Vietnam’s Foreign Policy: In Search of a New Delicate Balance

Developments in the international affairs of Southeast Asia are generating considerable uncertainty and doubt among regional players, including Vietnam. Seeking a delicate balance between great powers, and among other regional states, is a necessity for Hanoi to keep Vietnam’s national interests and relationships with other countries undamaged.

Of Claims and Freedoms: Diverging Perspectives on the South China Sea

Power differentials between states affect how they view and respond to the South China Sea disputes. Small powers largely see them as a clash of unilateral territorial and maritime claims over all or part of the semi-enclosed sea, whereas big powers frame them in a more strategic manner – a contest for control over a critical international waterway. Small powers focus on immediate and direct concerns like resource access, whereas big powers stress universal freedoms of navigation and overflight. Lumping claims and freedoms together muddles and complicates the resolution of South China Sea disputes. Disaggregating them, however, may allow for opportunities to tackle part of the dispute separately.

Anatomy of a Strategy

On August 20, The Department of Defense released its Asia-Pacific Maritime Security Strategy.  Mandated by Section 1259 of the FY 2015 National Defense Authorization Act, the report outlines DOD’s strategy for maritime security in the region. On August 21, Assistant Secretary of Defense David Shear briefed the press on the new document. Team AMTI commends […]

August 1945: A Snapshot of American Maritime Strategy in the Pacific

When Japan surrendered 70 years ago this month, the United States stood supreme in the Pacific.  Only the Royal Navy and Royal Australian Navy had surface combatants that could roam freely from the Indian Ocean to the East China Sea and these remained a fraction of the massive “Big Blue Fleet” the U.S. Navy had […]

How Will China View the New Maritime Strategy?

The military services responsible for American seapower (Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard) recently released their new maritime strategy, entitled “Forward, Engaged, Ready: A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower.”  The reviews thus far have been positive, with most analysts praising the specificity of the document, as compared to its 2007 predecessor, as well as its […]

China’s Maritime Actors: Coordinated and Directed from the Top

China’s various maritime actors are increasingly being coordinated and directed by senior policymakers as part of a larger strategy aimed at protecting China’s sovereignty and maritime rights. The first signs of strengthened coordination and supervision were evident as early as mid-2012, when Chinese maritime vessels and Chinese fishing boats—with People Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) ships […]

Advancing the Rebalance in Southeast Asia

The year 2015 provides the Obama administration with new opportunities in Southeast Asia to reinforce and bolster the rebalance to Asia. Myanmar In Myanmar, the United States should expand its support and training efforts to build political parties, strengthen the parliament, and prepare for monitoring activities ahead of the country’s 2015 elections to ensure they […]

China: Building Confidence while Setting Expectations

Where China is concerned, successful implementation of the rebalance hinges upon a recognition in both capitals that neither country can hope to organize the future order in East Asia without the other. Chinese and U.S. leaderships say they subscribe to this axiom, but their respective behavior suggests that both sides seem reluctant to truly eschew […]

Notes from the Xiangshan Forum

In an effort to strengthen China’s regional leadership role and promote its new Asian security concept, China’s military convened the fifth Xiangshan Forum, November 20-22. Previously a venue held in alternate years for foreign scholars and the PLA to conduct exchanges on international security issues, this year’s conference was upgraded to an annual Track 1.5 […]

Transparency in Troubled Seas: Welcome to AMTI

Five years ago, it would have been difficult to imagine that eminent historians and political scientists would draw analogies between territorial issues in the East and South China Seas, and the Balkans on the eve of the First World War. Yet in the very recent past, maritime claims, resource competition, and contentious international arbitration in the […]