February 22,2016 Special Forum

Southeast Asian Strategies toward the Great Powers: Still Hedging after All These Years?

Over the past two decades, our understanding of how the relatively small states of Southeast Asia engage in great power management has grown significantly. The tendency during the early 1990s to view Southeast Asian policymakers as having “no strategy” has been replaced by a small industry of scholars and analysts explicating Southeast Asian strategies towards the great powers. By the mid-2000..

Evelyn Goh

Global War on Terror , South China Sea , Strategic engagement , Triangular hedging

February 22,2016 Special Forum

Vietnam’s Management of China’s Maritime Assertiveness in the Post-Cold War Period

1In May 2014, China deployed a giant oil rig, Haiyang Shiyou 981 (HYSY 981), and a flotilla of more than 100 vessels to the area that Vietnam claims as its Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).2 Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh protested loudly, declaring that “all necessary measures” would be taken to protect his country’s legitimate rights.3 Quite the reverse, in a speech at the 2014 Shangri-La Di..

Do Thanh Hai*

code of conduct , Haiyang Shiyou 981 , Paracels , South China Sea , Spratlys , Vietnam-China relations

February 22,2016 Special Forum

Developing Indonesia’s Maritime Strategy under President Jokowi

1As the “Jokowi’” Joko Widodo administration implements the “Global Maritime Fulcrum” (Poros Maritim Dunia, PMD) concept,2 how does Indonesia develop its maritime strategy to achieve the concept’s policy goals? This article argues that the PMD’s overall success depends on the development of a coherent maritime strategy. To that end, I discuss four areas..

Ristian Atriandi Supriyanto

archipelagic sea lane (ASL) , Jokowi administration , Poros Maritim Dunia (PMD) Concept , South China Sea , UNCLOS

February 22,2016 Special Forum

Myanmar and Maritime Security

Discussions of security challenges to Myanmar’s past governments have tended to focus on land-based threats, primarily insurgencies associated with ethnic armed organizations.1 This does not mean, though, that Myanmar is unconcerned about questions of maritime security. This is underscored for instance by the expansion of Myanmar’s Navy (Tatmadaw Yay) since the State Law and Order ..

Jürgen Haacke

EEZ , ITLOS , Maritime boundary

February 22,2016 Special Forum

Australia and Asia’s Maritime Disputes: Continuity amidst Chaos

For a relatively distant country with no territorial claims, Australia has been a remarkably vocal presence around the East and South China Sea disputes. Canberra issued arguably the strongest rebuke of any capital when it called in the Chinese ambassador and released a robust public statement following Beijing’s November 2013 declaration of an Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) ove..

Brendon Taylor

ANZUS , Darwin Port , Turnbull administration

February 11,2016 National Commentaries

A US Perspective

"US-ROK-Japanese Trilateral Security Cooperation"   When President Barack Obama announced his much-touted "rebalance" to Asia in a speech in Australia in November 2011, his administration believed that its new stance toward the Asia-Pacific policy would be his foreign policy legacy. Having ended, so they hoped, America's military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, their emph..

Michael Auslin

Democracy , Hub-and-Spokes , National security , Regionalism

December 10,2015 Open Forum

India’s National Identity and Its Impact on Security Policy under Modi

The consensus on India’s national identity has been slowly fragmenting over the last twenty-five years, especially since the emergence of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in 1998 displacing the Congress Party, India’s dominant political party since independence. After being out of power for a decade, the BJP came back to power with a decisive showing in May 2014 under Narendra Modi..

Deepa M. Ollapally

Economic Relations , Modi , National identity , Nationalist-globalist

August 03,2015 National Commentaries

An American Commentary

"The Iran Nuclear Deal and the North Korean Nuclear Issue"   The international nuclear agreement with Iran has generated some speculation about the potential for resurrecting similar negotiations with North Korea. Indeed, the Obama administration’s dramatic shifts in policy toward Burma, Cuba, and now Iran might suggest an analogous gesture toward Pyongyang. But, while a des..

Bruce Klingner

National security , Six-Party Talks , Snap-back clause , Sony hacking

June 29,2015 Open Forum

Doomed by Dialogue? Will ASEAN Survive Great Power Rivalry in Asia

Pundits and policymakers increasingly see the changing great power politics in Asia (or the Asia-Pacific or Indo-Pacific, terms I use interchangeably) as an existential challenge to ASEAN. Of particular concern here is the growing military assertiveness of China in ASEAN’s backyard, the South China Sea, and the US “rebalancing” or “pivot” strategy. Added to this picture are Japan’s mov..

Amitav Acharya

African Union , ASEAN , Multiplexity

June 26,2015 Open Forum

Reimagining Asia: From Asia-Pacific to Indo-Pacific

The map of Asia is being reimagined. The idea of the Asia-Pacific, which made good sense as a framework for regional order in the late twentieth century, is giving way to another construct: the Indo-Pacific. This changing use of geographic terms has real-world consequences for how states and leaders perceive the regional strategic order, the challenges it faces, and the ways to address them.1 Acco..

Rory Medcalf

Asia-Pacific , Australia , Indo-Pacific , Middle Power Diplomacy