Bush in Asia: all about security

President Bush takes part in an Asian economic summit in Bangkok Monday, but there - as on the rest of his eight-day, six-country Asia trip - his emphasis will be on terrorism, security, and weapons proliferation.

The president's focus represents both a new direction for relations with the region, and a tacit recognition that Asia presents many of the gravest security threats on the globe.

"The president is going with very little of economic importance in his pocket, to a part of the world where US relations have to a great extent been about economic ties," says security expert Kurt Campbell. "Now it's basically all security all the time."

At the two-day Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, Mr. Bush will seek broadly to draw the connection between economic prosperity and security. While proposing a ban on personal antiaircraft missiles to enhance airline security in the region, he will also tout greater participation in his Proliferation Security Initiative, which seeks to curtail trade in weapons parts and materials.

"Under the Bush administration, APEC is morphing into a security organization," says Mr. Campbell, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

The focus on security in Asia goes beyond APEC. Over the weekend the president, on a stop in Manila, lauded US security ties to the Philippines, where American forces have helped President Gloria Arroyo combat the Abu Sayyaf terrorist group, which has ties to Al Qaeda. And later this week Bush visits Bali, Indonesia - site of a devastating Al Qaeda-linked bombing a year ago - where he will meet with moderate Muslim leaders.

And from Tokyo (last week) to Bangkok (this week), the president is talking up the importance to the world of success in Iraq, and seeking greater international participation there - a new, unanimous UN resolution on Iraq reconstruction under his belt.

Bush is earning points among international security experts for taking the new emphasis to Asia. But at the same time, some analysts say the administration is sidestepping some of the most serious proliferation threats.

"What's most needed in Asia are the very things the president is least likely to do," says Joseph Cirincione, director of the Non-Proliferation Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. At the top of Mr. Cirincione's list is "getting serious about negotiating an end to North Korea's nuclear program." He also includes a push to secure Pakistan's nuclear arsenal, redoubled efforts to reduce tensions between India and Pakistan, and more focused attention to Iran's nuclear program. Efforts like the Proliferation Security Initiative, which the president unveiled in a speech in Warsaw last May, are "a good idea," Cirincione adds, "but it's not a substitute for core policy on solving the most pressing problems."

Other experts are less gloomy about the tack the Bush administration has taken on proliferation concerns. In their view, forging a community of nations set on interdicting international trade in parts and fuels for weapons of mass destruction is a step toward solving regional security issues.

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