Andrew S. Erickson

Djibouti… it’s finally official!
U.S. African Command (AFRICOM) Commander General David Rodriguez, U.S. Army, has just confirmed that China has signed a 10-year contract for a military logistics hub in Djibouti. This makes the African desert nation home to Beijing’s first-ever overseas military facility, however modest, or “base” in common parlance. “They are going to build a […]

Andrew S. Erickson, “Managing U.S.-China Relations? Challenging. Picking a Good Guidebook? Easy: The China Challenge,” The National Interest, 23 November 2015.
If you have trouble viewing the piece, please click here.
Book Review: A unique window into the U.S.-China relationship that should not be missed.
Rigorous, measured, readable scholarship is always in insufficient supply generally. It is particularly […]

Click here to read the press release accompanying the report’s roll out.
The full text of the report is available here.
Click here to view individual sections of the report.
 
2015 Annual Report to Congress of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, One Hundred Fourteenth Congress, First Session (Washington, DC: USCC, 17 November 2015).
 
Report PDFs: 
2015 Annual Report […]

Timothy Heath and Andrew S. Erickson, “China’s Turn Toward Regional Restructuring, Counter-Intervention: A Review of Authoritative Sources,” Jamestown China Brief 15.22 (16 November 2015): 3-8.
Note: This piece is based on a longer article published in The Washington Quarterly (Fall 2015, available here).
Beginning after the global financial crisis in 2008, and transforming further with Xi Jinping’s ascent to power in […]

CAPT (SC) Harry Switzer, USNR (Ret.) and Andrew S. Erickson, “China Maritime Studies Institute,” The Bridge: The Magazine of the Naval War College Foundation 19 (Fall 2015): 9, 32.
In recent years, China’s navy has been launching new ships like dumping dumplings into the broth.” This phrase has circulated widely in Chinese media sources and websites.
To […]

Since I couldn’t find a single-source location on the Internet, I decided to make my own. Now you can download PDFs of the Department of Defense’s China reports directly by year:
 
2015
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2012
2011
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2002
 
Additionally, here are some highlights from, and analysis of, several of the most recent reports:
2015
Andrew S. Erickson, “What Does the Pentagon Think about China’s Rising […]

Timothy Heath and Andrew S. Erickson, “Is China Pursuing Counter-Intervention?” The Washington Quarterly 38.3 (fall 2015): 143–56.
The term “counter-invention” has become burdened with conflated meanings and thus controversial in describing aspects of Chinese national and military strategy. Yet, the term should be retained although refined in two ways to help U.S. policymakers and planners devise […]

Andrew S. Erickson and Conor M. Kennedy, “China’s Daring Vanguard: Introducing Sanya City’s Maritime Militia,” Center for International Maritime Security (CIMSEC), 5 November 2015.

Selected as one of six 2015-16 top-vote-receiving Center for International Maritime Security (CIMSEC) articles from pool chosen by the think tank’s leadership, 24 March 2016.

The following is the first in a five-part series meant to […]

Christopher P. Cavas, “China’s ‘Little Blue Men’ Take Navy’s Place in Disputes,” Defense News, 2 November 2015.
China using maritime militia to carry out its dirty work in seagoing confrontations
WASHINGTON — When the US destroyer Lassen passed near a newly-built artificial island on Subi Reef in the South China Sea’s Spratly Islands Oct. 27, it was already being […]

Andrew S. Erickson and Conor M. Kennedy, “Irregular Forces at Sea: ‘Not Merely Fishermen—Shedding Light on China’s Maritime Militia’,” Center for International Maritime Security (CIMSEC), 2 November 2015.

Republished as Andrew S. Erickson and Conor M. Kennedy, “Shedding Light on China’s Maritime Militia,” The Maritime Executive, 3 November 2015.

Maritime militia, dead ahead! In a just-published Defense News article, […]

Among a growing torrent of writings on U.S. Freedom of Navigation Operations (FONOPS) in the South China Sea, here are two of the most insightful pieces. Authored by Naval War College China Maritime Studies Institute Director Prof. Peter Dutton and CDR Jonathan Odom of the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies—both of whom have deep knowledge […]

In a just-published Defense News article, Chris Cavas has made an important contribution to our understanding of the operations and applications of China’s too-long-understudied irregular maritime forces. The forces he describes are almost certainly neither ordinary merchant ship operators nor random fishermen, but rather Chinese Maritime Militia operating in pre-planned roles in conjunction with USS Lassen’s recent FONOP. Coincidence? […]

What next? How to manage? I suggest the next steps: as China challenges, the United States must keep calm and press on.
Challenging China’s newly assertive behavior in the South China Sea, this week the U.S. Navy sailed some of its biggest ships inside the nine-dash line, exercising its claim to freedom of movement in international […]

Andrew S. Erickson and Adam P. Liff, “Installing a Safety on the ‘Loaded Gun’? China’s Institutional Reforms, National Security Commission and Sino-Japanese Crisis (In)Stability,” Journal of Contemporary China (published online: 26 October 2015), 19 pp.
Abstract
As China’s active assertion of its claim to the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands has increasingly crowded the surrounding waters and airspace with military […]

Michael Pilger, “China’s New YJ-18 Antiship Cruise Missile: Capabilities and Implications for U.S. Forces in the Western Pacific,” Staff Research Report, U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, 28 October 2015.
In April 2015, the U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence confirmed that China has deployed the YJ-18 antiship cruise missile (ASCM) on some People’s Liberation Army (PLA) […]

Here are multiple great opportunities to join a world-class research community where scholarship and policy come together daily in a prime seaside location. The oldest continuing institution of its kind in the world, and the U.S. Navy’s “Home of Thought,” the Naval War College educates and develops leaders, helps define the future Navy and associated […]

Elizabeth Shim, “China Scolds U.S. for South China Sea ‘Provocation’,” UPI, 27 October 2015.
Beijing said that its navy had deployed two vessels: Lanzhou, a missile destroyer and Taizhou, a patrol boat, to warn the U.S. ship away from waters claimed by China. …
The United States’ dispatch of the USS Lassen had been planned weeks in […]

Jeremy Page and Chun Han Wong, “U.S. Warship’s Patrol Escalates Dispute Over Islands in South China Sea,” Wall Street Journal, 27 October 2015.
U.S. officials say operation was first of several to assert ‘freedom of navigation’ around the Spratly islands
A U.S. navy patrol off China’s artificial islands in the South China Sea was the strongest challenge yet […]

Jane Perlez, “Beijing Calls U.S. Warship’s Route in South China Sea a ‘Provocation’,” New York Times, 27 October 2015.
China on Tuesday accused the United States of committing a “deliberate provocation” by sending a Navy destroyer into waters claimed by Beijing, adding that such actions would force China to speed up its building program in the South […]