent political systems? In different ways, each of these issues provoked continued speculation about one more concern that has troubled Western Pacific leaders for a generation: would America remain militarily and diplomatically engaged in the region in the years ahead? The answer to the latter question clearly would have a bearing on how the other challenges facing the region were ultimately resolved. Sino-American Summit China's continued emergence as a major force in the Western Pacific was readily apparent throughout 1997. The clearest manifestation of this trend came in October, when U.S. President Bill Clinton and Chinese President Jiang Zemin held their summit meeting in Washington. That encounter -- the first such meeting since the collapse of the Soviet Union -- confirmed that China has replaced Russia as the main focus of U.S. defense and foreign policy concern in the Western Pacific. Although the October summit produced some potentially useful results, most notably a Chinese agreement to scale back military cooperation with Iran's virulently anti-American regime, the real significance of the meeting was symbolic. First of all, it raised Jiang Zemin's stature as a world leader, a role that had largely eluded him while his political patron, Deng Xiaoping, remained alive. Jiang had been widely viewed as a colorless compromise candidate among the various factions of the Chinese Communist Party since his elevation to the general secretary's job in 1989. But Deng's death in February and Jiang's subsequent survival of the 15th party congress in September demonstrated that the former Shanghai party boss had established a firm political base. He now occupies all three of the country's top political posts -- general secretary of the party, president of the government and chairman of the Central Military Commission. His strong performance during the October summit seemed to signal that after being regarded as a "transitional" figure for longer than U.S. most presidents have served, Jiang finally had emerged as China's undisputed leader, both at home and abroad. Another symbolic feature of the summit was the implicit public rehabilitation of China's leadership in U.S. eyes, a development Beijing had been seeking ever since the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre put Sino-American relations in the deep freeze. The rehabilitation appeared to vindicate Deng Xiaoping's policy of promoting economic reform and rapid development at the expense of military investment. Those priorities have produced double-digit growth in the Chinese economy every year since Jiang became party secretary, making China a market few American multinational companies can ignore. While few U.S. companies have actually made money in China, the business community has put continuous pressure on Clinton and the Congress to permit unfettered access to the Chinese market. The administration has bowed to industry's interests, notwithstanding its rhetoric about human rights during the summit. Recognizing the domestic and international success of Deng's policies, Jiang declared a new wave of economic reforms at the September party congress combined with a massive reduction of 500,000 personnel from the ranks of the People's Liberation Army. From a military and diplomatic perspective though, the most important symbolic aspect of the October summit was the tacit U.S. acknowledgment that China has replaced Russia as Washington's main strategic concern in the Western Pacific. The deterioration of Russia's Pacific fleet and air forces has convinced many U.S. observers that the only military threat that nation still poses in the Western Pacific is its willingness to sell virtually any weapon to China. In recent years the Chinese have purchased fighter jets, diesel-electric submarines, and a wide range of other advanced military systems from the declining and desperate Russian defense industry. The combination of these purchases with extensive indigenous arms production and a persistent pattern of bellicose pronouncements by Beijing's leaders has forced the Clinton Administration to recognize that China's long-term military potential is at least as impressive as its economic potential. That is one reason why many of the trappings of superpower diplomacy once reserved for the Russians were extended to the Chinese during the October summit, including President Clinton's decision to establish a permanent "hotline" telecommunications link between himself and the obviously pleased President Jiang. Outmoded Military Forces For the time being, China's military potential remains largely latent. Although the People's Liberation Army (PLA) boasts an active-duty force structure of nearly three million personnel, both the tactics and the equipment of that vast military establishment are throwbacks to the early postwar period. A U.S. Defense Department assessment of Chinese military capabilities released in April of 1997 reported that the PLA had no access to real-time satellite imaging intelligence, no airborne early-warning capability, no aerial refueling capacity, and only a minimal means of mounting amphibious operations against nearby adversaries such as Taiwan. The 5,000 combat aircraft in the PLA Air Force are primitive by U.S. standards, often lacking basic equipment for threat detection, precision targeting, and night or adverse-weather operations. The PLA Navy remains essentially a coastal defense force with few modern surface combatants and a shrinking inventory of submarines so noisy that in some cases sonar can detect them from hundreds of miles away. The obsolescent nature of PLA equipment and tactics has led many Western observers to dismiss China as a near-term danger to regional security. For example, in 1996 three Defense Intelligence Agency analysts wrote a magazine article stating that the PLA poses little more than a "nuisance threat" to nearby nations. More recently, Professor M. Ehsan Ahrari of the U.S. Armed Forces Staff College commented in the October 1997 Jane's Intelligence Review that "even though the Chinese military establishment wishes to emerge as a high-tech warfighting machine, its present state of preparedness poses absolutely no threat to the U.S. armed forces." Even if such sweeping dismissals of Chinese military power are valid today, there is ample reason to doubt they will be valid tomorrow. First of all, there is the matter of Chinese intentions. The April 1997 assessment of Chinese military capabilities concluded that "China's long-term goal is to become one of the world's great powers," a goal the assessment said Chinese leaders expect to attain during the first half of the next century. Second, there is China's remarkable economic growth, which has already lifted its national purchasing power above that of Germany and will eventually provide the basis for a robust, technologically-sophisticated military posture. Third, there is China's strategic nuclear force, which while relatively small -- about 20 ICBMs, a dozen submarine-launched missiles on one sub, and perhaps 70 intermediate-range missiles -- can already cause a great deal of damage. And finally, there is the PLA's growing access to advanced Russian military technology. The Chinese government has entered into numerous arms transactions with Russia in recent years, including a $1.2 billion agreement to build up to 200 SU-27 fighters, the purchase of four Kilo- class diesel-electric submarines (two of which have been delivered), and a pending transfer of two Sovremenny-class guided missile destroyers similar in concept if not capability to U.S. Aegis destroyers. Lesser deals have provided the PLA with some of Russia's latest precision-guided munitions, including wake-homing torpedoes and the SA-10 surface-to-air missile capable of intercepting virtually any non-stealthy tactical aircraft. Western nations have also been willing to sell China advanced military electronics technology, although in general they are more circumspect in what they offer than the cash-strapped Russians. While the PLA has had problems assimilating these foreign technologies into its forces, there is little doubt the transactions have bolstered Chinese military capabilities. Taiwan's Dilemma Many Western observers believe the main focus of China's near-term military modernization will be improvement of its air and naval assets to provide better defense of eastern littoral areas. At the present, measured pace of improvement, the PLA may never match the regional military capabilities of Japan or the U.S. But it already poses a danger to the Republic of China (Taiwan), the democratic state barely a hundred miles off its central coastline that Beijing's leaders continue to regard as a renegade province. With the peaceful assimilation of Hong Kong back into the mainland's political administration last summer, Taiwan now stands out as by far the most important unresolved territorial claim from China's past. Although China's government has numerous territorial disputes with its neighbors both on land and sea, none approaches the seriousness of the Taiwan issue in its complexity or potential to lead to military confrontation with the U.S. 1997 did not witness a repetition of the aggressive Chinese actions toward Taiwan that occurred during the run-up to that nation's first democratic presidential elections in 1996. Nonetheless, it is clear there has been little change in Beijing's position on the eventual reassimilation of Taiwan, even if that outcome requires military action. The sensitivity of the issue within Chinese ruling circles is so great that no political figure including Jiang could survive formal acceptance of Taiwanese independence. The dilemma that Taiwan's government thus faces is how to remain independent even as the shadow of Chinese economic and military power lengthens in the Western Pacific. For the time being, the Republic of China's government has decided to emphasize military preparedness, a priority underscored in June exercises held only days before Britain turned over Hong Kong to mainland China. The exercises displayed recent additions to the island's arsenal, most notably Hawk and Patriot air defense batteries, Mirage 2000-5s and F-16 C/D fighters, OH-58D and AH-1W combat helicopters, and several classes of naval surface combatants acquired from the U.S. and France. The military also exhibited a range of newly purchased foreign and indigenous munitions that in general were superior to anything in the PLA's arsenal. One item the Taiwanese military could not display was new submarines to replace its two aging Hai Lung-class conventional attack submarines. Taiwan has been trying without success for years to acquire up to ten modern attack subs comparable to the German Type 209, a search that has been renewed with greater urgency since China began taking delivery of Kilo attack subs from Russia. However, no Western nation has been willing to supply such systems, and it now appears that Taiwan will have to break any future Chinese blockade of its ports relying primarily on air power and naval surface combatants (unless the U.S. intervenes with its own submarines). It is not clear whether Taiwan will gain access to other advanced Western systems it is seeking, such as next-generation defenses against tactical ballistic missiles, although the U.S. House of Representatives voted in November to make antimissile technology available. But even without these systems, Taiwan clearly has succeeded in assembling a potent military establishment capable of effectively countering the current Chinese force in most conventional contingencies. The combination of 150 F-16s, 60 long-range Mirage 2000s, and 130 Indigenous Defense Fighters that the Taiwanese air force will field early in the next century will outclass PLA air power in quality if not quantity, and Taiwan's naval surface assets will at least match the capabilities of their PLA counterparts. Whether this rough parity in relevant conventional capabilities can be maintained over time is another matter, particularly given Taiwan's lack of a next-generation submarine option. Nonetheless, the Taiwanese government's recent decision to scale back its policy of military self-sufficiency underscores a basic reality of Western Pacific security: the main bulwark against Chinese aggression in the future will not be indigenous military forces, but the naval and air assets of the United States. As long as the U.S. is ready to counter Chinese threats with its own superior air and sea power -- as it was in 1996 -- Beijing's hopes of becoming the dominant force in regional politics will remain unrealized. Northeast Asia 1997 was not a good year in Northeast Asia despite the absence of military clashes in an area that has seen continuous tensions throughout the present century. All of Northeast Asia's economies except that of China turned in disappointing performances for the year, although that description hardly captures the growing desperation of North Korea's beleaguered population as it endured a third consecutive year of food shortages, energy rationing, and declining industry productivity. Japan, the world's second largest economy, experienced the same slow growth that has dogged it every year since the overheated "bubble economy" of the 1980s burst in 1990. At year's end Japan looked unlikely to exceed 2% growth in either 1997 or 1998, a performance far below the 4-5% annual rates of the eighties and the 3.7% rate the robust U.S. economy achieved in 1997. South Korea's economic growth in 1997 was a healthier 6%, which contrasted strikingly with the 4% annual contraction in North Korea's economic output experienced since the early 1990s. But South Korea faced serious economic problems of its own resulting from a slowdown in several export-led sectors that began in 1995. In late 1997 Seoul's stock exchange hit a five-year low amidst worries over the bankruptcy of several large conglomerates and reports of loan defaults in the banking industry. Meanwhile, Russia's Asian maritime provinces continued their fitful adjustment to a post-communist market economy while being subjected to the administration of a remote national government that seemed increasingly Euro-centric in its outlook and concerns. Dissatisfaction with flagging economic performance brought calls for political reform in both Japan and South Korea. Japanese Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto began the year with pledges of political change, particularly in the government's increasingly discredited bureaucracy that was widely perceived to have grown corrupt and incompetent. Attacks on political corruption and mismanagement also figured prominently in the run-up to December elections to pick a successor to South Korean President Kim Young Sam. But whether the political system of either country could deliver change at the pace voters were demanding was far from certain. Northeast Asia's preoccupation with domestic economic and political problems produced a relatively quiet year in terms of military activity. However, the pattern of diplomatic interactions during the year seemed to confirm that many of the long-standing frictions shaping area power relationships during the twentieth century would remain potent influences in the years ahead. Foremost among these frictions was the pervasive distrust of Japan among regional governments, a legacy of World War Two that sometimes led to improbable political alignments and policy outcomes. For example, the South Korean government announced in September that it would spend $3 billion to acquire four Boeing Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft, a plan that not by accident would put Seoul at parity with the four AWACS Tokyo had purchased. The South Korean Navy used the same point of reference -- Japanese capabilities -- in determining requirements for the next-generation attack submarine that it will buy when acquisition of seven German Type-209 subs is completed. These decisions demonstrated that, notwithstanding the presence of 700,000 North Korean soldiers poised for blitzkrieg warfare within a few miles of Seoul, much of the South Korean defense budget was being spent to counter a perceived military threat from Japan. Another manifestation of the suspicion with which Japanese intentions were regarded could be found in Beijing's response to new guidelines governing the U.S. - Japan security relationship that were announced in September. Under the 1978 guidelines in effect until last year, Japan was severely limited in assisting U.S. military forces engaged in regional conflicts unless Japanese territory was under direct attack. The revised guidelines would, inter alia, permit Japan to provide military and other assistance even if the home islands were not threatened. Beijing's leaders inferred from the new arrangements that Japan's military would have much greater latitude to participate in regional wars -- such as the defense of Taiwan -- and encouraged the leaders of other countries to draw the same conclusion. In reality, the new guidelines were intended simply to reduce the imbalance of responsibilities under the bilateral security agreement. There was almost no domestic support in Japan for significantly expanding its overseas military activities. It is not hard to understand the apprehensions about Japanese military and diplomatic objectives among regional governments given the excesses of the Imperial Army and Navy earlier in the century. Moreover, the Japanese Self-Defense Forces are today among the most sophisticated and well-trained military establishments in the world. Their maritime arm outclasses the capabilities of the Chinese and South Korean navies, although it possesses nothing comparable to the range and firepower of the nuclear-propelled and nuclear-armed submarines in Russia's declining Pacific fleet. The Air and Ground Self-Defense Forces are similarly well-equipped and trained but less able than the navy to project power far from the home islands. If Japanese forces were to actually engage other local militaries in conventional conflict, they would have a high likelihood of prevailing. But the possibility of such an encounter in the near future is so remote as to belong to the realm of science fiction. Japan has now been a peaceful, democratic state for half a century, and aversion to war appears to have become a core feature of Japanese political culture. Furthermore, Japanese economic progress throughout the postwar period has been so profound that there is little reason for a resurgence of militarism. Prime Minister Hashimoto and his predecessors have tried to improve relations with Japan's neighbors by defusing territorial disputes left over from World War Two, providing humanitarian aid to countries such as North Korea that are struggling with adversity, and promoting bilateral trade with China, Korea and Russia. Nonetheless, regional concern about Japanese revanchism remains strong, and is one of the underlying reasons why U.S. forces are still welcome in Northeast Asia. The North Korean Puzzle Another major reason why U.S. forces are welcome -- at least in Tokyo and Seoul -- is North Korea's bellicose and unpredictable dictatorship. 1997 brought little apparent change in the North's belligerence, despite the staggering blow that three years of famine and deprivation have delivered to its social fabric. In October Kim Jong Il, son of the deceased dictator Kim Il Sung and head of the North Korean military, was formally installed as general secretary of the Korean Workers Party. Although he still lacked the position of head of state, it was widely assumed in other regional capitals that the reclusive Kim had succeeded in solidifying control over the North Korean military and political apparatus three years after his father's death. It was less clear whether Kim's consolidation of control would in any way impact on his country's headlong slide into economic and social ruin. Signs of social collapse were pervasive. According to the United Nations the per capita daily food supply of North Korea's population fell from about 2,800 calories in 1992 to 700 in 1997. Foreign visitors recounted scenes of suffering in the rural countryside similar to the famines of Subsaharan Africa earlier in the decade. As a result of bad weather and collectivist agriculture policies, the country lost two thirds of its corn crop in 1979 -- a crop that even in good times was insufficient to feed the country's 24 million people. Despite receiving over 300,000 metric tons of food aid since famine first appeared in 1995, it was clear at year's end that most of North Korea was malnourished and some people were literally starving to death. The collapse of North Korea's agriculture was mirrored by a similarly pronounced decline in industrial production. Power outages were common even in the capital of Pyongyang, fuel for vehicles was in very short supply, and many hospitals could not obtain basic medical supplies. After fifty years of communist misrule, the nation's gross domestic product stood at a mere $21 billion, minuscule by comparison with South Korea's $400 billion economy. Even when the South's larger population was factored into comparisons, it was apparent that North Korean workers were less than one-tenth as productive as those in the South, and that their productivity was actually declining over time. Despite this appalling economic performance the North Korean government continued to maintain a huge military infrastructure and Orwellian internal security apparatus. Two thirds of the million-man Army remained deployed near the demilitarized zone that divides the two Koreas, apparently prepared to strike south on very short notice. 1997 saw no change in the persistent pattern of North Korean probing and provocations along the DMZ, nor was there much evidence of increased willingness to enter into direct peace negotiations with the South. According to a Central Intelligence Agency report released in June, Pyongyang continued to provide ballistic-missile technology and other arms assistance to a number of anti-western nations in the Middle East while dedicating a large portion of its meager national wealth to military production. Nonetheless, at year's end there was a consensus among regional observers that North Korea's collapse was rapidly approaching a climax, one that would seal the fate of its brutal government. U.S. Military Presence With so many disturbing trends and uncertainties at work in Northeast Asia, it is not surprising that in 1997 Northeast Asia continued to host one of the largest concentrations of forward-deployed U.S. military forces in the world. U.S. forces permanently stationed in Japan and South Korea numbered some 80,000 active-duty military personnel, including an Army infantry division in Korea, a Marine expeditionary force on Okinawa, the Navy's Seventh Fleet carrier battle group at Yokosuka, and several wings of Air Force fighters. Unlike in Western Europe, where the deployed U.S. force had shrunk by three-quarters in the preceding ten years, the American military contingent in Northeast Asia in 1997 was a mere 15% smaller than in 1987. This reflected not only the continuing tensions in the area, but also a widely shared view among friendly governments that the U.S. military presence was an important stabilizing factor in regional security. However, as James Kelly noted in Seapower's 1997 almanac issue, there is no guarantee that such a sizable contingent of U.S. forces will be able to remain in Northeast Asia indefinitely. First of all, the prospect of North Korean collapse and subsequent reunification with the South would remove most of the military justification for a U.S. presence on the Korean Peninsula. Persistent frictions between Seoul and Washington concerning regional politics, trade and U.S. basing arrangements underscore the fact that American forces are welcome in Korea only so long as their presence is militarily necessary. Koreans in general have no great affinity for large concentrations of foreign military forces on their national soil. In addition, there are similar tensions surrounding the presence of U.S. forces in Japan. These concerns have already resulted in a commitment to redeploy Marine units on Okinawa -- a $3 billion plan for a floating offshore helicopter base was announced in September -- and many observers predict that the redeployment will be accomplished by a significant net reduction in the size of the U.S. force in the area. Once Korea and Japan adjust to the collapse of Communism, it is quite possible that neither country will be inclined to continue hosting extensive U.S. forces on their national territory as the next century unfolds. Southeast Asia Southeast Asia and the adjacent island nations in 1997 provided a telling indication of just how far U.S. forward presence in the Western Pacific could decline once American forces were no longer welcome. Thirty years earlier, half a million American military personnel had been stationed in the area, mostly to prosecute the Vietnam War but also to carry out other missions from the vast Subic Bay naval base and Clark airfield in the Philippines. By the late 1980s the Americans were long gone from Indochina, but 16,700 personnel remained deployed in the Philippines. In 1997, less than a thousand U.S. active-duty military personnel were stationed in all the countries of Southeast Asia and its environs combined, a small fraction of the size of the U.S. force committed to Bosnia in the same year. And while a significant contingent of U.S. forces was still afloat in the area, it was clear that most local governments felt quite comfortable with a minimal U.S. presence. One reason for this seeming disinterest in a visible American security shield was that Southeast Asia had become a remarkably peaceful place. In the 1990s the countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) -- Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand -- had achieved the highest growth rates of any regional grouping of economies in the world. With national wealth expanding rapidly and poverty rates plummeting, there was little inclination to dwell on ancient military rivalries. Territorial disputes occasionally flared, especially over the status of potentially oil-rich islands in the South China Sea, but for most of the 1990s Southeast Asia seemed too preoccupied with economic development to think seriously about war. Whether the region's turn to peaceful pursuits would persist in the aftermath of 1997's meltdown of local equity markets and currencies remained to be seen. In the third and fourth quarters of the year, all of the area stock markets suffered severe declines. By mid-November, equity indexes in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand had all declined over 50% in dollar-denominated terms when the effects of currency devaluations were taken into account. Some observers saw the declines as a necessary correction of speculative excesses in overheated and under-regulated economies. As The Economist observed on November 1, "in countries such as Malaysia, Thailand or Indonesia this could prove salutary, if it unseats old and complacent politicians and forces much-needed change." But the editors went on to warn that tumbling equity and currency values "could also cause nastier reactions, leading these countries in new, potentially worrying directions." Most of the commentary on potential security implications of the meltdown of Southeast Asia's economic "miracle" centered not on the possibility of cross-border military conflicts, but the aggravation of internal tensions in rapidly urbanizing, multiethnic states. Indonesia presented a particularly worrisome case in point, because the aged President Suharto was approaching the end of his sixth five-year term of office at the head of a political system wracked by factionalism and corruption that lacked either a democratic tradition or a clear mechanism for succession. Following parliamentary elections in May, there was continuous speculation as to whether Suharto would again stand for election in the world's fourth most populous nation. Presidential elections were scheduled to occur in March of 1998. In addition to widespread concern about a faltering economy and rampant corruption, many observers expressed the fear that Indonesia's Muslim community -- the largest in the world -- would become politicized in a succession crisis, destabilizing the essentially secular political system. And lurking behind this worry was universal awareness of the fact that the last time Indonesia changed Presidents in 1965, half a million citizens died. The potential for instability was less pronounced in other ASEAN countries, but with the exception of Singapore all were burdened with political systems in desperate need of reform.. Corruption and incompetence had been easy to overlook when their economies were booming, but as the second half of 1997 brought massive declines in national wealth many voters were inclined to at least partly blame the ineptitude of ruling political elites and bureaucracies. In the face of such domestic turmoil, military strategy and spending proved to be a decidedly secondary concern. Following a 50% devaluation of the baht, Thailand slashed its defense budget by nearly a third, indefinitely postponing the purchase of tactical aircraft, frigates, and its first submarines. Malaysia did much the same, delaying its own planned acquisition of diesel-electric subs until the next decade. Indonesia had already acquired several German Type 206 submarines to add its operational fleet of two subs when the financial crisis hit, but as the impact of a slowing economy spread, there were doubts that the increases in defense spending called for in a July white paper would ever be realized. The Philippines too was forced to revisit plans for more vigorous military investment centering on its navy. Even Vietnam reduced the role of the military in its new government announced in October, although this had less to do with an economic slowdown than the failure of its economy to take off in the first place. The new government embraced priorities reminiscent of Deng Xiaoping, favoring economic development and trade over military investment. Australian Stability In the midst of all this regional retrenchment, Australia and New Zealand looked like islands of economic and political stability -- which by the standards of the Western Pacific is precisely what they have been for most of the century. In recent years Australia has played a more vigorous role in regional diplomacy, relaxing old rivalries with neighboring Indonesia and establishing bilateral security dialogues with other Asian governments. In 1997 Canberra hosted a state visit by Ju Rongji, deputy premier of China, which appeared to confirm the warming trend in Sino-Australian relations. But Australian officials stressed after the visit was concluded that their Chinese guest was "not unhappy" with the close security relationship between Australia and the U.S. Australia is the only nation in the southern region of the Western Pacific that has enjoyed close security ties with the U.S. throughout the post-Vietnam period. Other nations, including countries such as the Philippines that still have formal security links to the U.S., have found it diplomatically useful to publicly distance themselves from the world's last remaining superpower. But as 1997 drew to a close and the inevitability of Southeast Asian economic progress was cast into doubt, it was clear the U.S. still had an important security role to play in the area. As elsewhere in the Western Pacific, the vast economic and military power of the U.S. combined with its relative detachment from regional political rivalries allowed it to continue playing an important stabilizing role -- a role that some governments did not like to acknowledge but from which all benefitted. Dr. Thompson directs the defense program of the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution and teaches in Georgetown University's National Security Studies Program. 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Loren B. Thompson
1997 was a peaceful year in the Western Pacific, at least for the region's military establishments. Having spent most of the twentieth century in the throes of continuous warfare and political upheaval, the vast arc of nations stretching from Russia's Asian maritime provinces to Australia for once seemed to be living up to its designation as the "pacific" littoral.