How do two conventionally powerful, nuclear armed, but commercially oriented great powers, reliant on sea lanes and global maritime infrastructure, engage in a long-term strategic rivalry? When do such competitions lead to crisis instability and even war? This book presents a research agenda using a variety of methods to explore this unique competitive environment for China and the United States. The most likely great power friction points today are located at sea. Any shots fired between China and the United States will likely be between navies and air forces rather than armies. While much security studies understandably concentrates on land forces, basic concepts such as the importance of territory, the offense-defense balance, technological competition, economic warfare, and crisis stability do not comfortably apply to maritime competition. The chapters in this volume consider the use of naval power - including blockades, naval diplomacy, fleet engagements, and nuclear escalation - across the spectrum of global politics and international conflict. The volume encourages applying the many classic approaches of security studies to this high-stakes relationship while considering maritime conflict as distinct from other forms, such as land and nuclear, that have traditionally occupied the field. This work will be of great interest to students of strategic studies, international relations, maritime security, and Asian-American politics. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Security Studies.

A first-of-its-kind theoretical overview and practical guide to wargame design Government, industry, and academia need better tools to explore threats, opportunities, and human interactions in cyberspace. The interactive exercises called cyber wargames are a powerful way to solve complex problems in a digital environment that involves both cooperation and conflict. Cyber Wargaming is the first book to provide both the theories and practical examples needed to successfully build, play, and learn from these interactive exercises. The contributors to this book explain what cyber wargames are, how they work, and why they offer insights that other methods cannot match. The lessons learned are not merely artifacts of these games ? they also shed light on how people interpret and interact with cyberspace in real life. This book covers topics such as cyber action during conventional war, information effects in conflict scenarios, individual versus group decision-making, the intersection of cyber conflicts and nuclear crises, business resilience, emerging technologies, and more. Cyber Wargaming will be a vital resource for readers interested in security studies and wargame design in higher education, the military, and the private sector.

This book offers a multi-disciplinary and multi-national approach to defining key elements required to define power within the maritime domain. The volume engages with the concept that the maritime domain is a multi-dimensional space embracing oceans, seas, waterways, including all elements of maritime power, related activities, infrastructure, resources and assets. It illustrates the complexity and interconnectivity of the factors that contribute to the appreciation, creation, and application of maritime power. In practical terms, the book highlights that the maritime domain is a continuum that interconnects countries, cultures, politics, economics, trade, environment, knowledge, and technological power globally. Perhaps most importantly, the maritime domain generates power of its own volition, as well as acting as a critical enabler for the creation of other types of nations power: economic, political, military, technological, intelligence and fiscal power, in particular. The book not only brings those various factors to the reader’s attention but, in the synthesis, also clarifies the connections between the various elements in creating a greater maritime whole. This book will be of great interest to students of maritime security, strategic studies and International Relations.

The New Era in U.S. National Security focuses on the emerging threats of the second decade of the twenty-first century, well after 9/11, and well into the age of globalization. It is a thorough, technically competent survey of the current arena of conflict and the competition for political and economic control by state and non-state actors. Starting with the current national security establishment, it discusses the incompatibility between the threats and the structure organized to meet them. It then looks at the supply chain, including containerization and maritime security as well as cybersecurity, terrorism, and transborder crime networks. The last section of the book focuses on existing industrial and defense policy and the role the private sector can play in national security. Pulling together different areas, such as the logistics of the supply chain, the crime-terrorist nexus, and cyberwarfare, the book describes the landscape of today’s new battlefields. It shows how the logistics of asymmetrical warfare, the rise of the information age, the decline of the importance and effectiveness of national borders, the overdependence on fragile infrastructures, and the global reach of virtual, paramilitary, criminal, and terrorist networks have created new frontlines and adversaries with diverse objectives. This core text for international security, strategy, war studies students is technical yet accessible to the non-specialist. It is a timely and comprehensive study of the realities of national security in the United States today.

Introduction: What Makes China the Sea Power Today? -- Understand Maritime Security Strategy in China -- Deng Xiaoping's Era: A Limited Maritime Security Agenda -- Jiang Zemin's Era: When Maritime Security Became a Concern -- Hu Jintao's Era: The Rise of China in the "Maritime Century" -- Xi Jinping's Era: Constructing a Strong Maritime Power -- Conclusion: China the Twenty-First Century Sea Power.

The Asia-Pacific Regional Security Assessment examines key regional security issues relevant to the policy-focused discussions of the IISS Shangri-La Dialogue, Asia’s premier defence summit convened by the International Institute for Strategic Studies. It is published and launched at the Dialogue and the issues analysed within its covers are central to discussions at the event. Since February 2022, the war in Ukraine has provided a bleak backdrop for discussions about international security. While the war has affected many aspects of security and defence in the Asia-Pacific, the region also has its own dynamics, and important security-related developments have occurred there since the invasion. Among these, China’s ever-growing power and increasingly assertive posture remain the leading long-term challenges for the region. This tenth edition of the Asia-Pacific Regional Security Assessment contains an introduction and six chapters, authored by IISS experts, which investigate important dimensions of the regional security environment, supported by maps, graphs, charts and tables. Topics include: the war in Ukraine and the Asia-Pacific balance of power; strained US- China relations and the growing threat to Taiwan; Asia-Pacific naval and maritime capabilities; China’s Belt and Road Initiative; Japanese security and defence policy; and the conflict in Myanmar and the international response. Authors include leading regional analysts and academics at the forefront of research and analysis: James Crabtree, Euan Graham, Nigel Inkster, Nick Childs, Meia Nouwens, Robert Ward, Yuka Koshino, Aaron Connelly and Shona Loong

This edited volume critically examines the concept of the “security dilemma” and applies it to India–China maritime competition. Though frequently employed in academic discussion and popular commentary on the Sino-Indian relationship, the term has rarely been critically analysed. The volume addresses the gap by examining whether the security dilemma is a useful concept in explaining the naval and foreign policy strategies of India and China. China’s Belt and Road Initiative and its expansive engagement in the Indian Ocean Region have resulted in India significantly scaling up investment in its navy, adding ships, naval aircraft and submarines. This volume investigates how the rivalry is playing out in different sub-regions of the Indian Ocean, and the responses of other powers, notably the United States and prominent Southeast Asian states. Their reactions to the Sino-Indian rivalry are an underexplored topic and the chapters in this book reveal how they selectively use that rivalry while trying to steer clear of making definite choices. The book concludes with recommendations on mitigating the security dilemma. This work will be of great interest to students of strategic studies, international relations, maritime security, and Asian politics.

This book investigates how Europe should position itself in an era of growing Chinese-American rivalry. The volume explores the contemporary relationship and ongoing dynamics between three of the most powerful players in today’s international relations - the USA, China and Europe. It claims that the intensifying antagonism between Washington and Beijing requires a paradigm shift in European strategic thinking, and takes a trilateral perspective in analysing key issue areas, such as trade, technology, investment, climate change, the BRI, sub-national contacts, maritime security and nuclear non-proliferation. Using this analysis, the work seeks to offer original policy recommendations that respond to a number of dilemmas Europe can no longer avoid, including the trade-off between European interests and values in a harsher global environment, the question of whether Europe should align with one of the two superpowers, Europe’s military dependence on a US pivoting to the Asia-Pacific, and possible trade-offs between global and regional governance efforts. The key finding is that Europe must follow a much more pragmatic and independent approach to its foreign and security affairs. This book will be of much interest to students of EU policy, foreign policy, Chinese politics, US politics and IR in general.

Bringing together eminent International Relations (IR) scholars from China and the West, this book examines moral realism from a range of different perspectives. Through its analyses, it verifies the robustness of moral realism in IR theory. The first section of the book is written by Chinese scholars and dedicated to debates about how moral realism relates to traditional schools of IR theory. The latter portion, provided by Western contributors, critically investigates both the universal and practical values of moral realism. Finally, Yan Xuetong concludes by responding constructively to all criticisms and further exploring the nature and characteristics of interstate leadership in moral realism.

Over the past decade, the international political system has come to be characterized as a Great Power Competition in which multiple would-be hegemons compete for power and influence. Instead of a global climate of unchallenged United States dominance, revisionist powers, notably China and Russia alongside other regional powers, are vying for dominance through political, military, and economic means. A critical battleground in the Great Power Competition is the Middle East, the Horn of Africa, and the Central Asia South Asia (CASA), also known as the Central Region. With the planned withdrawal of U.S. military forces from Afghanistan, the U.S. has stated its intention of shifting attention away from the CASA Region in favor of a more isolationist foreign policy approach. This book provides an in-depth understanding of the implications for this shift related to regional diplomacy & politics, economic opportunities & rivalries, security considerations & interests, and the information environment. Amplifying the vital importance of success in the Central Region to U.S. prosperity and security, this volume advances dialogue in identifying key issues for stakeholders within and beyond the Central Region to gain a holistic perspective that better informs decision-making at various levels. This collection of work comes from scholars, strategic thinkers, and subject matter experts who participated in the Great Power Competition Conference hosted by the University of South Florida, in partnership with the National Defense University Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Strategies in January 2020.