On the 12-13 November 2009 the IISS hosted a workshop in Washington, DC to explore the issue of ‘Major Power Dynamics in Asia: Implications for Small and Medium-sized Powers.’ The workshop was very kindly supported by The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation’s Asia Security Initiative (ASI).
It has become evident that a multi-polar Asia has come into being. The United States remains preponderant. But a certain lassitude has been perceived in America’s wider diplomacy. China’s presence in Asia has grown spectacularly. But Beijing’s avowedly benign strategic intentions are suspected by other powers in Asia. Tokyo has become strategically more extroverted. India has recently discovered a sense of itself as a rising Asian power of international reach. The revanchist tone of Russia’s diplomacy points to the possibility of a more prominent and assertive role in Asia’s geopolitics.
The implications for the foreign and defence postures of Asia’s smaller states warrant closer attention. Some have attempted to influence the regional balance by actively strengthening their security relations with the United States, or have at least acquiesced in US efforts to reinforce its regional partnerships. At the same time, most have displayed interest in constructing a ‘regional security architecture’. These same states have also, however, continued to build their national military capabilities, increasing their defence spending in proportion to their economic success: there has been no evidence of a European-style, post-Cold War ‘peace dividend’ in the Asia-Pacific.
There are grounds for concern that shifting regional balance and still-embryonic institutionalised security architecture as well as military competition between regional states, could generate future conflict. The workshop audited those prospects and assessed the place smaller and medium powers will have in the merging regional strategic dispensation.
