Strategic Asia 2007-08

Title Page, Copyright

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pp. iii-iv

Contents

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pp. v-vii

Preface

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pp. ix-xv

Strategic Asia 2007–08: Domestic Political Change and Grand Strategy is the seventh in the series of annual reports produced by NBR’s Strategic Asia Program. This year’s volume investigates the internal transformations taking place in pivotal Asian states and how these changes are affecting, or could ...

Strategic Asia 2007–08 Overview

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p. 1-1

Domestic Politics and Grand Strategy in Asia

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pp. 2-25

Domestic politics has long been viewed as a critical driver of a nation’s grand strategy. From Thucydides in the west to Kautilya in the east, the character of a state’s domestic politics—understood as encompassing everything from its history, ideology, economic arrangements, and governing ...

Strategic Asia 2007–08 Country Studies

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p. 27-27

How Domestic Forces Shape the PRC’s Grand Strategy and International Impact

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pp. 28-66

Domestic factors explain only a part of China’s foreign policy. Beijing’s policies also seriously reflect threat perceptions and other international developments. To a remarkable extent, however, domestic concerns structure the strategic objectives of China’s formal foreign policy, and the ...

Japan’s Long Transition: The Politicsof Recalibrating Grand Strategy

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pp. 68-111

The changing international environment presents Japan with strategic challenges and opportunities in both the traditional security and economic realms. On the one hand various security uncertainties (e.g., North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs, the rise of China, and international terrorism) ...

The Two Koreas: Making Grand Strategyamid Changing Domestic Politics

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pp. 112-136

This chapter explores the grand strategies of South Korea (Republic of Korea, ROK) and North Korea (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, DPRK) in the post–Cold War era. The chapter poses and addresses three key questions. First, what has been the interplay of external factors (three ...

Russia: The Domestic Sources ofa Less‑than-Grand Strategy

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pp. 138-175

If ever there were a country likely to be so tightly constrained and shaped by geopolitical circumstance and the international system that internal forces should be a weak factor in its grand strategy, that country would be Russia. Spanning the Eurasian land mass from Alaska to Finland, ...

Poised for Power: The Domestic Rootsof India’s Slow Rise

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pp. 176-207

Perceptions of India as a rising power with significant potential to influence the balance of power in Asia and beyond began to take hold by the middle of the first decade of the 21st century. Yet many scholars familiar with the country’s political evolution continue to doubt India’s ability to emerge as ...

Strategic Asia 2007–08 Regional Studies

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p. 209-209

Bangladesh and Pakistan:From Secession to Convergence?

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pp. 211-233

Bangladesh and Pakistan are in turmoil. Although for different reasons, both countries are experiencing a weakening of their political parties, a growing assertiveness of their armies, and an erosion of democracy. As a result, Islamist organizations are growing more powerful ...

Political Change in Southeast Asia:Challenges for U.S. Strategy

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pp. 234-265

For both the United States and the countries of Southeast Asia, the central regional strategic issue is coping with the rise of China. Since 2001, while the United States has been preoccupied with the war on terrorism, an emerging China has pursued an agenda in Southeast Asia that some analysts ...

Finding Balance: The Foreign Policiesof Central Asia’s States

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pp. 266-298

Upon independence in 1991, the five states of post-Soviet Central Asia were confronted with the entire battery of institution-building tasks normally associated with post-colonial environments. These new states found themselves in a much more challenging geopolitical position than ...

Strategic Asia 2007–08 Special Studies

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p. 299-299

Iran: Domestic Politics and Nuclear Choices

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pp. 300-338

Iran’s quest for a nuclear capability is the product of domestic politics and the demands of revolutionary legitimacy rather than a strategic imperative. Like those of other states, Iran’s motivations for embarking on a nuclear trajectory are multiple and include prestige, status, and ...

Asian Security Architectures

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pp. 340-369

For the bulk of the post-1945 period, security policy in Asia followed traditional patterns. Faced with a complex strategic setting in which the global dynamics of Cold War rivalry intersected with conflicts deriving from the legacy of European colonialism, states overwhelmingly sought ...

Environmental (In)security in Asia:Challenging U.S. Interests

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pp. 370-398

In its 2004 report entitled A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility, the United Nations Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change proclaimed that the “biggest security threats…extend to environmental degradation.”1 Following similarly ...

Strategic Asia 2007–08 Indicators

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pp. 399-421

The following twenty pages contain tables and figures drawn from NBR’s Strategic Asia database and its sources. This appendix consists of 24 tables covering: economic growth, trade, and foreign investment; population size... tion, and unemployment; politics and international relations; ...

Index

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pp. 423-434

About the Authors

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pp. 435-440

About Strategic Asia

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pp. 441-443