... intrigues and power struggles, with never-ending conflicts between monarchies, families, religions, states, and great powers. For thousands of years, wars have been occurring continuously and without interruption. The formation of a unified Europe has changed ... ... it cannot join NATO, it demands that NATO provide it with nuclear weapons. The nuclear partners of the United States in the Asia-Pacific region are also expanding. In September 2021, the United States announced the establishment of the US-UK-Australia ...
The globalization of NATO will only largely occur at the level of high political rhetoric
On Wednesday, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte concluded a two-day official visit to Japan—his first visit to the country since becoming the chief of the transatlantic military alliance in October. Among NATO's “Indo-Pacific partners,” Japan stands out as the biggest economy, the most generous defense spender and a country with an exceptional track record of close relationships with the transatlantic alliance...
Washington's desire to establish a dialog on arms control and risk reduction with Moscow and Beijing, albeit with each of them separately, looks very cynical
Relations between Russia and China today are stable and characterized by an elevated level of mutual trust. The rapprochement between Moscow and Beijing takes place against the backdrop of pressure from the United States and its allies at the regional and global levels. This competition, and even confrontation, has a pronounced military-technical...
... the leading China’s national hub for economic, cultural, educational and human interaction with its northern neighbor.
Remembering WW2 in Asia
One of the items of Vladimir Putin agenda in Harbin was to lay flowers at the memorial to some twelve thousand of Soviet soldiers and officers who died during WW2 liberating Manchuria from the Japanese occupation. The Russian leader specifically noted the careful attitude of the Chinese authorities towards the memory of joint pages of military glory and ...
... plateau skirmish.
Threshold States: Towards a Nuclear Horizon
On the other hand, certain individual mid-level powers in the Asia-Pacific region also show certain behavioral similarities. The emergence of the “Free and Open Indo-Pacific” with its ... ... stops in the coastal cities was resumed. In addition to truly consequential
visits
by Ohio-class submarines to the port of Busan, a
Nuclear Consultative Group
was established, primarily to regularly coordinate the details vis-à-vis deterring the North
...
... Under these circumstances, Western authors believe, the U.S. and its main Pacific allies, Japan and the Republic of Korea, should close their ranks even more. Such reasoning is constructed for some alternative reality as it suffers from a lack of causality. More so, it is absolutely unclear why the formats of cooperation between “liberal democracies” are so much better than the cooperation of “autocracies.”
The TAO of security
Andrey Kortunov:
US — Japan — South Korea Military Cooperation ...
... backdrop of
anti-Chinese sentiments
in the country.
The announcement of the initiative sends a number of important strategic signals to the world. First, the United States is clearly concerned that China is “usurping” integration initiatives in the Asia-Pacific (following the withdrawal of the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the RCEP’s entry into force) and is willing to offer alternative scenarios for developing and building foreign economic strategies to those regional players ...
... military one. In the ongoing developments, China, on its part, has been struggling to balance on a fine line between avoiding accusations of directly
helping
Russia and sticking to its commitment that a strategic partnership presupposes.
On the conceptual ... ... pressing questions in this regard is how exactly the region could benefit from a more pronounced Russia’s presence in the Asia-Pacific—and vice versa. Namely, what Moscow offer can to the regional powers and smaller states and how it can reinstate ...
The factors driving the Indo-Pacific strategy forward are clearly stronger than the constraints
After the U.S. has put forward its Asia-Pacific strategy in 2017, many commentators believed that the concept was artificial and lacking in political foundation, concluding therefore that it would not take off. However, contrary to this prediction, the development of the Indo-Pacific strategy ...
... China believes this to be a covert operation in order to spy on the Chinese military infrastructure and ships.
Ivan Timofeev:
Sino-Russian Relations Are Still Not an Alliance, but They Are More Than Partnership
Russia’s stake in the wrangle
Located thousands of kilometers away, Russia may look like a full-fledged outsider of this dispute. Still waters run deep. Back in 2016, Vladimir Putin spoke of a “greater Eurasian partnership”. As the Russian Federation has been engaged in its pivot to Asia ...
