China & Taiwan

Over the last two decades, the United States has been the world’s pre-eminent user and supplier of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs).  In 2013, the United States was estimated to have approximately 7,500 drones in operation, ranging from relatively small...

WHAT A DIFFERENCE A week makes. A week ago Tom Ricks of the New American Foundation wrote about the non-military nature of today’s news, and then Russia conducts an invasion of the Crimea. This isn’t to be critical of Tom at all (full disclosure:...

China commissioned its first aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, on September 25, 2012.  It was a milestone that owes much to the vision of Admiral Liu Huaqing, who commanded the Chinese navy—formally the People’s Liberation Army Navy—from 1982 to 1988...

Overview Moscow’s relations with its eastern territories, especially the nine provinces of the Russian Far East (RFE), have significant security implications for Russia and for the Asia-Pacific community generally. With 36 percent of the national territory and 25,000 km...

The Chinese navy has been throwing its weight around in East Asia. A US Navy commander asks how much longer the US can do anything about it. On the night of March 26 the Cheonan, a South Korean Navy...

In the famous story by Jonathan Swift, Gulliver was troubled both by the tiny Lilliputians, men “not six inches high,” and by the giant Brobdingnagians, who were 72 feet tall and took “about ten yards at every stride.” The...

China faces a dilemma. Today China imports more than 50 percent of its oil, and that figure is expected to rise to 75-80 percent in the coming decades. As many experts have noted, China does not seem to feel...

Ma Ying-Jeou and the Kuomintag: A Limited Win The American political phrase, “Don’t change horses in midstream,” does not, alas, translate well in Taiwan, but it does capture much of the tone of the recent elections on the island....

Abstract The rapid rise of Chinese economic and military power has produced the most fundamental change in the global system since the end of the Cold War, and it poses vital questions about China’s future direction. Many Western analysts...

Of sea-captains young or old, and the mates, and of all intrepid sailors, Of the few, very choice, taciturn, whom fate can never surprise nor death dismay. Pick’d sparingly without noise by thee old ocean, chosen by thee, Thou...