Post-Cold War Security of Japan through ARF The end of the Cold War brought a dramatic turn in the world history. The collapse of bipolar balance brought the need to normalize poor diplomatic relations and also to reassure and mature pre-existing strong diplomatic ties between states. Japan was certainly not an exception to this need. The importance of playing a lager role in regional and global security as a way of ensuring its security interests grew in Japan as the proceeding balance of power, or pre-existing security, became unreliable to her. Indeed, she initiated the regional security entity called the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) to strengthen Asia-Pacific security. But why did Japan take the role to propose such an institution? What is Japans stake in this regional security entity? Why is the entity based on multilateralism? And finally, how much can the ARF achieve to strengthen Asia security? Questions like these are crucial to be answered in examining Japans security relations with her neighbor Asian countries. In this paper, I argue that multilateral regional security entity is crucial and is the only way to secure herself in the post-Cold War era. The ARF, thereby, is a necessary international institution to succeed in guaranteeing profitable diplomatic relations for Japan as well as other countries including Asian and non-Asian states. For Japan, the end of the Cold War meant a shift from reactive state to cautious leader to become a normal country, as a politician Ichiro Ozawa puts, that is acceptable to the world and the ARF is the best possible opportunity for Japan to attain such a goal.During the Cold War, Japan pursued an isolationist and much of a passive strategy in regional security. Much of her effort has been rather put into economic strength based on the Yoshida doctrine found after the defeat of the World War II. To begin with, Japan has been relying heavily on the US in terms of security issue...
