The United States Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, wants Asia to remain inclusive in their regional initiatives, saying that a country, or groupings of small numbers of countries may not be effective in tackling problems.
"The kind of problems we face today, it strikes me, in many instances, is not the kind of problems that can be successfully dealt with by one country, any country, or even by a relatively small number of countries," he said at a dialogue with defence ministers and military leaders at the annual security summit, dubbed the Shangri-La Dialogue, here.
SINGAPORE, June 3 (Bernama) -- The United States Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, wants Asia to remain inclusive in their regional initiatives, saying that a country, or groupings of small numbers of countries may not be effective in tackling problems.
"The kind of problems we face today, it strikes me, in many instances, is not the kind of problems that can be successfully dealt with by one country, any country, or even by a relatively small number of countries," he said at a dialogue with defence ministers and military leaders at the annual security summit, dubbed the Shangri-La Dialogue, here.
The problems facing the region today were taking global proportions that simply did not lend themselves to a single country or small number of countries solution, he said.
"Therefore the preference is for the organisations to be inclusive and thereby have a better chance of being successful in addressing some of the critical and indeed dangerous problems that face the world," he said.
Earlier, a participant asked Rumsfeld his views on the issue of multilateralism in the wake of regional organisations such as the Asean Plus Three and the East Asia Summit which the US is not a part of.
Citing the US war on terror, Rumsfeld said that there were about 70 nations now involved in assisting and putting pressure on terrorists across the world.
Stopping short of saying that the US wanted to be included in such a grouping, he said small exclusive groups would not be able to effectively do the job.
To another question on whether the US will play a role to combat the ideological basis of extremism, he said: "The struggle which is taking place in that religion, in my view, is a struggle between a relatively small minority of violent extremists against the overwhelming majority of the Muslim people".
"It's going to end over a long period of time with the majority prevailing over the minority...we need to be supportive of those people who are taking a moderate voice, who are in fact providing leadership in their countries," he said.
-- BERNAMA
