Search

Begin New Search Topic Military Strategy Political Geography Asia

131. Historical Examples of Unauthorized Humanitarian Intervention

Author:
Julia Brower, Ryan Liss, Tina Thomas, and Jacob Victor
Publication Date:
08-2013
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Legal Challenges, Yale Law School
Abstract:
In December 1971, India sent troops into what was at the time known as East Pakistan. For the preceding months, Pakistani forces had been engaged in a violent conflict with a Bangladeshi separatist group.1 The Indo-Pakistani conflict was sparked by the Bangladesh Liberation War, a conflict between the West Pakistanis and the East Pakistanis, who were mainly of Bengali ethnicity.2 In the 1970 Pakistani election, the East Pakistani Awami League secured a simple majority in the Parliament of Pakistan.3 The West Pakistani leadership, however, stalled in relinquishing power.4 The Awami League declared the independence of East Pakistan as Bangla Desh on April 10, 1971.5 West Pakistani forces engaged in violent attempts to end the insurrection, committing widespread atrocities against the Bengali population of East Pakistan.6 Over a million Bengalis were killed.7 And, an estimated 8 million refugees fled to India.8 In December 1971, fighting broke out between India and Pakistan when India sent armed troops into East Pakistan.9 U.N. debates over the conflict took on a distinctly Cold War tone, stalling any action on the part of the United Nations.10 The military conflict between India and Pakistan lasted only thirteen days before Pakistani forces in East Pakistan surrendered.11 By January 4, 1972, the Secretary-General was able to report that the cease-fire between the two states “appeared relatively stable.”12 As a result of India’s intervention, East Pakistan ultimately achieved independence and became modern-day Bangladesh.13 In justifying its unauthorized intervention, India framed the issue as mainly one of self-defense and regional security. Citing the millions of refugees flowing from East Pakistan into India, the Prime Minister of India wrote to the U.N. Secretary General that Pakistan’s actions “pose a serious threat to our security” and that the resulting military action taken against Pakistan was “entirely defensive.”14 The Indian Ambassador to the Security Council argued that Pakistan had committed a crime of “refugee aggression,” that is, its aggression came from the strain its actions placed on India’s social structure and finances.15 India also argued that it had a right to intervene in light of the humanitarian catastrophe engulfing East Pakistan. The Indian Ambassador to the U.N. claimed that India had “absolutely nothing but the purest of . . . intentions: to rescue the people of East Bengal from what they are suffering.”16 India also maintained that its authority to intervene to end the humanitarian catastrophe was based in part on the consent of Bangladeshi people, even though Bangladesh was not yet an independent state.17 In making this argument, India argued that the rule of self-determination might be applied to the Bengali people.18
Topic:
United Nations, Military Strategy, Legal Theory, and Humanitarian Intervention
Political Geography:
Pakistan, India, and Asia

132. Managing the Global Response to Maritime Piracy

Publication Date:
10-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Atlantic Council
Abstract:
The Atlantic Council promotes constructive US leadership and engagement in international affairs based on the central role of the Atlantic community in meeting the international challenges of the 21st century. The Council embodies a nonpartisan network of leaders who aim to bring ideas to power and to give power to ideas by stimulating dialogue and discussion about critical international issues with a view to enriching public debate and promoting consensus on appropriate responses in the Administration, the Congress, the corporate and nonprofit sectors and the media in the United States and among leaders in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas. Through its diverse networks, the Council builds broad constituencies to support constructive US leadership and policies. Its program offices publish informational analyses, convene conferences among current and/or future leaders, and contribute to the public debate in order to integrate the views of knowledgeable individuals from a wide variety of backgrounds, interests and experiences.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, Economics, Military Strategy, and Maritime Commerce
Political Geography:
Africa, United States, Europe, Asia, and Atlantic Ocean

133. What a Tangled Web: India Caught Between U.S. and Iranian Interests

Author:
Felix Imonti
Publication Date:
06-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Diplomatic Courier
Abstract:
India is caught between the consequences of provoking a United States driven by its fixation upon the Iranian nuclear program and by an Iran that is a major supplier of oil, providing India with access to its vital interests in Afghanistan. The best that the Ind
Topic:
Diplomacy, Energy Policy, International Cooperation, Military Strategy, and Nuclear Power
Political Geography:
Iran, Middle East, India, Asia, North America, and United States of America

134. Storm Clouds on the Horizon: A Possible New Cold War With China

Author:
Paul Nash
Publication Date:
06-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Diplomatic Courier
Abstract:
“Red China’s sub fleet can prove a major threat to American ships,” wrote Albert Ravenholt for the Chicago Daily News Service in 1964, referring to Mao’s underwater menace to American naval forces assembling in the South China Sea off the coast of Vietnam. The communist submarines, supplied by the Russians, were stationed on Hainan Island, at the southernmost tip of the Chinese mainland, across the Gulf of Tonkin. At the time, China was estimated to have between 30 and 40 in operation, the fourth largest fleet after the U.S.S.R, the United States and Great Britain. Nearly 48 years on, much has changed and yet much continues on the same trajectory. When Ravenholt, who set about becoming a reporter in Shanghai in the 1940s during the Second Sino-Japanese war, died at the age of 90 in 2010, China remained Red, even though its ideological hue had turned arguably more nationalistic after three decades of rising prosperity. China has modernized its military in tandem with its economic growth. It has committed itself to significant military spending, endeavouring to catch up to the West’s technological prowess by building advanced precision-guided munitions, anti-satellite and cyber-warfare capabilities. Last year, it unveiled the Chengdu J-20 stealth fighter jet, which is expected to go into service in 2017-19. It has also set up a land-based anti-ship missile system to limit the ability of other nations to navigate freely in regional waters, including those around the disputed Paracel and Spratly Islands, which it estimates may contain the world’s fourth largest reserve of oil and natural gas.
Topic:
International Cooperation, Science and Technology, Military Strategy, and Conflict
Political Geography:
United States, China, Asia, and North America

135. The New U.S. Defense Strategic Guidance and Its Implications for South Korean Security

Author:
Young Ho Kim
Publication Date:
02-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
East Asia Institute (EAI)
Abstract:
On January 5, 2012, U.S. President Barack Obama paid a rare visit to the Pentagon and unveiled his guidelines for the Department of Defense to set the goals and priorities of its defense strategy for the next ten years. The resulting eight-page-long guidelines, entitled Sustaining U.S. Global Leadership: Priorities for 21st Century Defense (hereafter DSG), contain the administration’s assessment of changing global security conditions and propose the roles and shape of the U.S. armed forces for the coming decade. Prepared through “unprecedentedly” close consultations between the President himself and senior leaders in the U.S. defense department and military including both service chiefs and combatant commanders, the DSG defines the present as a historic “inflection point” and envisions the future U.S. military as “smaller and leaner, but agile, flexible, ready and technologically advanced.” Moreover, in accordance with the DSG the U.S. defense budget will be cut by $487 billion and the sizes of the Army and Marine Corps will shrink by 80,000 and 14,000 respectively over the next ten years. While a more detailed picture will be revealed next month with the administration’s FY2013 budget request to Congress, the DSG reflects the Obama administration’s arduous effort to rebalance and redirect its defense priorities and spending under severe fiscal austerity. Because of the unusual timing of its publication and the magnitude of the reduction in defense spending, the DSG has generated controversy and concern domestically in the United States as well as internationally. In the United States, particularly people in the conservative wing of the Republican Party have been prompted to criticize the guidelines for putting the nation’s security in danger, whereas some people on the liberal side have advocated seeking deeper and bolder cuts in defense spending. Internationally, China was understandably the first to respond negatively to the DSG. For example, rebutting the DSG’s portrayal of Beijing’s military policy as lacking transparency as “groundless and untrustworthy,” Liu Weimin, a spokesman of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, stressed that Beijing was committed to peaceful development and “defensive” policy. What then are the implications of the DSG for South Korean security? Will there be any changes in U.S. defense policy or posture in the region under the DSG that may affect security conditions in South Korea significantly and, if so, require new measures or scrutiny by the South Korean government or the military? In fact, there have been largely four issues raised by the news media in South Korea. I will examine these four issues, and then discuss more challenging concerns that will require closer attention by South Korean foreign and security policy-makers.
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, Defense Policy, International Cooperation, and Military Strategy
Political Geography:
China, Asia, South Korea, North Korea, North America, and United States of America

136. The Nuclear Security Summit and South Korea’s Growing International Role

Author:
Sang-Hyun Lee
Publication Date:
04-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
East Asia Institute (EAI)
Abstract:
On March 26-27, 2012, South Korea successfully held the Seoul Nuclear Security Summit. This was the largest diplomatic gathering ever held in South Korea with fifty-three countries and four international non-governmental organizations participating. Alongside the summit, President Lee Myung-bak held twenty-seven bilateral talks which helped to elevate South Korea’s international role. The Seoul Summit has been judged to have produced a more concrete outcome that has strongly supported the achievements made at the Washington Summit in 2010. The result is the Seoul Communiqué, which states that nuclear disarmament, nuclear nonproliferation, and peaceful uses of nuclear energy are the shared goals of humanity while also reconfirming the commitment to seeking a safer world for all and sharing the objective of nuclear security. Moreover, the communiqué stresses the fundamental responsibility of all countries, consistent with their respective national and international obligations, to maintain effective security of all nuclear material, which includes nuclear weapons and nuclear facilities under their control, as well as to prevent non-state actors from acquiring such materials and from obtaining information or technology required to use them for malicious purposes. The communiqué further reaffirms that measures to strengthen nuclear security will not hamper the rights of states to develop and utilize nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. With North Korea’s nuclear threat still overshadowing the Korean Peninsula, the summit had some meaningful implications. South Korea will have undoubtedly enhanced its national image from passive recipient to an active rule-maker in international norms. In preparing for the summit, the South Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MOFAT) focused on comprehensive and action-oriented measures under the belief that by only transforming political commitments from the Washington Summit into action would guarantee the success of the summit. As a result, the Seoul Summit has demonstrated that the promises from the 2010 Washington Summit have now advanced to fruitful outcomes. The seventy-two commitments from that summit have now been almost realized with only a few still to be finalized. In addition, the Seoul Summit has proven itself to be the transition point for global nuclear security moving from political declaration to concrete implementation. The summit itself has also widened its agenda including nuclear safety, the safe use of nuclear energy and radioactive materials, therefore able to address some of the key issues raised following the Fukushima accident. Despite the achievements, some limitations are evident when looking at the preparations for the summit and its aftermath. In the build-up to the summit in South Korea, there were problems in communication between state and people. While the summit is dedicated to preventing nuclear terrorism, some questioned why South Korea was hosting a summit that did not address issues closer to home such as the North Korean nuclear issue or the U.S.-Korea nuclear energy agreement controversy. Such criticism required strong justification of why South Korea was hosting the summit. Another area of difficulty was that nuclear security itself actually lacks a clear definition even among experts. To cope with such questions, MOFAT sought for advice and creative ideas by hosting advisory board meetings during the preparation for the summit.
Topic:
Arms Control and Proliferation, Diplomacy, Nuclear Weapons, Military Strategy, and Summit
Political Geography:
Asia and South Korea

137. Japan’s National Defense Program Guidelines 2010 and Its Implication to South Korean Security Policies

Author:
Young-June Park
Publication Date:
01-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
East Asia Institute (EAI)
Abstract:
On December 17, 2010, the government of Japan updated its most strategically important document entitled “National Defense Program Guidelines (NDPG), FY 2011-” following confirmation from both the Security Council and the Cabinet. The new defense plan released along with the “Mid-Term Defense Program for FY2011-2015” addresses the objectives and the methods of the Japanese Self Defense Forces. Moreover, the plan also outlines Japan’s future military strategies as well as the fundamental tenets of its defense policy. Whereas in the United States, the White House, Pentagon, and Joint Chiefs all release new guidelines each time a new administration comes to power, Japan does not have such a regular format for its defense plan. This makes the National Defense Program Guidelines a comprehensive strategic document that covers every aspect of Japan’s military defense. First introduced in 1976, the Guidelines has only been updated twice in 1995 and 2004. The NDPG in 1976 reflected Japan’s security and military strategy during the Cold War, while the 1995 and the 2004 guidelines reflected strategies for the post-Cold War era and the beginning of 21st century after 9/11, respectively. What then do these updated guidelines in 2010 signify? And in what context should this defense plan be seen? Firstly, the structural changes that have occurred in the security environment of East Asia should be taken into consideration. North Korea conducted nuclear tests twice in 2006 and 2009. In 2010, it displayed new levels of provocation by sinking the South Korean naval vessel Cheonan and shelling Yeonpyeong Island. These actions not only threaten the Korean Peninsula but also the entire region. Added to that, China surpassed Japan as the second largest economy after the United States and has become more assertive over maritime disputes with Japan. How all these military and economic changes are projected in the document deserves close analysis. Secondly, unlike previous NDPGs that were written during the long years under the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), the 2010 Guidelines are part of the first strategic document that reflects the strategic outlook and security approach of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ). Since the DPJ assumed power, it has long tried to differentiate itself from LDP in its decision making procedures and actual policies. Such tendencies are naturally reflected in its security policies as well. How do these guidelines differ from the NDPGs issued under the LDP? In short, the National Defense Program Guidelines 2010 is the best resource with which to understand how Japan perceives the changed security environment, and what strategic concepts and military capability it is preparing for in face of future security challenges.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, Military Strategy, and Missile Defense
Political Geography:
Japan and Asia

138. Ambivalence toward North Korea: South Korean Public Perceptions Following the Attack on Yeonpyeong Island

Author:
Nae-Young Lee and Han-Wool Jeong
Publication Date:
01-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
East Asia Institute (EAI)
Abstract:
In 2010 there were two major North Korean provocations against South Korea as tensions mounted on the Korean Peninsula and in the broader region. Following both the sinking of the ROK Navy corvette Cheonan and the artillery attack on Yeonpyeong Island, there has been a process within South Korean society to clarify where the responsibility lies and to find an appropriate direction for coping with a more aggressive North Korea. The way that politicians and the media have analyzed the situation has mostly been based upon a dichotomy of ‘war vs. peace.’ Public opinion on the other hand has displayed ambivalent attitudes toward war or peace, preferring to allow for both concepts to exist rather than choosing one over the other. The South Korean public does not support either appeasement policies that hold back from retaliation or hard line policies that could lead to a full-scale war. In the short term, the public shows mixed views toward improving inter-Korean relations. For the long term, however, the majority of the public favors that the government redirects its tough stance against North Korea toward more dialogue and cooperation. However, it should be noted that there is a growing opinion for maintaining hard-line policies against North Korea even for the long term. The EAI and Hankook Research, as part of its monthly Public Opinion Barometer, surveyed eight hundred people from around South Korea on November 27, 2010, four days after the attack on Yeonpyeong Island. The results of the November Public Opinion Barometer survey formed the basis of the EAI Issue Briefing on Public Opinion entitled “The Impact of North Korea’s Artillery Strike on Public Opinion in South Korea” which summed up the characteristics of public opinion after the incident . This Issue Briefing will use the results from that survey to provide analysis of the shifting public perceptions on policies toward North Korea.
Topic:
Defense Policy, Military Strategy, Public Opinion, Conflict, and Survey
Political Geography:
Asia, South Korea, and North Korea

139. North Korea’s Hedging Strategy and South Korea’s Proactive Strategy

Author:
Kyung-Young Chung
Publication Date:
06-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
East Asia Institute (EAI)
Abstract:
The year 2010 saw heightened tensions on the Korean Peninsula triggered by North Korea, as shown by the sinking of the Cheonan warship and the artillery attack against Yeonpyeong Island. Some experts, even some within the intelligence community, estimated that through these efforts Kim Jong-eun was attempting to strengthen his power in the succession struggle. North Korea’s provocative actions, however, while internally motivated, repeatedly force South Korea to pay a ransom to support three generations of succession within the royal Kim family, and create an almost insurmountable problem for the South. Defining the Yeonpyeong Island incident is critical to the national security posture of the Republic of Korea (ROK). Conducting an exercise of artillery fire against a specific target is one thing, but attacking South Korean territory is a different thing altogether. The latter implies an invasive action, a deliberate attack to secure a series of strategic objectives waged by limited warfare. In the context of North Korea’s provocation, the conflicting, competitive, yet also cooperative relationship between the United States and China had both a direct and an indirect impact on the Korean Peninsula. The ROK's weak, vacillating reaction against the North Korean provocation clearly revealed the ROK military's limitations in countering the North Korean threat. Since dealing with a provocative scenario has a tremendous impact on how the ROK responds, a comprehensive reassessment of the North Korean threat is imperative. Taking account of the complexity of power politics as well as North Korea's provocations, this briefing will explore a potential provocative scenario, which will be developed on the basis of Pyongyang’s intent, its capability to inflict threat using asymmetric war-fighting assets, and the North Korean perception of South Korea's political, social, economic, and military vulnerability. Finally, the briefing will make policy recommendations in terms of security and defense posture, international cooperation to deter North Korean provocation, and examine how to promptly and effectively deal with future crises in the event of any further military action from the North against the ROK.
Topic:
Defense Policy, Military Strategy, Conflict, and Missile Defense
Political Geography:
Asia, South Korea, and North Korea

140. Blame Game under Fire: Parsing South Korean Debate on North Korea Policy

Author:
Dong Sun Lee
Publication Date:
07-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
East Asia Institute (EAI)
Abstract:
In late 2009, a North Korean warship attacked South Korean naval vessels near Daecheong Island. The following year witnessed a further elevation of North Korean aggression expressed in attacks on the South Korean corvette Cheonan and Yeonpyeong Island. These shocking developments have sparked a heated debate in the South, inter alia, on whether and how Seoul’s North Korea policy has increased Pyongyang’s belligerence. This paper aims to critically evaluate key arguments pervading the debate and offer an alternative perspective. (I limit my scope to examining how Seoul’s policy has affected Pyongyang’s recent aggressiveness, instead of offering a more comprehensive account of the provocations or a theory of North Korean behavior.) I argue that all conventional wisdom (which either denies the significance of North Korea policy or views the level of engagement as mainly shaping Pyongyang’s behavior) has only weak empirical support, but remains salient because it serves parochial political interests in the partisan blame game. In reality, Seoul’s policy toward Pyongyang has significantly amplified North Korean belligerence primarily because it has been partisan in nature—not because inter-Korean engagement has been excessive or insufficient. Resolving this problem requires promoting post-partisanship, to which independent scholars and institutions can contribute significantly.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Defense Policy, Military Strategy, and Conflict
Political Geography:
Asia, South Korea, and North Korea