To paraphrase Vice President Biden, Russia’s confirmed sale of 4-6 S-400 air defense missile battalions is a big deal. The system’s radar alone is extremely powerful and long-range, and casts a long shadow over the East Asian littoral. The timing on this agreement (inked last quarter 2014, for delivery in ~2017) fits with the prominent […]
A trenchant analysis of Beijing’s cyber contradiction (矛盾, máodùn).
Amy Chang, “China’s Maodun: A Free Internet Caged by the Chinese Communist Party,” Jamestown China Brief 15.8 (16 April 2015).
China pursues a strategy of aggressive cyberspace management and is in the midst of fostering a military cyber force to further the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) primary interest: […]
Just added to ONI’s report on “The PLA Navy: New Capabilities and Missions for the 21st Century”: posters detailing Chinese ships and aircraft, equipment, and leadership structure. Perhaps most exciting, for the first time ever, ONI is making authoritative, carefully-labeled silhouettes and photos of PLAN and maritime law enforcement (MLE) ships and aircraft available publicly, together […]
Andrew S. Erickson, “Navy Intel Charts Chinese Sea Change: Office of Naval Intelligence Releases First Unclassified PLAN Report in Six Years,” China Analysis from Original Sources 以第一手资料研究中国, 9 April 2015.
What a difference six years makes! Since the U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) last issued an unclassified report on China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) in 2009, […]
Capt. Takuya Shimodaira, Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force, “Cooperating in the South China Sea,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings 141.4 (April 2015).
Humanitarian aid/ disaster relief offers the ideal means for China to work in harmony with fellow Asian nations—and Japan is uniquely suited by hard experience to be a guiding force.
In the last 20 years, the People’s […]
Jeremy Page, “As China Expands Its Navy, the U.S. Grows Wary,” Wall Street Journal, 30 March 2015.
Washington is divided over whether Beijing should be viewed as naval partner or potential adversary
China’s navy chief, Adm. Wu Shengli, strolled the Harvard University campus in a tweed blazer and slacks during a visit to the U.S. last fall, […]
By any measure, Chinese ‘commander in chief of everything’ Xi Jinping is one of the most powerful and consequential people on the planet. Less theatrical and publicly-exposed than Vladimir Putin, he exercises even more far-reaching control of an even more powerful country. Yet little is known outside China about Xi, particularly concerning the formative experiences, personality, […]
The U.S. Sea Services’ freshly issued document has the makings of a serious strategy. It provides vital specificity that its predecessor eight years ago lacked, yet does so in a positive way. This is an excellent model for the larger Asia-Pacific Strategy (or perhaps an “Indo-Asia-Pacific Strategy”), that the Nation continues to lack, yet truly […]
Navy Releases Revised Maritime Strategy
Story Number: NNS150313-14Release Date: 3/13/2015 12:05:00 PM
From the Navy Chief of Information Office
WASHINGTON (NNS) — The sea services released a new maritime strategy, March 13, a plan that describes how the Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard will design, organize, and employ naval forces in support of national security interests and […]
Click here to watch the event live.
A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower: Forward, Engaged, Ready
Please join us for the launch of “A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower: Forward, Engaged, Ready” on Friday, March 13 and a discussion with Admirals Greenert and Zukunft and General Dunford on how this new strategy will ground how […]
Touchdown! Retired U.S. Navy officer, consultant, and well-established strategist Bryan McGrath has just tackled and scored a major hit on an article that required refutation to ensure that a major component of U.S. public policy is informed by sound facts and logic at a critical time. In case you haven’t see it in the usual […]
No matter what your focus and how busy your schedule, I strongly suggest that you watch in its entirety former CCTV reporter Chai Jing’s heartfelt, heartbreaking documentary on the literally breathtaking scale and human cost of China’s air pollution. It’s produced as well as the best TED Talk, and is exceptionally impactful even by TED […]
At the National People’s Congress today, Beijing announced a 2015 military budget of 886.9 billion yuan (~$144.2 billion), a 10.1% increase from the previous year. Regardless of what other Chinese defense spending is not reflected in these figures, China clearly has the world’s second largest economy and military budget. The following analysis offers further insights […]
WSJ’s China Real Time has kept up its tradition of scanning and uploading text-searchable versions of all three NPC opening-day reports — Li Keqiang’s work report, the budget and the NDRC’s development plan — in Chinese and English.
Jeremy Page, “China to Boost Military Budget by 10.1%: Economic Slowdown Has Little Impact on Beijing’s Military Modernization […]
Based on my own assessment, I believe that today’s PLA has significant strengths and compensating “workarounds” in addition to weaknesses—particularly vis-à-vis prioritized Near Seas missions. But the issues that Dennis Blasko raises here are significant and demand deep analytical consideration.
Dennis J. Blasko, “Ten Reasons Why China Will Have Trouble Fighting a Modern War,” War on the […]
A hot topic that many ask about—but on which almost no one offers specific answers; let alone solid, systematic analysis to back them up. Enter Dennis Blasko, whose painstaking research always merits close consideration. One of the few whose writings I know I simply can’t afford to miss!
My summation of Dennis’s argument:
1. PLA corruption least […]
Even the mere perception that the U.S. National Security Advisor is insufficiently focused on, engaged with, or traveling to China and the rest of Asia is extremely damaging and requires immediate correction. Thank goodness, at least, for Evan Medeiros and Ryan Hass!
Kristine Kwok, Chief Asia Correspondent, “Efforts to Improve China’s Love-Hate Relationship With U.S. Yet […]
Great news–Dr. Ashton B. Carter was just confirmed as the 25th U.S. Secretary of Defense. He brings top-level experience and intellectual firepower. With Carter as Secretary of Defense and Bob Work as Deputy Secretary of Defense, the Pentagon is under very strong leadership in a challenging time.
Emmarie Huetteman, “Ashton Carter Wins Senate Approval as Defense Secretary,” New […]
Chris Buckley, “In Video, Communist Party Vows It Wants to Fulfill Your Dreams,” 9 February 2015.
Perhaps you want an attractive wife? Or to open a little restaurant? Maybe blue skies and clean water? Or, less modestly, a world without war? Be assured: The Chinese Communist Party and its 83 million members are rooting for you.
That […]
Chinese Undersea Warfare: Development, Capabilities, Trends
Maritime Gray Zone Operations: Challenges and Countermeasures in the Indo-Pacific
Oxford Bibliography: “The People’s Liberation Army (PLA)”
China’s Climate Cooperation Smokescreen: A Roadmap for Seeing Through the Trap and Countering with Competition
Large-Scale Amphibious Warfare in Chinese Military Strategy
Rebalancing U.S. Forces: Basing and Forward Presence in the Asia-Pacific
China’s Near Seas Combat Capabilities
Chinese Anti-Ship Ballistic Missile (ASBM) Development: Drivers, Trajectories and Strategic Implications
Asia’s Rising Energy and Resource Nationalism: Implications for the United States, China, and the Asia-Pacific Region
Chinese Aerospace Power: Evolving Maritime Roles
China’s S-Curve Trajectory: Structural Factors Will Likely Slow the Growth of China’s Economy and Comprehensive National Power
China, the United States, and 21st-Century Sea Power: Defining a Maritime Security Partnership
China Goes to Sea: Maritime Transformation in Comparative Historical Perspective
China’s Energy Strategy: The Impact on Bejing’s Maritime Policies
China’s Future Nuclear Submarine Force
Chinese Mine Warfare: A PLA Navy 'Assassin’s Mace' Capability
China’s Nuclear Force Modernization
