The South Asia Nuclear Equation

Image Credit: REUTERS/Stringer

For 15 years, since its inception in February 2000, General Khalid Kidwai served as Director General of Pakistan’s Strategic Plans Division. Now an adviser to Pakistan’s National Command Authority, Kidwai was a speaker at the recent biennial Carnegie Nuclear Policy Conference. Offering a glimpse into Pakistan’s strategic thinking, he explained Pakistan’s shift from a strategy of “minimum credible deterrence” to “full spectrum deterrence.” During his talk, Kidwai justified Pakistan’s induction of battlefield nuclear weapons with operational ranges as low as 60 kilometers on the pretext of a non-existent “Cold Start” doctrine.

A Net Assessment of East Asia

When I began this series a month ago, I pointed out that the most significant feature of the global system currently is the ongoing destabilization of the Eurasian land mass, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from the Arctic to the Arabian Sea. One important aspect of this is that the destabilization isn't, at this point, a single systemic crisis, but a series of relatively self-contained disorders. Thus the European, Russian and Middle Eastern systems have different dynamics, and while they touch on each other, they have not yet reached the point of having merged into a single crisis.

Has Asia entered into a currency war?

With interest rates being cut by Central Banks all across Asia, many have predicted a looming currency war in the region. Has Asia already entered a currency war? And if not, what will be its tipping point?

The stage seems to be set for a full-blown currency war in Asia as Central Banks across the region are weighing their options in reaction to an overall weak global economy.

Could Asia’s debt torpedo growth?

Debt-to-GDP ratios have built up rapidly across Asia and may start impeding growth. Even more worrisome than the absolute levels of debt is the pace of the increase. While the Asian debt surge signals rising risks, it is not necessarily the advent of a new crisis.

Levels of debt have skyrocketed in a number of Asian economies, raising fresh concerns. In the 2015 report on debt and deleveraging, McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) analysts highlight that Asian governments, corporations, and households have accumulated debt worth 205% of total annual economic output.

How Low Oil Prices Will Impact Southeast Asia

Over the past six months, declining oil prices have sent shockwaves through the global economy, providing much-needed relief to consumers and factories in some countries while slashing export revenues and undermining currencies and government budgets in others. But the longer oil prices hover near six-year lows, the more they will affect the prices of natural gas and other commodities and manufactured goods, particularly those from Southeast Asia.

Overall, falling oil prices and East Asia's broader economic and geopolitical evolutions will have mixed effects on the region. If they remain low, the prices of oil, natural gas and commodities could deter foreign investment into more expensive offshore and enhanced oil recovery projects in countries like Indonesia and Malaysia. At the same time, cheap energy will provide a boost to consumers and manufacturers that could improve trade throughout the region. Low energy costs could even help governments accelerate political and regulatory reforms designed to improve transparency and continuity for foreign investors — a critical precursor to successful regional economic integration.

Indian Ocean: Exploring Maritime Domain Awareness

Attacks on maritime targets such as the USS Cole and MV Limburg off Yemen by al Qaeda, the 2008 Mumbai attacks by the Pakistan based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), and the 2014 attempt on Pakistan Navy ship by al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) have exposed the weaknesses of surveillance systems and intelligence agencies of the Indian Ocean littorals. Likewise, the rise in piracy attacks in Southeast Asia and Gulf of Aden/Somalia have highlighted the sophistication of pirate communication networks, which the naval and maritime forces could not penetrate. Security agencies concur that a robust intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and communication network is the key to robust counter-terrorism and anti-piracy operations and can effectively reduce the risk of attack by the perpetrators.

In the Indian Ocean, three wide-area CISR networks have been set up to respond to threats and challenges posed by non-State actors such as terrorists and pirates. These networks receive vital information from multiple systems such as the Automatic Identification System (AIS), the long-range identification and tracking (LRIT), satellites and shore based Electro-optical systems and radars to enable real-time data of ships operating in the oceans.

The Next Big Thing: The Growth in Strategic Importance of the Indian Ocean

Justifiable preoccupation by intelligence analysts with the rise of the People’s Liberation Army-Navy (PLAN) has paralleled the focus of popular attention on the growth of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). However, the significant growth of the Indian Navy (IN) in recent years has been neglected by international scholars, and the international attention paid to India has similarly suffered in comparison with the PRC.  

Proportionately, the rise of the Indian Navy — and Indian defenses generally — is in some ways more spectacular than that of the PLAN and the other, new PRC maritime power projection and protection tools. Arguably, too, India’s geopolitical or strategic ambitions are no less significant than those of the PRC.

Korean artist in Japan hopes to help a new generation embrace peace

When it comes to tackling the tensions in East Asia — the historical disputes, the territorial battles, the entrenched stereotypes — plastering people’s faces probably isn’t the first remedy that comes to mind.

A wall of completed masks made as part of the Peace Mask East Asia project, which stands out at a time when it is politically advantageous in the region to pick fights rather than try to resolve them. (Noriko Hayashi/for The Washington Post)

But in a part of the world where Japan’s wartime wrongs remain contentious 70 years on, and political leaders seem unable or unwilling to do much about it, a group of young people from across the region is giving art a chance.

India and Southeast Asia – Maritime Issues

Despite its historical and cultural links with Southeast Asia, India in its post-independence foreign policy largely tended to ignore the region. It was the end of the Cold War that brought this region back to the forefront of India’s foreign policy horizons. Since then, India’s “Look East” policy, which originally was primarily focused on trade and economics, has now attained a distinct security dimension.

As India’s economic linkages with various countries in the region have become more extensive, demands have grown for a gradual strengthening of security ties at a time of China’s rapid rise. Smaller states in the region could now look to India to act as a balancer in view of China’s growing influence amidst a broader leadership vacuum in the region, the Obama administration’s “Asia-Pacific pivot” notwithstanding. 

Managing unplanned encounters at sea

By Christian Le Mière, IISS Senior Fellow for Naval Forces and Maritime Security.

Asia-Pacific navies took a small step in confidence-building and safety at sea on 22 April 2014. At the 14^th meeting of the biennial Western Pacific Naval Symposium (WPNS), the 21 member nations agreed to a Code for Unplanned Encounters at Sea (CUES), a document that outlines the methods of communication for naval vessels and aircraft that meet unplanned beyond territorial waters.

CUES has been discussed since the 7^th WPNS in 2000. At the last WPNS, in Thailand in 2012, China was the only country that rejected CUES; this was because, according to Ding Yiping – deputy commander of the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) and presiding chairman of the 14^th WPNS – the word ‘code’ suggested a legally binding agreement. CUES is specifically a non-binding agreement that lays out how navies should interact at sea.

The Asian Status Quo

Arguably the greatest book on political realism in the 20th century was University of Chicago Professor Hans J. Morgenthau's Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace, published in 1948. In that seminal work, Morgenthau defines the status quo as "the maintenance of the distribution of power that exists at a particular moment in history." In other words, things shall stay as they are. But it is not quite that clear. For as Morgenthau also explains, "the concept of the 'status quo' derives from status quo ante bellum," which, in turn, implies a return to the distribution of power before a war. The war's aggressor shall give up his conquered territory, and everything will return to how it was.

The status quo also connotes the victors' peace: a peace that may be unfair, or even oppressive, but at the same time stands for stability. For a change in the distribution of power, while at times just in a moral sense, simply introduces a measure of instability into the geopolitical equation. And because stability has a moral value all its own, the status quo is sanctified in the international system.

Divided Asia: Implications For Europe

World Economic Forum on East Asia in Bangkok, June 2012. 

Asia isn’t interested in Western-style multilateral security institutions or methods, argues Francois Godement. If Europe really wants to increase its influence in the region, it needs to build up its arms trade with Asian states, and thereby play a more central security role in the region. 

What Happened to the Asia Pivot in 2013?

A range of crises in the Middle East dominated the U.S. foreign policy agenda in 2013, raising questions about the vigor of President Obama's Asia "pivot." Four experts offer perspectives on how the region is reacting to U.S. moves in Asia. China has reacted with "assertive authoritarianism," 

CFR's Elizabeth Economy writes, while Southeast Asian governments remain ambivalent to the supposed shift, according to Tim Huxley of the International Institute for Strategic Studies. The Lowy Institute's Michael Fullilove says without a strong U.S. presence in the Pacific, the region runs the risk of a destabilizing rivalry. And CFR's Sheila Smith says despite some promising developments, the Obama team may be misreading cues on Japan.

 

Asia wants a piece of U.S. shale gas boom; Japan, South Korea seek lower-cost LNG

Asia’s large-scale gas importers, long saddled with premium prices, say a cheaper alternative lies several thousand feet below North American soil, where companies are unlocking enormous gas reserves from shale rock.

The shale boom has already revolutionized the gas market in the United States and Canada, giving both countries not only a reliable domestic supply but also the ability to sell overseas.

This Is Such An Embarrassing Picture For America

Thanks to the standoff in Washington DC, President Obama was forced to cancel a visit to East Asian countries, and to not attend of APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation).

Wonkblog and others noticed this incredibly embarrassing picture of all the world leaders standing on a stage at the meeting, and the US only being represented by John Kerry, who was forced to stand in the back row, and far off to the side (since he's not a head of state, presumably).

Putin, obviously, is loving the prominence.

REUTERS/Dita Alangkara/Pool

East Asia’s Lessons for Africa

NEW YORK – On June 1-3, Japan is hosting the fifth meeting of TICAD, the Tokyo International Cooperation on African Development. The meeting is a reminder that, while the rest of the world obsesses over Europe’s economic travails, America’s political paralysis, and the growth slowdown in China and other emerging markets, there remains a region – Sub-Saharan Africa – where poverty is almost the rule, not the exception.

Illustration by Dean Rohrer

From 1990 to 2010, the number of people living in poverty ($1.25 per day) across Sub-Saharan Africa rose from less than 300 million to nearly 425 million, while the number living on less than $2 a day grew from about 390 million to almost 600 million. Still, the proportion of those living in poverty declined from 57% to 49% in this period. [See graph below.]

Paper Tiger

Are tensions high in Asia? It certainly appears so. Over the last few months, North Korea has tested missiles and threatened the United States with nuclear war. China spars regularly with Japan over ownership of a group of disputed islands, and with several Southeast Asian countries over other sparsely inhabited rocks in the South China Sea. Meanwhile, the United States is in the midst of a well-publicized "pivot" to East Asia, and continues to beef up its military deployments to the region.

Asia Defence Spending tops Europe

Last week’s Military Balance report by the Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) pointed to a dramatic change in military expenditure between Asia and Europe.

For the first time in history, Asian countries outspent European countries in defence in 2012. This was largely due to cuts in European budgets and partly due to rising tensions in Asia.

Democracy in retreat! So much for "Arab Spring"!

Over the past two years, the world's attention has been captured by previously unimaginable -- even rapturous -- changes throughout parts of the Arab world, Africa, and Asia, where political openings have been born in some of the most repressive and unlikely societies on Earth. In Burma, where only six years ago a thuggish junta ordered the shooting of red-robed monks in the streets, the past two years have seen a formal, and seemingly real, transition to a civilian democratic government. In Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya, longtime autocrats were toppled by popular revolutions, and citizens in these states seemed at last to be enjoying the trappings of freedom.

Turkey Hints at a Breakup With Europe

By HARVEY MORRIS

LONDON — A half century after taking the first steps toward becoming an integral part of Europe, Turkey may be ready to give up.

After heavy hints that Ankara is looking eastwards to a closer alliance with Asia, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the prime minister, said this week thatmembership in the European Union was not a must for Turkey.