With maritime disputes between China and its neighbors deepening, and with China moving to establish an Air Defense Identification Zone and conducting land reclamation projects in its nearby seas, tensions in the Asia-Pacific region are simmering. Human trafficking, piracy, and nuclear proliferation remain key challenges for the region, and thus for the United States, which seeks to shore up regional support with ambitious free trade agreements and enhanced military cooperation.
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AUKUS has already sparked a hullabaloo, both with allies such as France and with adversaries such as China. This post explains the naval nuclear propulsion portion of AUKUS, its operation and legal basis, and the controversy surrounding it.
Myanmar was not only the first foreign policy surprise for President Biden, but it is also likely to remain a revealing test for the administration. Given China’s role in Myanmar, how can and should the U.S. respond?
The past month in the Indo-Pacific saw flyovers of military exercises, anti-ship ballistic missiles and rising Taiwan tensions.
How has the debate over pre-emptive strike capabilities been legally framed in Japan? What are its implications for U.S. national security policy?
Lawfare's biweekly roundup of U.S.-China technology policy and national security news.
Editor’s note: This article grew out of work done in our Georgetown University class on national security and social media. The class tackled an array of questions related to how hate groups exploit social media, exploring issues ranging from privacy and human rights concerns to technological and legal barriers. Working in teams, students conducted independent research that addressed a difficult issue in this problem space. —Dan Byman & Chris Meserole
South Korea and Japan, two of America’s closest allies, are tumbling into a dangerous economic-diplomatic war over a South Korean Supreme Court decision that ordered Japanese corporations to compensate Korean forced-labor victims from World War II. At the heart of the dispute is a legal disagreement over a 1965 treaty that triggers centuries of bad blood and spiritual animosity between the two countries.
In the first weeks of May, U.S. vessels have been busy all over the South China Sea, drawing China’s ire and frustration. From May 2 to May 8, the destroyer USS William P. Lawrence joined ships from the Philippines, India and Japan in transiting through the South China Sea, performing formation exercises and other low-profile drills during the voyage.
Tensions around the contested island of Thitu (Tagalog: Pag-asa; Chinese: Zhongye) are escalating as China and the Philippines continue to press their claims. In March, the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative (AMTI) and other observers counted up to 275 Chinese vessels near Thitu, up from December’s high of 95.
The Japanese Constitution was long understood as prohibiting the exercise of international law’s right of collective self-defense under all circumstances. Until just a few years ago, the government’s view had been that the Constitution’s war-renouncing clause, Article 9, permitted only the use of minimum necessary force to defend the territory and population of Japan—not other countries.