In the middle of the 90's Russia managed to make a sensational break into the AME market in East and South East Asia. Besides the traditional relations with India, Vietnam and China that are the main MTC partners of Russia in the region the active negotiations with Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and Philippines on new armament systems deliveries have been carried on.

The last financial crisis, however, inevitably corrected the Russian AME marketing strategy on the markets of South East Asia. Due to the fact that Russia has limited political and financial resources to influence upon the potential clients, it has to pay greater attention to its competitive advantages such as the possibility to export the most advanced armaments with due regard to the client's needs and requirements, the lack of any political conditions for conclusion of the contracts and earlier non-traditional methods of the military and technical cooperation. Under the Russian specialists, the readiness to transfer military technologies is an exceptional practice that allows the research institutes and the design bureaus to survive under the insufficient state financing. The financial resources received from the technologies export can be invested into the R&D on the 5th -6th generation armaments.

Russia traditionally has the most attractive offers on the market of army and air defense armaments. Despite the low attractiveness of the Russian naval equipment early in the 90's, a number of rather competitive Russian products have appeared recently. The Russian ship armament systems are the separated perspective segment. By the middle of the 90's the Russian aviation military equipment managed to gain certain positions on the regional AME market. The American and the European offers that compete with the Russian armaments are also described in the article.

According to the author, the competition among the Russian AME exporters and the existing problems on payments for armaments deliveries limit Russia's expansion into the armament markets of South East Asia.

Nevertheless, large contracts for delivery of different arms to India, Thailand, South Korea, Malaysia, China and Vietnam can be signed in the near future. The existing tense military and political situation in the region raises the interest of the importers in air defense means. The modernization of earlier supplied armaments and military equipment as well as the export of spare parts and ammunition also has certain prospects.

In general the financial and economic crisis in some South East Asian countries didn't cause the suspension of the military development and the foreign armaments purchase. Sometimes such situation even improves the perspectives of the Russian companies because the importers prefer the suppliers of less expensive products. But the traditional partners - China, India and Vietnam, still remain the main customers for the Russian armaments. Both the counteraction of the USA and the weak export policy of Russia itself impede the expansion into the markets of the other countries of the region.