Assessing Complex Regional Trends Chapter 12:  "East and Southeast Asia" by Phillip C. Saunders One critical foreign policy challenge for the Obama administration will be dealing with a more powerful China that generally behaves in a restrained manner and seeks to reassure its neighbors of its good intentions, while simultaneously developing advanced military capabilities and expanding its regional and global influence. The United States should welcome restrained and responsible Chinese behavior, but must also recognize and prepare for the more complex policy challenges a strong China will pose. A more powerful China will have a major impact on Asia-Pacific security and create new challenges for U.S.-China relations.  Learn more.....   (Dr. Phillip Saunders is the new Research Director of INSS, and Senior Fellow overseeing the Center for the Study of Chinese Military Affairs.)

Chinese President Hu Jintao (left) with Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda during Hu's visit to Tokyo, May 2008.  Kyodo via AP.

Strategic Forum 250 "North Korea: Challenges, Interests, and Policy"  by James J. Przystup North Korea poses two distinct but interrelated challenges. The first is external: the challenge posed by its nuclear weapons program and the threat of proliferation off the Korean Peninsula. The second is essentially but not wholly internal: the challenge posed by the pending transfer of power in Pyongyang and potential for instability as the process plays out.....it is the threat, if not the reality, of North Korean instability that ranks among the most complex of contemporary challenges to international security Learn more....

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Commentary, Leo Michel, Senior Fellow "A general to politicians' rescue?" by Leo Michel The EU's top military man has an idea that could help move the Union and the broader transatlantic community towards their civilian and military goals. General Henri Bentégeat suggested the EU should create an integrated civil-military ‘command centre'....His proposal of a civil-military command centre offers a compromise that key EU leaders may be ready to accept. Learn more.....

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OP-ED  Leo Michel, Senior Fellow "Keeping our allies on our side in Afghanistan" by Leo Michel and Robert Hunter The U.S. must be willing to listen to those nations that are sharing the risks...Bravery is not an American monopoly. Most allies report many soldiers volunteering to return to Afghanistan despite the increased violence. A Canadian officer who lost his leg in a roadside bomb attack in 2007 recently returned to Kandahar, in his words, "to do good." Learn More...

Strategic Forum 249 Burma in Strategic Perspective: Renewing Discussion of Options Lewis M. Stern, George Thomas, and Julia A. Thompson U.S. policy has sought to nudge the junta in Burma toward a more reasonable approach to its dilemma, either in the form of managing Aung San Suu Kyi’s house arrest in a semitransparent fashion, allowing the release of imprisoned prodemocracy activists and the National League for Democracy cadre, agreeing to visits from United Nations special representatives, or accepting regional advice and guidance at critical moments. But Burma is a minuet dramatizing the “one step forward, two steps backward” description of progress. Even as the administration of President Barack Obama commits itself in principle to reaching out to Burma, events conspire against another effort to coax the junta toward a reasonable, regionally acceptable solution to its hard edge.   Learn more...

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Strategic Forum 248 Unity of Effort: Key to Success in Afghanistan Christopher J. Lamb, Ph.D. and Martin Cinnamond, Ph.D. The U.S. Government strategy for success in Afghanistan unveiled by President Obama on March 27, 2009, emphasized a classic population-centric counter-insurgency approach. Now, however, that strategy is being reconsidered. The latest INSS Strategic Forum by Christopher J. Lamb and Martin Cinnamond, “Unity of Effort: Key to Success in Afghanistan,” makes a contribution to the ongoing debate over U.S. strategy for Afghanistan.  It argues: 1) unity of effort is a more important strategy variable than resources; 2) the counterinsurgency mission conflicts with and should take precedence over the counterterrorism mission; and 3) inadequate unity of effort within special operations has contributed to civilian casualties that cripple public support for international forces. Finding the Obama administration efforts to improve unity of effort laudable but insufficient, the research concludes with recommendations that support and extend the initiatives the administration has taken to date.   Learn more.....

Strategic Forum 247 Radicalization by Choice: ISI and the Pakistani Army Robert B. Oakley and Franz Stefan-Gady The Pakistani army and the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate remain essential for the security and stability of Pakistan. Both organizations have deliberately embraced Islamic radicalism as a means to address the conventional military gap between Pakistan and India....Despite U.S. pressure and appeals, Pakistani support has lacked the scope and intensity desired by the United States....Optimists describe Pakistan as a transitional democracy; pessimists call it a fragmented state.  Learn more.....

JFQ Article - Dr. Richard B. Andres, Energy Chair Energy and Environmental Insecurity by Dr. Richard B. Andres Energy has become one of the most pressing problems in national and global security. Over the last decade, significant increases in the price of oil have weakened the global economy, contributed to a sharp rise in global food prices, and transferred trillions of dollars to autocratic oil-exporting regimes....   Learn more...

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Photo: US Army (Ronald Shaw, Jr.)

JFQ Article - Dr. Christopher J. Lamb, Senior Fellow MRAP's, Irregular Warfare, and Pentagon Reform by Christopher J. Lamb, Ph.D., Matthew J. Schmidt, and Berit G. Fitzsimmons  "Mine resistant ambush protected (MRAP) vehicles offer an excellent case study for investigating the current debate over the Pentagon’s emphasis on developing and fielding irregular warfare capabilities. The debate was highlighted by a series of recent articles in Joint Force Quarterly,1 including one by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, who cited the slow fielding of MRAPs as a prime example of the Pentagon’s institutional resistance to investments in irregular warfare capabilities." Learn more......