More recently, less than two months ago, relations between the United States and the member States of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have undergone important changes. During the regular session of the ASEAN Regional Security Forum (ARF) held in Phuket, Thailand, on July 23, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the Foreign Ministers of ten member countries signed a Protocol on the United States ' accession to the 1976 Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation in Southeast Asia. (Treaty of Bali). This act was characterized by X. Clinton as "the return of the United States to Southeast Asia"1. This, of course, historic event is a tectonic shift in the American strategy of international security, which can make serious adjustments to Washington's policy in the entire Asia-Pacific region. At the same time, the US accession to the Bali Treaty is hardly unexpected. The factors that prompted American diplomacy to take this step have been maturing for decades. The development of the association's institutionalization process and its promotion by the middle of the first decade of the 2000s to the position of a generally recognized moderator of the macro-regional dialogue in Greater East Asia2 made the interaction of the United States with the association more balanced, purposeful and multidimensional. To date, relations between the United States and ASEAN combine interests and contradictions in the field of diplomacy, regional security, economy and trade, being in a complex interdependence with the policies of other dialogue partners of the association, primarily the PRC. For ASEAN itself, interaction with the United States in the late 1990s and 2000s was a test of the strength of its declared unity, its ability to act as an independent subject of international relations in the context of the formation of a new, post - bipolar world order and the globalization of the world economy. * Roman SENIN-PhD in Political Science, Senior Researcher at the Center for Vi ... Read more