Vietnam Ramps Up Defense Spending, but Its Challenges Remain

Vietnam boosted its military spending by 113 percent between 2004 and 2013, the largest increase among Southeast Asian countries. Defense spending has accounted for around 2 percent of the country’s gross domestic product since 2004. Total spending was $3.3 billion in 2012 and $3.4 billion in 2013 (the latest year for which figures are available), […]

Fixed Budget, Dynamic Defense in Japan

As AMTI readers know well, tensions between Japan and China over the Senkaku Islands have been running high since 2010. Despite a partial thaw when Prime Minister Shinzo Abe met with President Xi Jinping last December, Beijing continues to put steady pressure on Tokyo’s control of the islands with regular maritime and aerial incursions and […]

Taiwan’s Defense Spending: The Security Consequences of Choosing Butter over Guns

The People’s Republic of China (PRC) announced on March 4 that it would raise its defense budget by 10.1 percent in 2015, which continues an almost unbroken pattern of double-digit annual increases over the past two decades. Meanwhile, defense spending by the Republic of China (ROC) on Taiwan, which faces an ever-growing military threat from […]