December 5, 2022
What the debate on Vietnam’s geostrategic orientation misses
Should Vietnam continue building its maritime forces or should it pivot landward to best ensure its security? Few would dispute that this is a critical question that merits close scrutiny. As an emergent middle power, Vietnam simply doesn’t have sufficient resources to simultaneously pursue a…
November 9, 2022
Strategic divergence threatens Australia-ASEAN relations
Australian Defence Minister Richard Marles said in a July 2022 speech that Australia needed to ‘attune itself to the concerns of the Indo-Pacific region’. That includes Southeast Asia.
November 9, 2022
The Ebb and Flow of Beijing’s South China Sea Militia
Analysis of satellite imagery from the past year shows that hundreds of Chinese militia vessels continue to operate in the Spratly Islands on a daily basis. The data confirms the massive scale of militia force in the Spratlys. It also shows a marked consistency in their movement and behavior…
October 16, 2022
Vietnam’s maritime imperative
The recent debate on The Strategist about whether Vietnam should have a maritime or continental geostrategic orientation has reinvigorated the long-term and historical interaction between the two strategic cultures. It also shows that it’s not easy for a relatively small power such as Vietnam to…
October 7, 2022
What Indo-Pacific countries should do about Taiwan
In retaliating against US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s August trip to Taiwan, the People’s Republic of China deployed military maneuvers to encircle the island and, for the first time in nearly 26 years, conduct missile launches into Taiwan’s coastal waters. Beijing’s recent military exercises,…
October 6, 2022
Why a maritime focus is vital for Vietnam’s security
Geography influences the strategic choices of all countries, but Vietnam is an interesting case of a ‘swing’ state in comparative grand-strategy terms. The country occupies the eastern part of the Indochinese Peninsula, with an elongated coastline of 3,260 kilometres facing the South China Sea.…
September 24, 2022
Employing “smart power” to counter PRC efforts in Oceania
Recent developments indicate a cozying-up of Solomon Islands’ leaders to Beijing. This has set off alarm bells in Canberra, Wellington, and Washington, DC. World powers have largely ignored the Solomons and other Pacific Island nations for many years, as they have focused their attention on…
August 30, 2022
Jakarta gets ‘grey-zoned’ by Beijing
China is subjecting Indonesia to maritime grey zone tactics — competitive acts between states short of all-out warfare — in the North Natuna Sea. China pursues these objectives in the knowledge that Indonesia will fail to properly respond.
August 26, 2022
Pouring cold water on Jokowi’s maritime ambitions
On 26 July 2022, Indonesian President Joko ‘Jokowi’ Widodo met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in China. The meeting was a surprise given Beijing’s strict zero-COVID-19 policy. A main outcome was the renewal of the memorandum of understanding on cooperation between Indonesia’s Global Maritime…