Regionalism and Multilateralism: Essays on Cooperative Security in the Asia-Pacific (review)

330Book Reviews At issue may not be whether Thaksin is devoid of ideas, but whether his ideas bode well or ill for Thailand and to what ends and to whose benefit they serve. This book thickens the plot of Thai studies, its narrative fluid and lively. It should be required reading for anyone who wants to grasp what Thaksin is all about and where Thailand is headed under his watch. Thitinan Pongsudhirak Department of International Relations Faculty of Political Science Chulalongkorn University Rangkok, Thailand Regionalism and Multilateralism: Essays on Cooperative Security in the Asia-Pacific. By Amitav Acharya. Singapore: Eastern Universities Press, 2003. Softcover: 391pp. The end of the Cold War had different effects on East Asia and Europe. This historic event led to the termination of the division of Europe along ideological lines and paved the way for the expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to the eastern part of the continent. It also resulted in the deepening ofthe European Union (EU) as the member states decided to change the regional grouping from a single market to an economic union. They also agreed to widen the EU's membership as virtually all European states west of Russia were invited to join the organization. The end of the Cold War transformed Europe from the realm of Mars to a domain of Venus largely because this event brought about a fundamental and systemic transformation of regional politics based on realism and the balance of terror to a new regime founded on the principles of liberalism and multilateralism. This has not been the case in East Asia. The collapse of the Soviet Union removed the major strategic rationale that held the United States, Japan and China together in an informal entente. It also removed the lid over a number of local conflicts such as those in the Korean peninsula and the Taiwan Strait. Consequently, the immediate post-1991 period was marked by the emergence of new apprehensions, and inter-state rivalries and tensions due to the uncertainty about the future positions, interests, and relations between China, Japan, the United States and India. The rapid growth of its economy and the removal of the Soviet conventional military threat from its northern border have enabled Book Reviews331 Beijing to become a significant actor in the regional security equation. China now is not only an economic powerhouse but also a confident player in the regional politico-strategic game. It is considered by most states in the region as the newly emerging power with whom they must all have to reckon. And to most East Asian states, it is unclear whether China as great power will adopt a status quo or a revisionist foreign policy. There has also been concern that Japan is developing military capabilities to become a normal player or power in the regional security equation. Furthermore, the Taiwan Straits and the Korean peninsula have become major flashpoints in the regional security scenario. The persistence of lingering historical antagonisms, weakness of regional organizations, unstable relations among the great powers, and the possibility that some of the regional disputes are about to escalate into militarized conflicts — have all resulted in the widespread belief that Asia will become the most important zone of conflict in the 21st century. Indeed, the end of the Cold War seemed to have pushed the region deeper into Mars' fiefdom and has created the expectation that Europe's past could well be Asia's future. Amitav Acharya's Regionalism and Multilateralism disputes these notions. Acharya argues that since the 1960s, but especially since the end of the Cold War, the region in general, and Southeast Asia in particular, has been conducting a significant experiment in multilateralism. He asserts that instead of a region plagued by balance of power politics and geo-strategic rivalry, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations' (ASEAN) model of regionalism has become the model for regional security cooperation and thus, East Asian states (including the major powers) have been managing their relations on the basis of norms, identities and institutional mechanisms. The book is a collection of 14 well-written and highly theoretical essays identifying and examining the key features of East Asian regionalism. They address...