Asia Pacific

Political Warfare in Sub-Saharan Africa: U.S. Capabilities and Chinese Operations in Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa Dr Donovan C Chau Monograph by the US Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute "In this monograph, Dr. Donovan Chau considers one nonviolent instrument of grand strategy in particular, political warfare. Retracing the origins and mischaracterizations of political warfare, Dr. Chau suggests that the PRC has used political warfare as its leading grand strategic instrument in Africa. The monograph offers a concise, detailed overview of U.S. capabilities to conduct political warfare in Africa. It then examines PRC political warfare operations in four regional “anchor” states—Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa."

The Other Special Relationship: The United States and Australia at the Start of the 21st Century Dr Jeffrey D McCausland, Dr Douglas Stuart, Prof William T Tow, Prof Michael Wesley Book by the US Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute "Many of the contributors to this volume agree with Michael Evans’ conclusion that “in the first decade of the new millennium, the Australian-American Alliance is at its strongest since the height of the Vietnam War in the mid-1960s.” But if there is one overarching theme to be found in this book, it is that such an intimate alliance relationship cannot be taken for granted."

Exploring the "Right Size" for China's Military: PLA Missions, Functions, and Organizations Mr Justin B Liang, Dr Sarah K Snyder Colloquium Brief by the US Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute, with the National Bureau of Asian Research "On October 6, 2006, more than 60 leading experts on China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) convened at Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania, for a two-day discussion of the drivers of PLA force modernization. The 2006 PLA Conference was co-sponsored by National Bureau of Asian Research and the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College. Entitled “Exploring the ‘Right Size’ for China’s Military: PLA Missions, Functions, and Organization,” the conference explored continuities and discontinuities in the forces driving PLA force modernization, assessed how current modernization efforts are linked to national requirements, and examined what such development reveals about China’s national defense strategies."

Understanding Indian Insurgencies: Implications for Counterinsurgency Operations in the Third World Deputy Inspector General Durga Madhab (John) Mitra Monograph by the US Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute "This monograph analyzes the susceptibility of Third World countries to insurgency and develops a theoretical perspective to illuminate some of the factors contributing to insurgency in these countries. The term insurgency has been used broadly to include all violent struggles against the state by any group or section of population of an area trying to establish its independent political control over that area and its population. A simple linear model for India, having both static as well as dynamic aspects, has been developed to demonstrate how the degree of inaccessibility of an area, the strength of separate social identity of its population, and the amount of external influence on the area determine the propensity of that area for insurgency..."

Iraqi Security Forces and Lessons from Korea Dr Sheila Miyoshi Jager Op-Ed by the US Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute "The creation of a viable Iraqi security force has been the sine qua non of our success in Iraq (and the withdrawal of our military). The key question is, is this still feasible? This is not the first time we have undertaken such a task. Some succeeded (the Balkans and El Salvador), some failed (Vietnam), and some are ongoing (Afghanistan). But it was in South Korea, after its liberation at the end of World War II, where we first attempted to build a national security force from the ground up..."

Russian Nonproliferation Policy and the Korean Peninsula Dr Yong-Chool Ha, Dr Beom-Shik Shin Monograph by the US Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute "One of the key challenges of our time is the threat posed to the security of Northeast Asia by North Korea’s nuclear proliferation. Efforts to resolve this problem through the medium of a six-party negotiation are proceeding with great difficulty. As in any multilateral process, a major problem is understanding the goals and perspectives of each of the participants. One of those participants is Russia, and this monograph focuses upon Moscow’s perspectives with regard to North Korea’s nuclear program and Russia’s own standing in Northeast Asia. This monograph makes a valuable contribution to the debate or analysis of the difficult issues connected with North Korea’s nuclear proliferation because the views of Russia, and of the other participants in those negotiations, unfortunately are not well-known or readily available in the United States."

Shaping China's Security Environment: The Role of the People's Liberation Army Dr Andrew Scobell, Dr Larry M Wortzel Monograph by the US Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute "For 2 decades after the People’s Republic of China (PRC) was established, there was no question that the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) had a central role in shaping China’s security and foreign policy. Indeed, the PLA also was a major actor in domestic policy. The new leaders that took over China in 1949 all came from the military or Communist Party cadre who fought the Nationalists from 1927 through the Anti-Japanese War, and then fought the final battles of the civil war. At the local, provincial, and national level, the Party, the Army, and the government were almost synonymous. The PLA’s influence in national policy declined in subsequent decades, however. Today, one must carefully count the number of senior leaders with military connections in the Communist Party Politburo to debate the extent of PLA influence in China. "

China-ASEAN Relations: Perspectives, Prospects, and Implications for U.S. Interests Dr Jing-dong Yuan Monograph by the US Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute "Relations between China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have undergone significant changes over the past 15 years. ASEAN’s concerns over Beijing’s drive for military modernization and its assertive posture in territorial disputes over the South China Sea of the early 1990s are replaced with growing economic ties and shared geo-political interests for building regional security through multilateral processes. Since the 1997 Asian financial crisis, Beijing has expanded its influence as a major political force in the region and a locomotive for economic recovery and future opportunity. What explains China’s successful diplomatic offensive and what implications do closer China-ASEAN ties have for the United States?"

North Korean Civil-Military Trends: Military-First Politics to a Point Mr Ken E Gause Monograph by the US Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute "Unlike the study of other authoritarian regimes, first the Soviet Union and more recently China, which have given rise to a cottage industry of analysis on all aspects of things military, the same cannot be said of the Korean People’s Army (KPA), the armed forces of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). In the small world of Pyongyang watchers, articles and books devoted to the KPA are few and in most cases deal with the armed forces themselves (order of battle) rather than the high command that oversees the machinery."