Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-5c6d5d7d68-wp2c8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-08-22T16:21:34.763Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

6 - Post-Cold War: Asia-Pacific, 1989–2000

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 January 2010

Roger Buckley
Affiliation:
International Christian University, Tokyo
Get access

Summary

America today is by any measure the world's unchallenged military and economic power, having completed the first peacetime expansion of our global reach since the days of Theodore Roosevelt. The world counts on us to be a catalyst of coalitions, a broker of peace, a guarantor of global financial stability. We are widely seen as the country best placed to benefit from globalization.

Samuel Berger, national security adviser to President Clinton, Foreign Affairs, November 2000

Japan is our principal friend, ally and partner – not China. That doesn't mean we are not anxious to improve our relations with China.

Ambassador Thomas Foley, Asahi Evening News (Tokyo), 11 December 2000

Is America going to end its presence in Asia and listen to its own interests? Or is it going to continue to face resistance if it were to intervene too much? But there is also a dilemma in this region, that if America were to abandon Asia completely, it would create numerous problems.

Yamamoto Mitsuru, panel discussion on China in the twenty-first century, Tokyo, November 1994

The End of the USSR

The collapse of the Soviet empire and then the sudden demise of the Soviet Union astounded the world. The speed and finality of this process caught nearly everyone off guard. Few Great Powers have surrendered their dominions and then committed suicide in quite such a dramatic and unexpected manner. The Berlin Wall fell on 9 November 1989; less than a year later Germany was reunified and by December 1991 the USSR was no more.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2002

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×