China, India and Russia could risk regional security as they seek greater roles in Asia, the US military said yesterday.
US Pacific Air Command Chief Admiral Dennis Blair warned against "zero-sum, balance-of-power mindsets" and said ambitious Asian countries must choose to flex their muscles in a restrained and predictable way.
"Leaders in China, India and Russia, and other states, talk of a multi-polar world where major states represent centers of power, continually maneuvering to create balances," Blair told the Asia Society in Melbourne during a visit to Australia.
"This is the world of Bismarck and 19th century Europe," he said, referring to the brinkmanship of the 19th century German "Iron Chancellor."
Blair, who is to meet in Canberra today with Australian Defense Minister John Moore, said military plans and actions by China, India and Russia must be designed to "reassure and involve neighbors," not to threaten them with arms races.
"For a peaceful future for Asia, these countries must redefine or expand their power in predictable, restrained and constructive ways," he said.
Blair also said Japan faced a challenge with its changing security policy.
"Its challenge is to maintain its alliance with the US and reassure its neighbors that it has learned the lessons of its history, while it assumes the obligations as well as the benefits of a normal nation of its economic stature."
Japan and the US began their first joint military exercises this month in line with the adoption of new security arrangements last year.
In an address entitled "Asia- Pacific security in the 21st century," Blair said other Asian security challenges included communal violence driven by separatist movements and historic grievances in countries like Indonesia, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Fiji and the Solomon Islands.
"This violence threatens those caught in its path, fosters terrorism, causes the migration of refugees and creates humanitarian disasters that can lead to international responses such as East Timor," he said.
Blair said "unresolved wars" -- as between the two Koreas and India and Pakistan over Kashmir -- and trans-national concerns such as terrorism, weapons proliferation, illegal drugs and piracy, were Asia's other main challenges.
Blair said a multilateral approach was a key to addressing these challenges, noting that Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) army chiefs, who traditionally operated on a bilateral basis, were planning soon to meet together.
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