Asia & the Pacific

171 Items

A huge mushroom cloud rises above Bikini atoll in the Marshall Islands following an atomic test blast.

AP Photo

Journal Article - Quarterly Journal: International Security

The Nuclear Balance Is What States Make of It

    Author:
  • David C. Logan
| Spring 2022

Recent quantitative scholarship uses warhead counts to examine whether nuclear superiority offers political or military benefits beyond having a secure second-strike capability. These analyses overlook other elements of a state’s nuclear capability such as state perceptions and beliefs.

Book - University of Michigan Press

Capital Choices: Sectoral Politics and the Variation of Sovereign Wealth

| Mar. 07, 2022

Capital Choices analyzes the creation of different SWFs from a comparative political economy perspective, arguing that different state-society structures at the sectoral level are the drivers for SWF variation. Juergen Braunstein focuses on the early formation period of SWFs, a critical but little understood area given the high levels of political sensitivity and lack of transparency that surround SWF creation. Braunstein’s novel analytical framework provides practical lessons for the business and finance organizations and policymakers of countries that have created, or are planning to create, SWFs.

South Korean army's K-55 self-propelled artillery vehicle is unloaded from a barge during a Combined Joint Logistics Over-the-Shore exercise of U.S. and South Korea Combined Forces Command at the Anmyeon beach in Taean, South Korea, Monday, July 6, 2015. The U.S. and South Korean military joint exercise are held from June 29to July 9.

AP Photo/Lee Jin-man

Analysis & Opinions - War on the Rocks

South Korea, Conventional Capabilities, and the Future of the Korean Peninsula

    Authors:
  • Ian Bowers
  • Henrik Stålhane Hiim
| Feb. 11, 2021

South Korea's conventional counterforce and countervalue strategy is meant to hold North Korea’s nuclear weapons infrastructure, as well as its leadership, at risk independently from the United States. This strategy is often overlooked by policymakers and analysts, who are more focused on discussing Kim Jong Un’s pledges to develop new missile and nuclear capabilities and how the new administration of President Joe Biden should approach the nuclear issue. However, as we highlight in a new article in International Security, South Korea’s strategy increasingly has a determining impact on strategic stability on the Korean Peninsula and on prospects for denuclearization.

In this Monday, Sept. 4, 2017 file photo provided by South Korea Defense Ministry, South Korea's Hyunmoo II ballistic missile is fired during an exercise at an undisclosed location in South Korea. South Korean warships have conducted live-fire exercises at sea. The drills Tuesday, Sept. 5, mark the second-straight day of military swagger from a nation still rattled by the North's biggest-ever nuclear test.

South Korea Defense Ministry via AP

Journal Article - Quarterly Journal: International Security

Conventional Counterforce Dilemmas: South Korea's Deterrence Strategy and Stability on the Korean Peninsula

    Authors:
  • Ian Bowers
  • Henrik Stålhane Hiim
| Winter 2020/21

South Korea’s conventional counterforce and countervalue strategy is a manifestation of its uncertainties over the reliability of the U.S. alliance. This strategy has significant implications for strategic stability and the potential for denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula.    

Different Swedish bank notes and coins.

Sven-Erik Johansson/AP

Analysis & Opinions - Telos

Post COVID-19 Economy: State Capitalism with Expiration Date

| June 25, 2020

As economies begin to orient themselves towards recovery and growth in a post-COVID-19 era, they will first need to disentangle themselves from their prior bedfellows, the state, whose courtship was necessary for survival during the pandemic.  Such bedfellow relationships have become increasingly common as government intervention is urgently needed for economic stabilization. Governments have also embraced their new role with vigor. According to the IMF, as of April 2020, countries have committed around $8 trillion to combat the pandemic and to remedy its ill effects on economies and societies. Decisions about how this money will be spent will undoubtedly recalibrate the logic of capitalism for years to come. 

Blog Post - Views on the Economy and the World

How China Compares Internationally in New GDP Figures

| May 31, 2020

The World Bank on May 19, as it does every six years, released the results of the most recent International Comparison Program (ICP), which measures price levels and GDPs across 176 countries.  The new results are striking.  It is surprising that they have received almost no attention so far, perhaps overshadowed by all things coronavirus.

For the first time, the ICP shows China’s total real income as slightly larger than the US.  It reports that China’s GDP was $19,617 billion in 2017, in Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) terms, while the United States’ GDP stood at $19,519 billion.

Rupiah coins in Medan, North Sumatra, Indonesia.

Binsar Bakkara/AP

Analysis & Opinions - Global Policy

Closing the Equity Financing Gap during the COVID-19 Crisis: The Emergence of Sovereign Wealth Funds with Expiration Dates

| May 29, 2020

Juergen Braunstein and Sachin Silva argue that sovereign wealth funds may be central to governments' efforts to balance public responsibility with private interests in post-pandemic economies.