Andrew S. Erickson

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 […]

Andrew S. Erickson, “Puppies Who Climbed Out of the River: The Roles and Influence of Chief Commanders and Designers,” in Kevin Pollpeter, ed., The Human Dimension of China’s Defense Science, Technology, and Innovation System 8.5 (La Jolla, CA: University of California Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, January 2015), 1-4.
For all its limitations, China’s “Two Chiefs” program […]

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, […]

Gwynn Guilford, “Sand Fight: China’s Island-Building Spree is About More Than Just Military Might,” Quartz, 21 February 2015.
China’s playing Monopoly in the South China Sea—only, instead of building hotels on Pacific Avenue, it’s constructing helipads and, in some cases, whole new islands.
In less than a year, shallow reefs in the Spratly Islands have sprouted white-sand outcrops, […]

Andrew S. Erickson and Michael Monti, “Trouble Ahead? Chinese-Korean Disputes May Intensify,” The National Interest, 20 February 2015.
As Cold War glaciers melt, Chinese-Korean tensions may grow more pronounced.
The Christmas release of The Interview, however coarse in depiction, underscores the Korean peninsula’s tremendous geostrategic importance and potential for disruptive change. Brookings scholar Jonathan Pollack aptly terms it “the […]

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 […]

Jeff Moore, “Essay: The New Strategic Realities of U.S. Carrier Operations,” U.S. Naval Institute News, 17 February 2015.
Just four days ahead of the 73rd anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, the U.S. Navy announced its intention to award Huntington Ingalls Industries Inc (HII). approximately $4 billion to construct the USS John F. Kennedy (CVN-79) super carrier, […]

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 […]

Michael S. Chase, Jeffrey G. Engstrom, Tai Ming Cheung, Kristen Gunness, Scott Warren Harold, Susan Puska, and Samuel K. Berkowitz, China’s Incomplete Military Transformation: Assessing the Weaknesses of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2015).
 The minute this report came out, I knew that I had to read it from cover to cover. I did so, and was not […]

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 […]