ARLINGTON, Va., Nov. 20 (UPI) -- Earlier this month U.S. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates spent a week in East Asia, which has emerged as one of the most vibrant centers of economic growth in the world.

Pentagon policymakers tend to use the word "transformation" too loosely, but the Western Pacific is a place where transformation is a very real thing. Over the last 50 years China, Japan and South Korea have all ascended to the status of world-class economies, and as they did their societies witnessed profound change. Not surprisingly, U.S. policymakers are devoting more of their time to developments in East Asia.

One recurrent theme in the public remarks of Gates as he traveled around the region is that local nations, especially Japan, should use their growing wealth to play a more active role in promoting global security.

The biggest Asian powers all tend to be somewhat insular by comparison with their European counterparts, even though they are at least as dependent on access to overseas resources and a smoothly functioning trade system. The U.S. Air Force and Navy have increased the tempo of cooperative activities with militaries in the region, but getting local forces to do anything big outside the region is not easy.

Perhaps that is just as well, given China's ambivalence about democracy, South Korea's need to cope with an aberrant cousin to the north, and domestic resistance in Japan to any hint of militarism. But there is still a great deal that the countries Can Do to foster stability near home, such as restraining North Korea's aggressive impulses and policing sea lanes.