Seventy Years after World War II: Comparing Europe and Northeast Asia’s Security Architectures

The present article looks at the 70th anniversary of the end of the Second World War from an historical and comparative perspective, scrutinizing the diverging pathways established in Europe and Northeast Asia in the aftermaths of such a tragic event with regard to the construction of a new security architecture. In order to grasp the rationale behind the widely different outcomes of these processes within the selected case studies, the first section will highlight the fundamental steps and prerequisites that paved the way for the consolidation of a Euro–Atlantic security community, characterized by peaceful interactions among its members based on shared values and identities. Accordingly, it will emphasize the fundamental importance of historical reconciliation efforts pursued since 1945 by European states—most notably between France and the Federal Republic of Germany—as well as the contribution of innovative multilateral institutions, such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), in laying the foundations of an unprecedented defense framework. Northeast Asia’s trajectory, on the other hand, will be at the core of the second section, aimed at examining the roots of its prolonged reliance on traditional bilateral ties built on the American “hub– and–spokes” system, which ultimately hindered the possibility of replicating in the area the main features of Europe’s collective security mechanisms. Finally, the last section will focus on the recent impact of this peculiar path on several major issues that nowadays stand at the top of the regional security agenda—as in the case of the mutual grievances among the People’s Republic of China, Japan, and South Korea produced by controversial memories of WWII—arguing that the absence of shared narratives concerning such a paramount conflict represents a fundamental impediment to the establishment of a cooperative security environment in Northeast Asia.