Studies in Asian Security. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2019. 264 pp. US$70.00, cloth. ISBN 9781503608443.
Andrew Yeo provides a comprehensive account of the development of alliances and regional institutions in the Asian (or rather: Asia-Pacific) region from the postwar period towards the present. He groups together a broad range of institutions such as the US “hub-and-spoke” military alliances, multilateral economic (APEC, RCEP) and security fora (EAS, ARF) as well as issue-specific or ad hoc regimes such as the Six-Party Talks, under the umbrella term of regional architecture. Architecture in his definition is “an institutional framework that provides actors with structures for governance” (7). As such, it is a key element in understanding the immensely complex contours of regional interaction under conditions of increased geopolitical competition. As Yeo asserts: “[t]he unfolding regional architecture sheds some light into Asia’s future order” (162).
The book’s is organized as follows. In chapter 1, Yeo unpacks his many definitional criteria—a must for scholars of regional security—and propounds his novel historical-institutional perspective. The remainder of the book’s seven chapters then proceed chronologically through an historical account of the inception of the post-war (bilateral) “Alliance Consensus” (chapter 2), “Change and Continuity 1989–1997” (chapter 3), “Rising Regionalism: 1998–2007” (chapter 4), “Complex Patchwork: 2008–2017” (chapter 5), to the present—“America First, China’s Rise, and Regional Order” (chapter 6), and ending with chapter 7, “Conclusion.”
Asia’s Regional Architecture provides a rewarding journey into the scholarly and practical debates on the topic and is expansive in scope and detail. Among its many contributions, the historical-institutional perspective adopted and applied by Yeo to explain the evolution of Asia’s regional architecture has much to recommend for assisting in a better understanding of why the “complex patchwork” looks the way it does. It also offers a refreshing alternative to the mainstay IR research traditions of realism, liberalism, and constructivism, whilst transcending them. Yeo argues that by tracing developments back through temporal processes and events, a particular institutional path can be discerned, one which often has entrenched and self-replicating effects (path dependence) (5). This explains what he calls the “institutional layering” (6) upon the foundation of early postwar US alliances through a succession of complementary multilateral institutions, and their subsequent interactions. Following this process institutions emerged, adapted, or were discarded in accordance with the desires of their proponents (architects) inscribing the region with aspects of both change and continuity.
Another valuable contribution of the book is the exploration of the undertheorized relationship between “security architecture” and “security “order.” Yeo posits that the regional institutional architecture forms a site within which competing actors seek to advance their proffered visions of regional security order, which will then be reflected in their preference of institutional mechanisms and the design of them. He argues “the future of regional order—that is, the patterns of interaction between state actors—requires thinking more seriously about Asia’s regional architecture—the overarching institutional framework(s) that provide actors with governance structures that help shape order” (3). The resultant prevailing regional order will be the (negotiated) product of competing designs by various “architects” (state or multi-state actors). This dynamic is under-explored in the scholarship and much misunderstood, so Yeo’s incisive intervention on this score is exceedingly welcome.
Additionally, Yeo’s book is packed with interesting insights and reflections upon (security) institutions, especially alliances. The introduction of the notion “alliance consensus” is particularly illuminating in the way it bridges the international and domestic (two-level) game aspect of alliance behaviour. He argues that the strength of alliance relations (with the US) in target states is dependent on the ingrained shared perceptions and understandings among domestic elites (socialization) and how embedded they become in their own national security strategies (31). This is particularly notable in the Japanese and Australian cases as this reviewer can testify. This provides an interesting counterpoint to the dominant balance of power/balance of threat structural explanations currently at the heart of alliance theory.
Yeo’s work, as he acknowledges, has been much-influenced by Georgetown University’s Victor Cha, and this is evident in Yeo’s employment of the “complex patchwork” descriptor of regional architecture and his interpretation of the US alliance system, particularly its origins. Through his institutional-layering notion Yeo views multilateral bodies such as the ASEAN-plus suite of pan-regional institutions largely as a supplement to the central US alliance system, but this is debatable. For example, as ASEAN allies such as Thailand, the Philippines, and perhaps South Korea arguably begin to drift away from Washington on the basis of a weakening alliance consensus, and China sets up competitive and potentially antagonistic architecture including the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) (which receive comparatively limited treatment in the book), such assumptions begin to appear less tenable. That is, the prior dominance of the US alliance system is relatively diminishing. Beijing, as a rising power is on record as being thoroughly antagonistic to the US alliance system upon which American engagement in the region is predicated (158). The tensions between bilateralism and multilateralism, including alternative Chinese-led organs of regional governance, are being exacerbated, no matter how resilient (in some cases, Japan and Australia) the US alliance system remains. This is further reflected in the book’s overall American-centric accent throughout. Though the author has consulted a small sample of the most prominent scholars from other states/regions, the narrow bandwidth through which countries outside the US are filtered does feel a little lacking in depth and nuance (South Korea being an exception). This is not by any means a serious problem, and is understandable given the scope of the literature required for such a comprehensive enterprise, but may grate a bit with those beyond America’s academic confines. Additionally, the contemporary reader may ponder how the rising power of India, and the new concept of an “Indo-Pacific” region may further transfigure a strategic landscape in which the US role continues to diminish; but this is largely beyond the scope of the book, which is bounded by rather anachronistic American conceptions of a “Pacific Century” (chapter 3) rather than an “Indo-Pacific” one. As the author concedes, “historical institutionalism does better in explaining and describing the past than in predicting future action” (174).
Overall, Yeo’s book serves as an outstanding primer on how the institutional landscape developed the way it did and why. It is an absolutely essential addition to the literature on regionalism and security architecture in the Asia-Pacific, and comes highly recommended for students, scholars, and practitioners alike.
The University of Sydney, Sydney