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Title: Asia's Deadly Triangle: How Arms, Energy, and Growth Threaten to Destabilize Asia-Pacific by Kent Calder, Kent E. Calder ISBN: 1-85788-161-3 Publisher: Nicholas Brealey Publishing Pub. Date: 01 September, 1997 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4 (2 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Thorough review of recent situation, analysis somewhat dated
Comment: The author did an excellent job of reviewing recent developments (as of 1997) in East Asian security affairs and provided a wealth of information and useful data. He also astutely identified the looming energy crisis in East Asia as the greatest threat to long term regional security.
Unfortunately, as is often the case with analyses of this nature, subsequent turns of events rendered some of his points moot. Under current circumstances some of his arguments appear dated. Yes, China's appetite for foreign oil has continued to balloon but the abject dependency on the Middle East and the vital sea lanes of South-East Asia has failed to materialize. Instead, China has looked closer to home in the direction of ex-Soviet central Asia. The Chinese have invested heavily in oil fields and pipelines in Kazakhstan, increasing Chinese stake significantly in the hornets' nest of a region and laying what can be the fuse to an explosive conflict with Russia. The author touched upon these areas only lightly.
The author was also too ready to dismiss the effectiveness of global trading regimes such as the GATT (the precursor to the WTO) and emphasize the rising tide of economic regionalism. But perhaps there's nothing sinister behind the rising share of intra-regional trade - it could be just that people prefer to trade where the routes are short and the transport costs are low. Ironically increasing liberalization of the global capital market may contribute to the rising share of regional trade, as multinationals invest locally to produce for the regional market.
In the end, in a world of freer trade and greater economic integration, no nation will have much incentive to embark upon risky military adventures to obtain what can be more easily obtained in the market. For this reason alone we should wish the WTO well, for although free trade alone does not guarantee prosperity for all, it does increase the likelihood of peace.
In the event of the failure of trade liberalization, we may well find ourselves in a deja vu world of triangulation between the US, China and Russia, this time along economic self-interests instead of ideological lines. This is a prospect that the author did not forsee, for - perhaps reflecting an extensive background in Japanese studies - he envisioned a triangular stand-off between the US, China and Japan. This is somewhat unlikely, as in the face of a much greater common Russian threat, China and Japan will find their interests broadly aligned. The current obsession with containing Chinese ambitions in the Pacific may prove misplaced, and the real flash point may be between that of an East Asian camp led by China confronting a Russian-Islamist alliance cemented by oil, quite apart from Israeli-Palestinian politics.
Nonetheless, the book is worth a read for the great store of information that it contains.
Rating: 4
Summary: Useful regional review [US view] Prediction flawed by events
Comment: Asia's Deadly Triangle: How arms, energy and growth threaten to destabilize Asia-Pacific It is tempting to assume that this book was written throughout as an introduction to Chapter 10. In turn that chapter may have helped get a job as Senior Adviser to the US State Department for East Asian and Pacific Affairs. That post attained, a sensitive person might now want to forget having written and published some of the chapters only a year or two earlier. The ten 'Precepts' of Chapter 10 still seem useful for an Adviser. Their presentation there suits the earlier title Pacific Defense, possibly subtitled as defense of US interests in the North China Sea. To be sure - a phrase that appears a lot - the advice should be considered by any smaller power dabbling in the region. Players within the region of course need to know as much as possible about major contributions to US thought. If some of the advice feels like motherhood statements, Mother does sometimes know best. The perils on the horizon at publication time related to an expected energy crisis. The region, using ever more oil, is nearing the end of proven reserves. Imports are steadily rising. Several of the largest military forces on earth are/were rapidly acquiring more sophisticated weaponry in line with growing prosperity. The dangers are assumed to be most concentrated in the "Northeast Asian Arc of Crisis that surrounds Japan" (p.ix). The description probably sits well in briefing papers, but not so well as a locator on a map. A number of the threats make considerable sense, but could be helped by further explanation. The link in time of Chinese ambit claims in the adjoining sea to oil exploration there is made. A map even shows the extent of Chinese claims, but not of the suggested oil rich regions, in the South China Sea. In terms of time and space it is fascinating that "China's most ambitious claims" are said, possibly like one of the early tragic explorers, to "..expire virtually within sight of Indonesia." Among the dangers foreseen, people without predictions in print may be happy that they were therefore spared other omissions. The nuclear rumblings under the Indian Subcontinent can possibly be inferred, but only from references to India's "undeclared" (p.129) nuclear capacity. Pakistan does not figure, except possibly as a buyer of missile technology. It is unfair but irresistible to note (table, p.129) description of the US as "undeclared" under the heading 'nuclear capacity'. More serious, and apparently invisible, has been the wave of currency instability. On p.153 there is a very favourable reference to "interdependent global currency markets" ..which.. "handle well over $1 trillion a day in transactions with remarkable ease." That this is around ten times the 'daily GLOBAL national product' escapes comment. It is certainly not flagged as an element of risk. A sentence on p.20, "Southeast Asian economies, however, are thus spared the roller-coaster oscillations of Northeast Asia and glide along on a more even keel", might now be modified. Despite such apparent weaknesses of the initial analysis, the Precepts of Chapter 10 are still worthy of attention. If there is an important weakness in the precepts, it may be 'super-power consciousness'. It is taken for granted that all parties involved in the region need access to, and means to analyse, plentiful information. Carried from earlier chapters is an implication; that an information collection agency can always be improved by increasing its staff. Some of the shorthand historical insights, and consequent time frames, would be subject to discussion by fellow commentators. On p.24 there is an implication that ICBMs on nuclear submarines were deployed "throughout the Cold War". The one paragraph description of several centuries of European Balance of Power diplomacy on p.127 short changes several motifs. On p.169 there is a sentence starting "Had the Gulf War not ended so rapidly and successfully, from a US perspective,...." There is also an implication on p.199 that US involvement in WWI had it embroiled in a major war in the Pacific. Some technological assertions need further consideration. Much of the description of nuclear power equates reactor plutonium with material suitable for bombs on a short time scale. Validity of that equation depends critically on the definition of a short time scale. The assertion on p.203 that "energy is fungible" may refer only to oil. Even so, a different petroleum source may involve major modification of refinery plant. A paragraph about alternative energy on p.204 swings rather widely in evaluation of existing initiatives without reference to source documents. Long distance "superconductive power lines" are suggested for serious exploration. The appropriate time scale for that may well eclipse those for the rest of the book. Production is agreeably light on 'typo's. The word 'withdrawl' (p.93) somehow escaped any spell checker. That spell checker would miss 'large commercial bands' - presumably 'banks' - on p.176. Likewise 'as its early driving course' - presumably 'force' - on p.194. One might attribute such glitches to production by dictaphone with occasional lapses in proof reading. One reason to doubt that diagnosis is the number of 'blockbuster' sentences. At approximately 12 words per line, four line sentences, sometimes more than one per page, must be considered excessive. Five line sentences are easily found but fortunately less frequent. The ten line sentence running from p.207 onto p.208 is rendered less daunting by use of a colon and two semicolons. If a second edition is considered, drastic simplification of syntax should be made. It should also be possible to restructure so that the same information is not repeated in several places. The book seems strongest in foreshadowing political responses to predicted stresses in the region. It does not shine in predicting all sources of emerging stresses. Accurate prediction is, however, disastrously rare. Those studying the region would do well to add the book to their reference shelves.
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Title: Modernizing China's Military: Progress, Problems, and Prospects by David Shambaugh ISBN: 0520225074 Publisher: University of California Press Pub. Date: 01 March, 2003 List Price(USD): $45.00 |
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Title: Of Paradise and Power: America and Europe in the New World Order by Robert Kagan ISBN: 1400040930 Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf Pub. Date: 28 January, 2003 List Price(USD): $18.00 |
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