SYSTEMS THEORY AND SECURITY IN NORTHEAST ASIA

Abstract

This paper employs neorealist systems theory, particularly Kenneth N. Waltz’s, to analyze Northeast Asia’s current and future security concerns. It begins by studying the relationships between structures and states’ behaviors in international systems for developing a theoretical understanding of structural effects on units’ ideological salience within systems. States’ ideological characters do not clearly appear in amultipolar system because structure restrains their ideological salience. According to the author, in a multipolar international system, states’ characters do not play an important role in shaping individual states’ behaviors. A bipolar structure, however, increases the salience of states’ ideological characters more than a multipolar structure does, which critically affect their alliance formation. This paper also provides a historical review of Northeast Asia’s international political structures. The author argues that, regarding system stability, bipolarity was more stable than multipolarity in Northeast Asia. The paper assumes that the current international political structure is a unipolar one dominated by the United States and that a post-unipolar structure in Northeast Asiawould be multipolar. Through various scenarios, it addresses how this transformation of the international political structures would affect Northeast Asian security issues such as great power shifts, the proliferation of nuclear weapons, North Korea’s survival as a state, United States’forces in Northeast Asia, Japan’s military normalization, China-Taiwan relations, and territorial disputes.