Global Problems, Regional Solutions?: The Challenge of EU-US-Asian Cooperation in the Post-Cold War International System

Abstract

The interests that Asia and Europe share in common have been largely mediated by the United States. The regional parochialism of both the leading European and Asian states makes trilateral solutions to common problems difficult to forge and sustain. Despite the fluidity of the post cold war international system, it is increasingly viewed as organisable, its constituent actors are viewed as interdependent, and the benefits of cooperation are judged to outweigh its costs. This shift in orientation has been driven by the changes in the content of security as well as the security dilemma itself: states must adopt a broad, systematic definition of security, rather than the narrowly egotistic definition of security that has informed the security calculus of states in the modern era. A number of important questions emerge from the geostrategic upheaval attending the end of the cold war: How is the globalisation of security to be organised and managed? Will the US continue to act as the major international policeman and will the EU, or for that matter Japan, take a growing stake in how other countries govern or misgovern themselves. What reliance can or should be placed on international organisations to deal with international conflicts? The answers to these questions are heavily dependent upon the interpretation given to the changes that have occurred in the international system, the emergent balances of power (global and regional), and the mix of dependence and independence shaping relations between the United States, the European Union and Japan.