Andrew S. Erickson

Please register via link here to attend this conference. Note: international attendance is by invitation only.
Dear Prospective Attendees,
We are pleased to announce that registration for the 2015 Naval War College China Maritime Studies Institute (CMSI) conference “China’s Naval Shipbuilding: Progress and Challenges,” to be held in Newport, RI on 19-20 May, is now open.
The annual CMSI Conference […]

Sydney J. Freedberg Jr., “Minefields at Sea: From The Tsars to Putin,” Breaking Defense, 23 March 2015.
This is the first of three stories on the crucial but neglected question of sea mines and how well — or not — the United States manages this very real global threat. Since World War II, mines have sunk or […]

Peter A. Dutton and Andrew S. Erickson, “When Eagle Meets Dragon: Managing Risk in Maritime East Asia,” RealClearDefense, 25 March 2015.
On 19 August 2014 a U.S. Navy (USN) P-8A Poseidon maritime surveillance aircraft was flying in international airspace above the Chinese exclusive economic zone (EEZ) ~135 miles east of Hainan Island in the South China Sea when […]

Adam P. Liff and Andrew S. Erickson, “Crowding the Waters: The Need for Crisis Management in the East China Sea,” Foreign Affairs, 23 March 2015.
Since September 2012, the waters and airspace surrounding the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea have become increasingly crowded. China is conducting more military and paramilitary operations, and Japan is […]

Andrew S. Erickson, “亚太安全合作新领域: 太空安全与网络安全” [New Areas in Asia-Pacific Security Cooperation: Space Security and Cyber Security], in Zhao Weibin, Li Shuisheng, and Chen Xuehui, chief eds., Asia-Pacific Security: New Issues and New Ideas [亚太地区安全: 新问题与新思路] (Beijing: Military Science Press [军事科学出版社], 2014), 103-04.

As I’ve often said, China is often more transparent in Chinese…
Shannon Tiezzi, “China (Finally) Admits to Hacking,” The Diplomat, 18 March 2015.
An updated military document for the first time admits that the Chinese government sponsors offensive cyber units.
China’s military has finally pulled back the curtain on its cyber strategy, admitting for the first time that […]

Andrew S. Erickson, “China’s Military Modernization: Many Improvements, Three Challenges, and One Opportunity,” in Jacques deLisle and Avery Goldstein, eds., China’s Challenges (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014), 178-203.
China has exploited key technological and military operational trends to address its core security interests relatively efficiently, and with increasing effectiveness, to the potential detriment of the interests of its […]

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 […]

Andrew S. Erickson, “Room for Debate: What Sort of Navy America Needs,” RealClearDefense, 10 March 2015.
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 […]

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 […]

Andrew S. Erickson and Adam P. Liff, “China’s Military Spending Swells Again Despite Domestic Headwinds,” China Real Time Report (中国实时报), Wall Street Journal, 5 March 2015.
China raised its official 2015 defense budget 10.1% to 886.9 billion yuan ($141.5 billion), the government announced Thursday on the opening day of the annual meeting of the National People’s […]

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 […]

Andrew S. Erickson and Austin M. Strange, “China’s ‘Facts of Ground’: Putting Neighbors Between a Rock and a Hard Place,” War on the Rocks, 2 March 2015.
China didn’t open “Pandora’s Sandbox.” It isn’t the first claimant to transform reefs by padding them with sand. But China’s superior economic and military capacity enables it to outpace other […]

Adam P. Liff and Andrew S. Erickson, “Sino-Japanese Crisis (In)Stability in the East China Sea,” to present in Special Series on International Relations of East Asia, Program on U.S.-Japan Relations, Weatherhead Center for International Affairs; co-sponsored by Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies; International Security Program, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School; Harvard University, 3 […]

Ian E. Rinehart and Bart Elias, China’s Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ), R43894 (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, 30 January 2015).
Summary
In November 2013, the People’s Republic of China (PRC, or China) announced that it would establish an “East China Sea Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ),” covering a large swath of airspace over the East […]