By Prashanth Parameswaran
A new report charts out what Asia’s future security environment might look like.
Today, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, released an interesting report on the long-term security environment in the Asia-Pacific region. The report, which was commissioned by the U.S. government, is a regional strategic net assessment looking out twenty-five to thirty years.
The authors approach this task by identifying a range of possible futures that could emerge during this time period, the possible drivers for them, and what this means for U.S. policy moving forward. The four main variables the report identifies that shape these futures are: domestic political and social stability; defense spending and military capabilities; national and transnational objectives, military doctrines, and approaches to the use of force; and interstate bilateral and multilateral relationships.
They then identify five different future scenarios for the security environment in the Asia-Pacific, characterized by differing degrees of conflict and convergence with a range of military balances, political, military and economic alignments, and patterns of multistate association. The most probable one – “Status Quo Redux” – is essentially a variant of the current environment which has a mix of cooperative and competitive features. While there would be cooperation and engagement among the United States, China and other actors on certain issues, suspicions and uncertainties would persist between Washington and Beijing about long-term intentions and constrained economic and political competition would continue.
Read the full story at The Diplomat