31 March 2015

Shades of Gray: Technology, Strategic Competition, and Stability in Maritime Asia

Worthwhile analysis on a timely topic! The Asia-Pacific is a technology-intensive theater, making it all the more vital to understand key technological dynamics therein.

Amy Chang, Ben FitzGerald, and Van Jackson, Shades of Gray: Technology, Strategic Competition, and Stability in Maritime Asia (Washington, DC: Center for a New American Security, 30 March 2015).

In this seventh paper in the Maritime Strategy Series, Amy Chang, Ben FitzGerald, and Van Jackson unpack how a “fog of technology” is exacerbating dangerous “gray zone” scenarios in maritime Asia. Proliferating technologies that lack of clear norms to govern their use are intersecting with strategic competition and coercive behaviors to unsettle longstanding patterns of interaction among states. The authors see these trends as converging to raise the dangers of conflict in the region, whether through distorted incentives to undertake coercion or through the potential for miscalculation. They outline ways to “remove the fog” of technology and shore up stability in maritime Asia. Many of their recommendations for the United States government have broad relevance for a refreshed approach to technology and national security.

Ben FitzGerald is a Senior Fellow and Director of the Technology and National Security Program at the Center for a New American Security. Dr. Van Jackson is a Visiting Fellow at CNAS and a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow. At the time of writing, Amy Chang was the Norman R. Augustine Research Associate in Technology and National Security at CNAS.

For one of the studies cited here, see: Andrew S. Erickson, Chinese Anti-Ship Ballistic Missile Development: Drivers, Trajectories, and Strategic Implications (Washington, DC: Jamestown Foundation, May 2013).