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  • Strategic Asia 2005-06: Military Modernization in an Era of Uncertainty
  • Carlyle A. Thayer
Strategic Asia 2005–06: Military Modernization in an Era of Uncertainty. Edited by Ashley J. Tellis and Michael Wills. Seattle and Washington, DC: National Bureau of Asian Research, 2005. Softcover: 461 pp.

The National Bureau of Asian Research (NBR) has established itself as one of the world's leading organizations that promotes strategic analysis. This is well illustrated by its annual publication, Strategic Asia, which rivals if not surpasses Strategic Survey, issued by the International Institute of Strategic Studies, for the quality of its analysis. The NBR's Strategic Asia, however, does not attempt to systematically canvass the previous year's major developments. Strategic Asia focuses on a special theme each year and is limited in its geographic coverage.

Strategic Asia is a very well-organized volume. Each chapter is prefaced with a short executive summary that succinctly sets out the main argument and policy implications. Each chapters examines the strategic context from the point of view of country or region concerned, analyses the specific types of military modernization programmes that are currently being undertaken, and concludes with an assessment of the political and strategic implications of military modernization in each sub-region as well as Asia as a whole. Unlike Strategic Survey, Strategic Asia identifies its contributors who are generally leading American specialists. Strategic Asia is also fully documented. These footnotes provide a rich guide to current strategic analysis. The chapters in Strategic Asia are quite current, indicating a short turnaround time from submission to publication. Strategic Asia also contains a brief index.

Strategic Asia 2005–2006 focuses on military modernization in an era of strategic uncertainty. The editors, Ashley J. Tellis and Michael Wills, define military modernization "as the relevant upgrade or improvement of existing military capabilities through the acquisition of new imported or indigenously developed weapons systems and supporting assets, the incorporation of new doctrines, the creation of new organizational structures, and the institutionalization of new manpower management and combat training regimes" (p. 15). Strategic Asia 2005–2006 contains 13 chapters grouped into four major sections. The first section comprises an overview of military modernization in Asia. This is followed by five country studies that focus on the major actors — United States, China, Japan, the two Koreas, and Russia (Stephen J. Blank). Section three comprises chapters that canvass military modernization in Central Asia (Kimberly Marten), between India and Pakistan, and Southeast Asia (Sheldon W. Simon). [End Page 178] Section four contains four special studies: Australian strategic policy, nuclear proliferation, China's economic growth, and military modernization in Taiwan.

Strategic Asia 2005–2006 concludes with a statistical section, "Strategic Asia by the Numbers". Twenty-one strategic indicators are grouped into nine major categories: Economic (GDP, GDP growth, and inflation), Trade (trade, export patterns, import patterns), Investment (FDI, origins of FDI), Population (population, population growth, and life expectancy), Politics and International Relations (politics, political rankings), Energy (energy consumption, oil supplies and reserves), Defence Spending (total defence expenditures, defence expenditure as a share of GDP), Conventional Military Capabilities (manpower, conventional warfare capabilities), Weapons of Mass Destruction, or WMD (nuclear weapons, intercontinental ballistic missiles, non-proliferation commitments, and WMD export control regimes).

In his introductory overview, Tellis writes that military modernization in Asia is a response to strategic uncertainty but the forms that modernization takes reflects "both the diversity of the region itself and the challenges peculiar to each of the 'security complexes' of which Asia is composed" (p. 5). Strategic Asia 2005–2006 identifies four major security complexes: Northeast Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and Central Asia (p. xi). The Asian continent is the arena where the interests of China, the United States, and Russia actively intersect. Tellis argues that Asia "is poised to become the new center of gravity in global politics" and the site for "the single largest concentration of global economic power" (p. 3).

The complexity of the security environment is a structural driver behind military modernization in Asia. For example, economic growth will be increasingly dependent on access to secure sources of energy and "the protection of energy access constitutes one of the key drivers of military modernization among the...

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