China\u27s Nuclear Force Modernization

Relations between Washington and Beijing improved swiftly in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, especially in comparison to the nadir that had been reached during the April 2001 EP-3 incident. This new tide of cooperation has included counterterrorism initiatives, regional partnership in such complex situations as Afghanistan and North Korea, and even some modest agreement on the importance of maintaining the status quo with respect to Taiwan\u27s status.https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/usnwc-newport-papers/1023/thumbnail.jp

Not Congruent but Quite Complementary: U.S. and Chinese Approaches to Nontraditional Security

U.S.-China relations, difficult in the best of times, have lurched in a dangerous direction since 2009. Against the backdrop of a weakened global economy and sharpened ideological tensions, there has been a disturbing new atmosphere of crisis in East Asia over the last two years, with incidents occurring in greater frequency and sowing serious doubts about the sustainability of the long peace that this region has enjoyed for decades. Indeed, any one of the following incidents could have escalated into a serious regional crisis: the sinking of the South Korean frigate Cheonan; the collision between a Japanese coast guard cutter and a Chinese fishing trawler and the ensuing Chinese restrictions on the export of rare-earth minerals; and a string of confrontations between Chinese patrol ships and vessels from both Vietnam and the Philippines.https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/cmsi-red-books/1008/thumbnail.jp

The Great North Korean Famine:Famine, Politics, and Foreign Policy

Though not linked to the tragedy of 11 September 2001, North Korea rose once again to near the top of the list of likely U.S. adversaries with President George W. Bush’s association of Pyongyang with a so-called axis of evil. This fine book by Andrew Natsios should be required reading for those contemplating the various policy dilemmas that confront the U.S. on the Korean Peninsula. Natsios provides an eloquent and informed narrative of evil as it exists today in North Korea—the slow and tortured death of millions of North Korean citizens by starvation as a direct result of the regime’s totalitarian nature and its failure to reform disastrous economic policies. But the author also demonstrates that the North Korean quandary defies simple solutio

Five Dragons Stirring Up the Sea: Challenge and Opportunity in China’s Improving Maritime Enforcement Capabilities

In an age of delicate maneuvering among the great powers, coast guards have taken new and leading roles on the world stage. When Washington wanted to demonstrate conviction and bring supplies to beleaguered Georgia without escalating already simmering tensions around the Black Sea, the USCGC Dallas, a large U.S. Coast Guard cutter, was quickly dispatched. The trend has long been visible in Asia. Tokyo\u27s most extensive use of deadly force in the postwar era was an action by the Japanese coast guard against a North Korean surveillance vessel. More recently, a Japan Coast Guard cutter sank a Taiwanese fishing vessel in a collision near the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyutai Islands in the East China Sea, prompting a relatively serious diplomatic incident. These most powerful coast guards are spawning imitators. India, for example, announced a bold new purchase of long-range patrol aircraft for its coast guard in the fall of 2008. South Korea\u27s improving coast guard, meanwhile, has invited foreign reporters to a tour in the vicinity of islands that are administered by South Korea but claimed by Japan, accompanying the visit with belligerent rhetoric.https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/cmsi-red-books/1004/thumbnail.jp

Gunboats for China’s New “Grand Canals”?—Probing the Intersection of Beijing’s Naval and Oil Security Policies

China’s seaborne energy imports have become as vital a lifeline as was a waterway known as the “Grand Canal” in the central part of the nation a millennium ago. But the strategic environment is very different today. Scholars of the Naval War College’s China Maritime Studies Institute examine how Chinese analysts perceive their oil-security challenges

A Tale of Two Fleets—A Russian Perspective on the 1973 Naval Standoff in the Mediterranean

Newly available Russian sources suggest that the superpower naval confrontation during and immediately after the 1973 Arab-Israeli War was more dangerous than has been generally appreciated, and that the Soviet Navy had made remarkable progress in correcting the deficiencies revealed in the Cuban missile crisis only a decade before. The episode is a cautionary case study for the U.S. Navy, which today has another “upstart” navy to consider

China’s Future Nuclear Submarine Force

On 26 October 2006, a Chinese Song-class attack submarine reportedly surfaced in close proximity to the USS Kitty Hawk carrier battle group in international waters near Okinawa.1 This was not the fi rst time that Chinese sub- marines have attracted extensive media attention. The advent of the Yuan-class SSK in mid-2004 seems to have had a major impact in transforming the assess- ments of Western naval analysts, and also of the broader community of analysts studying China’s military modernization