Tag: United States of America

The New Nuance in Chinese Diplomacy

Chinese flag with Dollar signs. Image: Magalie l’Abbé/Flickr

This article was originally published by the East Asia Forum on 24 November, 2014.

Much energy has been expended on projecting the impact of the rise of Chinese economic power on its political and military might and the strategic contest with the United States. In a conflation of geo-economic and geo-strategic analysis, two camps have emerged: one warns about the consequences of the United States not conceding strategic space as Chinese economic and strategic power continue to grow; the other asserts the continuing dominance of US military-strategic and economic power as Chinese power peaks, in some scenario or another. As the nuance in Chinese diplomacy over the past week or two suggests, the geo-political and economic world would appear a tad more complex than either camp allows.

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Time to Start Thinking about Land-Based Anti-Ship Missiles

Soviet Anti-Ship Missile “Styx”. Image: Don S. Montgomery/Wikimedia

This article was originally published by the ASPI Strategist on 16 October 2014.

People’s Republic of China (PRC) has developed an impressive array of land-based anti-ship missile systems, which are part of a robust sea-denial capability. That growing capability is forcing the United States (US) and Australia to rethink Pacific strategy. Some are now asking why the US, and Australia for that matter, have no land-based anti-ship missile systems in their inventory. After all, we want to be able to do sea denial in Asia as well. So, should we be developing our own?

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Categories
Regional Stability Humanitarian Issues Terrorism

If You Liked Vietnam, You’ll Love the War With the Islamic State

Helicopter patrol over the Mekong Delta. Image: Manhai/Flickr

This article was originally published by Small Wars Journal on 12 September, 2014.

Vietnam analogies are often overused, particularly by people who want to stay out of a proposed war or get us out of one we are fighting. Although I agree that the Islamic State, or whatever it is calling itself this week, must be dealt with militarily; the strategy with which the Obama administration is going about it is deeply disturbing and its basic elements bring vividly to mind the War in Vietnam which began in earnest when I was in the Tenth Grade; American involvement did not end until I was a senior Marine Corps First Lieutenant in 1973. I am not yet senile enough to have forgotten key details.

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From Cops to Counterinsurgents – the Militarization of America’s Police

Image: Thomas Hawk/Flickr

This article was originally published by OpenDemocracy on 14 August 2014.

Jason Westcott was afraid.

One night last fall, he discovered via Facebook that a friend of a friend was planning with some co-conspirators to break in to his home. They were intent on stealing Wescott’s handgun and a couple of TV sets. According to the Facebook message, the suspect was planning on “burning” Westcott, who promptly called the Tampa Bay police and reported the plot.

According to the Tampa Bay Times, the investigating officers responding to Westcott’s call had a simple message for him: “If anyone breaks into this house, grab your gun and shoot to kill.”

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Why Belarus is Different

This article was originally published by ISIS Europe Blog on 25 July 2014.

The Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies and the Office for a Democratic Belarus had recently organized a conference on the subject of Belarus’ internal politics and its international position. “Why Belarus is different”, a “Food for Thought” event, took place in Brussels, on June 23rd. The importance of the topic for the EU states derives from the geographic proximity of the country to the communitarian borders and from the increasing instability in the Eastern European region, which could potentially expand its turmoil beyond the Ukrainian borders.

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