The main theme of this book is that security is not just about defence from external attack, but embraces the protection of identity and values which cultures regard as important, and which they may regard as worth fighting for. It examines Asia Pacific security from the perspective of the values and identities of the major actors in the region - China, Japan, the Koreas and the USA.

This book provides a comparative assessment of the material and ideational contributions of five countries to the regional architecture of post-Cold War Asia. In contrast to the usual emphasis placed on the role and centrality of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Asia’s multilateral architecture and its component institutions, this book argues that the four non-ASEAN countries of interest here 3⁄4 Australia, Japan, China and the United States 3⁄4 and Indonesia have played and continue to play an influential part in determining the shape and substance of Asian multilateralism from its pre-inception to the present. The work does not contend that existing scholarship overstates ASEAN’s significance to the successes and failures of Asia’s multilateral enterprise. Rather, it claims that the impact of non-ASEAN stakeholders in innovating multilateral architecture in Asia has been understated. Whether ASEAN has fared well or poorly as a custodian of Asia’s regional architecture, the fact remains that the countries considered here, notwithstanding their present discontent over the state of that architecture, are key to understanding the evolution of Asian multilateralism. This book will be of much interest to students of Asian politics, international organisations, security studies and IR more generally.

There is a growing interest in human security in Southeast Asia. This book firstly explores the theoretical and conceptual basis of human security, before focusing on the region itself. It shows how human security has been taken up as a central part of security policy in individual states in Southeast Asia, as well as in the regional security policy within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). The book discusses domestic challenges for human security including the insurgencies in southern Thailand, the Philippines and Indonesia. Transnational security issues such as terrorism, drugs, human trafficking and the situation in Burma are explored by the author, and the ‘ASEAN’ way of contrasting the values and approaches of Southeast Asian countries with those in the West is assessed. By focusing on the ongoing changes and efforts to achieve human security in Southeast Asia, this book contributes to theoretical debates on human security as well as regional studies on Southeast Asia.

This book examines the key motivations for and challenges to greater regional integration in Southeast Asia. It demonstrates how security and economic concerns -domestic, regional and international - have either contributed to, or detracted from, an increased level of unity and cooperation in ASEAN. It also explores how the patterns of interaction and socialization generated by these issues, together with the nature of domestic political systems, have affected the emergence of common values, norms and interests. It covers the full range of issues confronting ASEAN at present, and the full range of ASEAN countries, and discusses both developments in ASEAN to date and also likely future developments.

Creating Japan’s Ground Self-Defense Force, 1945–2015 is a timely contribution to postwar Japan security studies. It is the first comprehensive account of Japan’s post-1945 army, including a comprehensive institutional history, together with the evolution of roles and missions and the adoption of successive professional identities. The organizational history is embedded within a thorough examination of Japan’s own defense policy, as well as of America’s policy of alliance with Japan. The book examines and challenges assumptions about the drafting and adoption of the War Renunciation clause of Japan’s postwar Peace Constitution, Article 9, which uniquely not only renounces war, but the arms to wage war. Thus Japan’s army is not called an army, but the Ground Self-Defense Force (GSDF). The work also examines the place of an army and soldiers in the formation of Japan’s national identity after its last devastating war, and explores the impact of constitutional, legal and policy restrictions, as well as the power of the legacy of the still-largely vilified Imperial Japanese Army on GSDF members who seek to serve because “there are people we want to protect.” The study is rounded by an examination of the place of soldiers in Japan’s popular culture, focused on movies, manga and anime, assessing the impact on the GSDF of a public imagination that most often ignores or villainizes soldiers, though ending with a note that some positive images of soldiers and of the GSDF members themselves have started to appear in the last few years. The book’s author, a retired U.S. Army soldier who spent more than twenty years working, studying and training with the GSDF, offers a broad-ranging exploration of a unique organization. This work is extensively researched, using English and Japanese sources, and will appeal to anyone interested in Japanese security studies, alliance studies, and military imagery in Japanese pop culture, as well as to students of military history, international security, international relations, and cultural identity.

Functional integration in the economy has developed sufficiently in Northeast Asia. This study proposes a Northeast Asian version of the regional integration model. It suggests a crisis model and a political leadership model, with political leadership playing a critical role in utilizing crises to advance regional integration.