Category Archives: International Conflict

Japan Forgetting: A Syndrome Afflicting U.S. Foreign Policy

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Journal of Political Risk, Vol. 7, No. 10, October 2018 

A naval ship, the JS Suzutsuki 117, is photographed at the Hanshin Base.

The JS Suzutsuki 117 at the Hanshin Base, 2015. Source: Hunini via Wikimedia Commons.

Arthur Waldron, Ph.D.

University of Pennsylvania

Hearing an analyst say recently that we must come to terms with China, led me to spit out my coffee and ask myself, more importantly, “What about Japan?”

Forgetting about Japan, or what might be called “Japan forgetting”, is a besetting failure of American foreign policy. It has been since the early years of the last century, most notably after 1922 when the Anglo-Japanese alliance, a source of stability comparable to the 1887 Reinsurance Treaty of Bismarck and Wilhelm I. In 1890 when Wilhelm II refused to renew the treaty, leading in part to World War I.

The end of the Anglo-Japanese alliance came with the Washington Conference of 1921-22. If you are serious about understanding China, read the “Conference on the Limitation of Armaments”, which was published by the U.S. Government, half in English and half in schoolboy French, so it is not as formidable as it appears. It is the indispensable starting point.

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Remove Duterte And Modernize The Armed Forces Philippines

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3Journal of Political Risk, Vol. 7, No. 10, October 2018 

A large group of soldiers are photographed standing to attention in their uniforms on a large tarmac. One soldier in the foreground at the front of the group is depicted holding a flag.

Filipino Armed Forces at Fort Magsaysay, 2003. Soure: NARA & DVIDS Public Domain Archive.

Anonymous Filipino

This is a critical time for the Philippines, in terms of economics, politics, and national defense. Immediately at the start of President Rodrigo Duterte’s term the congress was already submissive to him. There were just a few dissenting Senators. But Duterte is taking them down one by one, especially the opposition stalwarts. Senator Leila de Lima was accused of a sham case, conspiracy to commit illegal drug trading (1), and is now in prison. Senator Antonio Trillanes is having his amnesty revoked [2]. Duterte is under criminal investigation, breaking the Constitution, running the Philippines into the ground, and gradually giving our sovereignty away to China. The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) is slowly losing its allies and competitive edge against China, the Philippines’ biggest threat. Duterte should immediately be removed, and the AFP should seek the help from its traditional allies to quickly modernize.

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Tackling the South China Sea Together: British and French Navies Chart a Course

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Journal of Political Risk, Vol. 7, No. 6, June 2018 

Pictured are Royal Navy Marines taking part in a simulated beach landing using Landing Platform Dock ships. Two ships appear in the foreground, with a larger one in the background.

Pictured are Royal Navy Marines taking part in a simulated beach landing using Landing Platform Dock ships.
The Assault Ship HMS Bulwark is visable in the distance. The Marines were part of the NATO Exercise, Trident Juncture. The role of the Landing Platform Dock ships, HMS Bulwark and HMS Albion, is to deliver the punch of the Royal Marines ashore by air and by sea, with boats from the landing dock in the belly of the ship and by assault helicopter from the two-spot flight deck. LPDs can carry 256 troops, with their vehicles and combat supplies, and this can be swollen up to 405 troops. Source: Defence Imagery via Flickr.

Peter M. Solomon

Government and Regulatory Affairs Consultant

At a September 2015, joint press conference at the White House, China’s President Xi Jinping stood beside U.S. President Barack Obama and said, “China does not intend to pursue militarization” with respect to “construction activities that China are undertaking” on the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea.[1] Since then, China has established several offensive capabilities in the region, including surface-to-air and anti-ship missile systems on three features in the Spratly Islands and the ability to deploy strategic bombers from the Paracel Islands.[2]  In comparison to the United States, which has been a consistent critic of China’s reclamation and militarization and has embarked on numerous freedom of maritime navigation exercises in the region, the European Union (EU) has historically been reserved in its comments regarding China’s activities in the South China Sea. Instead, the EU has limited itself to general comments about the importance of maintaining freedom of the seas and resolving disputes peacefully. While these statements are not without importance, the lack of a more critical, unified EU approach to China’s destabilizing activities has left missing a crucial voice. The tides could soon turn.

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Reason, Imagination and Invention in the South Pacific: The Laser Beam Kiwi

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Journal of Political Risk, Vol. 7, No. 6, June 2018 

Three troops in uniform pose with the "Laser Kiwi" flag. A New Zealand flag is visible in the background.

Troops pose with the “Laser Kiwi” flag, submitted to the New Zealand Flag Consideration panel in 2015 by James Gray. Source: Reddit.

Bernard Cadogan, Ph.D.

Foreign Affairs and Diplomatic Advisor to King Tuheitia, the seventh King of the Maori Kiingitanga

Address to the U.K. Defence Academy, Shrivenham, 7th February 2018

New Zealand is proof that nature does not always abhor, a vacuum. The country is truly, “the last, the loneliest and the loveliest” as Rudyard Kipling declared Auckland to be in his “Song of the Cities”. Strategic systems never tolerate vacuums. They punish confusion and ambivalence. New Zealand is no redoubt, nor is it overlooked.

The intention of this address is to consider New Zealand’s sense of geopolitical reality. Are we proof that the Versailles Conference unassociated Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) nation state has been outclassed in the 21st century Pacific? Are we a living fossil ?

Woodrow Wilson envisaged a world in which there would be no assemblages such as empires, nor alliance systems even. Sovereignty-pooling exercises such as the European Union and Mercosur or Caricom would have been anathema to Wilson. They are not an option for us.

When asked at the Versailles Conference, why we had made the effort we did in the Great War, our Prime Minister Bill Massey replied, “we did it for Civilisation”.

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Duterte’s Immigration Agreement with China: Subversion by Numbers

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Journal of Political Risk, Vol. 7, No. 6, June 2018 

Demetrius Cox

Analyst and Consultant

A PLA Air Force (PLAAF) military transport plane (IL-76) is photographed leaving the airstrip.

A PLA Air Force (PLAAF) military transport plane (IL-76) in Davao City on 8 June 2018. Source: Philippine Plane Spotters Group (PPSG).

“The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.”
― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

On June 9, 2018 the Philippine Star published an article titled “More than 3 million Chinese allowed entry into Philippines since 2016 — Immigration data”.

In what may become one of the most remarkable subversions in recent history, the article describes how the immigration floodgates have been thrown open by Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte.  With a current national population of 103 million, Duterte has allowed a 3% direct population increase (3+ million) of Chinese immigrants to the Republic of the Philippines in less than three years, which is enough to keep most demographers up at night.  And there is no end in sight.

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