New Delhi, June 15 -- the West is not simply competing for influence in the Asia Pacific. It is militarizing it.

Yevgeny Zagaynov, Russia's ambassador to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, told RIA Novosti in an interview published Sunday that Moscow is watching with alarm as "a dangerous accumulation of conflict potential" builds across a region that has spent decades avoiding the open military alignments that define Europe and the Middle East. Narrow military-political mechanisms are being formed, Zagaynov said, and some ASEAN countries "are trying to get involved." The region, he added, "is being actively pumped with Western weapons."

The timing was deliberate. The Russia-ASEAN commemorative summit, dedicated to the 35th ann...