Asia & the Pacific

878 Items

François Sully in foxhole at Binh Gia

UNIVERSITY ARCHIVES & SPECIAL COLLECTIONS, HEALEY LIBRARY, UMASS BOSTON

Journal Article - Journal of American-East Asian Relations

To Each His Turn … Today Yours, Tomorrow Mine: François Sully's Turn in History

| 2023

François Sully (1927–1971) is an underreported figure in the critical period of U.S.-South Vietnamese relations between 1960 and 1963. As one of the earliest journalists the First Republic of Vietnam expelled in 1962, his reporting introduced Vietnam to American readers, and his journalism influenced a generation of Western reporters covering the intervention of U.S. forces in Vietnam. However, despite his extensive reporting for Newsweek and other outlets, little is known about Sully or how his contentious relationship with President Ngo Dinh Diem of the Republic of Vietnam contributed to political turbulence before Diem's assassination on 2 November 1963. This is the first article to focus exclusively on Sully's reporting on Vietnam and the first to assess his efforts using primary sources.

An old man walks past a gutted car in downtown Kabul, Thursday, June 25, 1992.

AP Photo/B.K. Bangash

Journal Article - International Security

Dealers and Brokers in Civil Wars: Why States Delegate Rebel Support to Conduit Countries

    Authors:
  • Niklas Karlén
  • Vladimir Rauta
| Spring 2023

State support to non-state armed groups outside a state’s own territory is commonly seen as a direct relationship between a state sponsor and a rebel group. But powerful states can use a third state—a dealer or broker—as a conduit for military and other support. States that fail to identify an alignment of interests with these intermediary dealers and brokers face strategic failure.

Visitors tour past military vehicles carrying the Dong Feng 41 and DF-17 ballistic missiles at the Beijing Exhibition Hall in Beijing on Oct. 12, 2022.

AP Photo/Andy Wong

Journal Article - International Security

The Dynamics of an Entangled Security Dilemma: China’s Changing Nuclear Posture

    Authors:
  • Henrik Stålhane Hiim
  • M. Taylor Fravel
  • Magnus Langset Trøan
| Spring 2023

Chinese strategists increasingly believe that U.S. nonnuclear strategic capabilities threaten China’s nuclear forces. Although there is limited evidence of a shift in its nuclear strategy, China is changing its strategic posture to ensure its second-strike capability, including by relying on advanced conventional weapons (e.g., counterspace capabilities, cyber weapons, and electronic warfare) that can target U.S. missile defense. The dynamics of a nuclear-conventional entangled security dilemma may weaken arms race stability.

The ghost town of Kayaköy (Livisi) in southwestern Anatolia

Wikimedia CC/William Neuheisel

Analysis & Opinions - Political Violence @ a Glance

Why Do Mass Expulsions Still Happen?

| Jan. 30, 2023

Meghan Garrity details the history of mass expulsions since the centennial of the signing of the Lausanne Convention—a treaty codifying the compulsory “population exchange” between Greece and Turkey. An estimated 1.5 million people were forcibly expelled from their homes: over one million Greek Orthodox Christians from the Ottoman Empire and 500,000 Muslims from Greece.

North Korea launches a suspected intercontinental ballistic missile reported to be a Hwasong-17, its largest-known ICBM, on May 25, 2022.

Image via YTN & YTN plus

Analysis & Opinions - Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

Poll: Americans, Japanese, and South Koreans Don't Support Using Nuclear Weapons Against North Korea

| Oct. 25, 2022

For months, evidence has accumulated that North Korea may be preparing its seventh nuclear explosive test. Continuous warnings by analysts and the media about this possibility are a sobering reminder that Pyongyang's continued pursuit of a larger nuclear arsenal remains a challenge for the Non-Proliferation Treaty and the nonproliferation regime. This continues to be the case even as the public and leaders around the world have largely shifted their attention to the nuclear dimensions of the war in Ukraine.

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.