Asia's Major Powers and the Emerging Challenges to Nuclear Stability Among Them
Abstract
This paper examines the evolving relationships of strategic military power among Asia's major power with the objective of identifying potential sources of instability and their policy and strategy implications and argues the following main points. First, as Asia's major powers make decisions about what types of strategic military postures to create and maintain, their choices are becoming increasingly interconnected. This suggests the emergence of a system as such, as yet loosely coupled. Second, within that emergent system are various sources of instability, including unpredictability, intensifying competition, and questions of U.S. reputation. Third, U.S. policy can make an impact on mitigating these sources of instability. The United States should treat these issues with the seriousness they deserve-Asia cannot be an after-thought in the U.S. vision of nuclear order. The United States should reject simplistic approaches like laissez faire or competition for supremacy and instead embrace a strategy that sets in place a new "new strategic framework" that sustains U.S.-Russian restraint and expands its processes and structures to encompass the other important major power actors in Asia, especially China. But this will require looking beyond a replication of START in some new form in the U.S.-Russian relationship to take a much broader view of the needed framework of strategic restraint that serves the interests of major power stability in Asia.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Feb 01, 2009
- Accession Number
- ADA530036
Entities
People
- Brad Roberts
Organizations
- Institute for Defense Analyses