Hamish McDonald, in a far-reaching examination of the shifting geopolitical sands emerging from the six-party talks on North Korea-US security issues, offers a post-hegemonic vision of a new region-centered order in East Asia. Envisaging a region in which a China- or China-Japan centric structure emerges, it is premised on a withdrawal of American military force as the geopolitical core of coastal East Asia to a still powerful military position centered on Guam. But can the US-North Korea agreement hold, and is such a strategic withdrawal in fact in the cards? Is the predominance of Condoleezza Rice's State Department the future of US global policy? Can China and Japan work out a modus vivendi that accommodates both the two major Asian powers and lesser regional powers? Time will tell. MS