Articles

177 Items

China's maritime claim (red) and UNCLOS exclusive economic zones (blue) in the South China Sea.

Wikimedia Commons

Journal Article - Quarterly Journal: International Security

How Much Risk Should the United States Run in the South China Sea?

| Fall 2022

China’s increasingly assertive behavior in the South China Sea suggests that it wants to dominate that critical area of the globe. How should the United States respond? This article presents three policy options: increase military resistance to Chinese pressure; partially retrench to protect U.S. allies; and maintain current policy, continuing to recognize that U.S. interests in the area are limited.

Map of scheduled airline traffic around the world, circa June 2009.

Wikimedia Commons

Journal Article - Quarterly Journal: International Security

China's Party-State Capitalism and International Backlash: From Interdependence to Insecurity

| Fall 2022

Economic interdependence has long been considered important to international peace. Questions about harmful effects of the free flow of capital, however, are arising. China and Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development countries are increasingly involving their business firms in security and intelligence work, causing a security dilemma dynamic that increases economic competition.

A man looks at a destroyed Russian tank placed as a symbol of war in downtown Kyiv, Ukraine

AP/Natacha Pisarenko, File

Journal Article - Texas National Security Review

What's Old Is New Again: Cold War Lessons for Countering Disinformation

| Fall 2022

Hostile foreign states are using weaponized information to attack the United States. Russia and China are disseminating disinformation about domestic U.S. race relations and COVID-19 to undermine and discredit the U.S. government. These information warfare attacks, which threaten U.S. national security, may seem new, but they are not. Using an applied history methodology and a wealth of previously classified archival records, this article uses two case studies to reveal how and why a hostile foreign state, the Soviet Union, targeted America with similar disinformation in the past

A type 094A Jin-class nuclear submarine Long March 10 of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) Navy participates in a naval parade to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the founding of China's PLA Navy in the sea near Qingdao in eastern China's Shandong province, April 23, 2019.

AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein

Journal Article - Quarterly Journal: International Security

Then What? Assessing the Military Implications of Chinese Control of Taiwan

| Summer 2022

An analysis of Taiwan’s military value concludes that its reunification with China would improve Chinese submarine warfare and ocean surveillance capabilities, tipping the military balance in China’s favor. These findings have important implications for U.S. operational planning, policy, and grand strategy.

A security guard stands near a sculpture of the Chinese Communist Party flag at the Museum of the Communist Party of China on May 26, 2022, in Beijing.

AP Photo/Ng Han Guan

Journal Article - Quarterly Journal: International Security

Strategic Substitution: China’s Search for Coercive Leverage in the Information Age

    Author:
  • Fiona Cunningham
| Summer 2022

After the mistaken U.S. bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade in 1999, China turned to information-age weapons to create a risk of escalation to nuclear war with the United States. This shift helps compensate for its conventional military inferiority.

Soldiers stand guard after a preparedness enhancement drill simulating the defense against Beijing's military intrusions, ahead of the Lunar New Year in Kaohsiung City, Taiwan on Wednesday, Jan 11, 2023. China renewed its threats Wednesday to attack Taiwan and warned that foreign politicians who interact with the self-governing island are "playing with fire."

AP Photo/Daniel Ceng

Magazine Article - Foreign Affairs

The Consequences of Conquest: Why Indo-Pacific Power Hinges on Taiwan

| June 16, 2022

Of all the intractable issues that could spark a hot war between the United States and China, Taiwan is at the very top of the list. And the potential geopolitical consequences of such a war would be profound. Taiwan-"an unsinkable aircraft carrier and submarine tender," as U.S. Army General Douglas MacArthur once described it--has important, often underappreciated military value as a gateway to the Philippine Sea, a vital theater for defending Japan, the Philippines, and South Korea from possible Chinese coercion or attack.

Pakistan Navy soldier stands guard while a loaded Chinese ship prepares to depart.

AP Photo/Muhammad Yousuf

Journal Article - Quarterly Journal: International Security

Pier Competitor: China's Power Position in Global Ports

    Authors:
  • Isaac B. Kardon
  • Wendy Leutert
| Spring 2022

Commercial international port terminals owned and operated by Chinese firms provide dual-use capabilities to the People's Liberation Army during peacetime. They enable China to project power into critical regions worldwide by providing military logistics and intelligence networks.

Journal Article - Terrorism and Political Violence

Book Review: The Dragons and the Snakes: How the Rest Learned to Fight the West

| 2021

David Kilcullen, a professor at the University of New South Wales, contributes to the debate of  whether contemporary great-power resurgence constitutes a second bi-polar competition by assessing resurging state and non-state competitors and the challenges they pose to the United Statesled world order. While the emerging security environment might not be a new Cold War, Kilcullen contends it may be more dangerous than in the past.

In this Sept. 23, 2015, file photo, Chinese Coast Guard members approach Filipino fishermen as they confront each other off Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea, also called the West Philippine Sea. The Philippine defense chief says aerial surveillance shows Chinese coast guard ships are still guarding a disputed shoal but Filipinos were seen fishing there "unmolested" for the first time in years. Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said Sunday, Oct. 30, 2016, the return of Filipino fishermen to Scarboro

AP Photo/Renato Etac, File

Journal Article - Quarterly Journal: International Security

PRC Assertiveness in the South China Sea: Measuring Continuity and Change, 1970–2015

    Author:
  • Andrew Chubb
| Winter 2020/21

A new typology of “assertive” state behaviors, and original time-series events data covering the period from 1970 to 2015, shows that China’s key policy in the South China Sea—rapid administrative buildup and introduction of regular coercive behaviors—occurred in 2007, earlier than most analysis has supposed.