The most dangerous source of instability in Asia is a rising China seeking to reassert itself, and the place China is most likely to risk a military conflict is the South China Sea. In the second decade of the 21st century, the seldom-calm waters of the South China Sea are frothing from a combination of competing naval exercises and superheated rhetoric. Many pundits, politicians, and admirals see the South China Sea as a place of future competition between powers. Read more.
On December 5, 2006, Taliban fighters repulsed a company of British Royal Marines attacking a village on the Helmand River in Afghanistan. The Marines enjoyed substantial air and artillery support, but the Taliban fighters were victorious, Reuters reported, and bragged that they had the expertise to defeat any army in the world. Although the fighting resulted in the death of only a single Royal Marine, their defeat demonstrated a new Taliban ability in conventional tactics and a first-order strategic change in the war on terrorism.
December 30, 2004, was hardly a proud moment for China, Asia’s rising superpower. On that day, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, Liu Jianchao, announced $2.7 million in disaster relief to victims of the great Sumatran tsunami that killed hundreds of thousands of people and wiped out hundreds of towns along the western coast of the Indonesian island. Liu was understandably a bit defensive as foreign reporters peppered him with questions about the minimal aid amount. “China is a developing country,” he offered. “We have a population of 1.3 billion. China’s per capita gdp is still very low.” The $2.7 million was, he explained, “equivalent to the annual income of 20,000 farmers.” Read more.
The current definition of piracy is completely inadequate as a tool for policymakers. The leading statistics and reporting systems are misleading. Most acts cited are not classic boarding and hijacking of merchant vessels on the high seas. A reformulation of the definition of piracy will help focus efforts at combating the scourge. Read More.
It's difficult to predict what it will take to shake our country out of its billion-dollar-per-launch complacency and cause us to reassert American pre-eminence in space. But the fact that China is about to become the third country to launch a man into space just might do it. Read More.
Attacks against commercial ships have tripled. It's time to stop this growing barrier to maritime trade.
Piracy is back. And as in the days of Blackbeard, the piracy onslaught hinders international trade. Acts of maritime piracy range from the classic boarding and hijacking a merchant vessel on the high seas to stealing from a ship while it is anchored in port. Reported attacks against commercial ships have tripled over the past decade, increasing last year alone by 40 percent. Nearly two-thirds of the attacks in 1999 occurred in the pirate-infested waters of Asia. With 90 percent of the world's trade moving via ship and 45 percent of all shipping moving through Asian waters, piracy is becoming an increasing threat to global trade. Read More.
After retiring from the Army, Dana went to work as a national security and international policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation, a Washington DC Think Tank, where he wrote the book The China Challenge: Standing Strong Against the Military, Economic and Political Threats that Imperil America.
Dana is currently writing a series of historical fiction book taking place during the American Revolutionary War. The first book in the series, Sowing Dragon Teeth, will be available for sale Spring of 2024.
When Dana retired from the Army, he went to work as a national security and international policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation a Washington DC Think Tank where he published over 100 articles.
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