Questions For Speaker Question Paper

“Well, in accordance with this wise counsel, I laid down in Guam three principles as guidelines for future American policy toward Asia: First, the United States will keep all of its treaty commitments. Second, we shall provide a shield if a nuclear power threatens the freedom of a nation allied with us or of a nation whose survival we consider vital to our security. Third, in cases involving other types of aggression, we shall furnish military

The American military conducted countless humanitarian missions and forceful interventions across the world. But as developing countries rise, the international environment quickly approaches a more multipolar balance of power. Given this trend, some argue that America’s broad and arguably invasive security policy is unsustainable, and that military spending and foreign military operations need to be scaled-back. Others argue that the United States has a unique and important place in the world and must take measures to retain its leadership position, even at the cost of developing nations. Today, analysts of United States security policy debate an important question. Should the United States revert back to a one-dimensional security agenda with one clear objective? Moreover, should the United States direct its attention and energy towards China, its most formidable

In the past decade, China’s foreign policy has alarmed their neighbors prompting the United States to take a proactive role in the Asia-Pacific. Nonetheless, China continues to test the waters with the United States. The 2010 Senkuku Boat Collision Incident revealed how effective Chinese economic sanctions were in compelling Japan to release the Minjinyu 5719 crew. Consequently, the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) leadership remains confident that their economic clout will insulate China from retaliation as they continue to advance their national interest.

Diverse personal encounters with non-state armed actors animate my research agenda, and I seek to discern the meaning of a picture formed by pieces of a puzzle collected during my years of military service. As a peacekeeper in Kosovo, I witnessed how a random rifle shot could spark a series of reprisals across invisible lines that separated villages. My soldiers and I were almost powerless to stop them. On one hand, our legal mandate prevented our ability to take direct action. One the other, we understood so little about our adversaries we did not fully know which action to take. Subsequent experiences leading soldiers during counterinsurgency efforts in both Iraq and Afghanistan immersed me again in the turmoil created by overlapping networks of non-state armed groups competing for economic, social, and political power. Each incident revealed another piece of the puzzle, but the picture it formed remained unclear. I started to wonder if the pieces actually fit, or if I was putting them together incorrectly.

The writer believes the United States should act urgently against China due to recent and past events. The only U.S. action mentioned was to cancel China’s invitation to the Rim-of-the-Pacific (RIMPAC) naval exercise. The writer went on to identify reasons why he thinks this cancellation should happen as soon as possible. He cites the near collision of aircrafts from the two nations and the seven new artificial islands built by China, regardless of U.S. opposition, as points to support his position. He offered a different perspective by pointing out U.S. warships and aircrafts are still able to operate in the South China Sea in spite of China’s ill intent. I am unconvinced the writer sufficiently supported his claim and call to action. The lack of substantial, logical evidence in support of his position and the presence of a logical fallacy, allowed for a great deal of guessing and speculation as to the true intent of the article.

American foreign policy has begun to tilt towards defense from Asian threats. According to Andrew F. Krepinevich Jr., the navy and the air force desire for the majority of their services to be located in the Asia-Pacific region by 2020. The military desires these modifications in order to control China’s aggressive behavior. In the article “How to Deter China” by Andrew F. Krepinevich Jr., he suggests that these changes, along with others, to boost American military are necessary in order to maintain Asian-Pacific peace. However, in order to confirm or deny his accusations, other theories must first be analyzed. Ikenberry’s institutional approach will be analyzed and compared to Krepinevich’s deterrence theory.

In addition to the U.S. failing to follow through on promises of military action, the Obama presidency seemed to be taking a defensive posture and positioning the U.S. into a new world order of rival power centers, namely the U.S. and China. From the appointment of Senator Check Hagel and Charles Kupchan to the Obama administration to statements made by the President at the State of the Union and Hilary Clinton as a 2008 presidential candidate, the Obama administration seemed to be accepting of the U.S. need to adapt to a new world in order from singular primacy to one that requires allies to maintain control and dominance. Though the U.S. government would not publicly acknowledge pursuing a strategy of offshore balancing, the Obama administration’s appointments, statements, and actions suggest a game plan that came right from the offshore balancing playbook. Lastly, the author lays out the case that the U.S. economy was quickly becoming second to China and that the U.S. defense spending, along with allies has seen a significant decline over the ten years. Not only has the defense spending on the U.S. and its’ allies shrunk over the past decade, but the defense spending of U.S. adversaries has risen, particularly by countries such as China and Russia.

Consequently, we have more than a hundred definitions for terrorism. (Laquer) A famous terrorist expert summarized it as “a problem in the problem definition.” (H. H. A. Cooper) The problem of defining terrorism is that it fluctuates between terrorism and variants of freedom fighting – essentially the definition depends on who is labelling who. A significant contribution to our understanding of terrorism, however, has been by David Rapoport and his “four waves” of international terrorism. He describes waves as “a cycle of activity in a given time period,” one that is “characterized by expansion and contraction phases,” and its chief feature is its international character, where the activities in the several afflicted countries are “driven by a common predominant energy that shapes the participating groups’ characteristics and mutual relationships.” Having traced through history the direction of modern terrorism dating as far back as 1880, Rapaport lists four distinct waves of terrorism: anarchism, anti-colonialism, communism/socialism, and religious fundamentalism; the names of which reflecting the energy that individually shape them. (Rapaport 47) Rapaport’s wave theory has been crucial to our understanding of the global spread of

In the aftermath of the Cold War, America’s military struggled to adapt to a dramatically changed international environment.  The growing number of radical non-state actors, and an international environment that seemed largely opposed to warfare, even if provoked, drove a call for change both within America’s military and from agencies outside the military structure.  The terrorist attacks on 11 September 2001 galvanized America’s attention on the newest and most frightening threat. The majority of international terrorist groups will continue to identify with radical Islam. The revival of Muslim identity will create a framework for the spread of radical Islamic ideology both inside and outside the Middle East, including Western Europe, Southeast Asia and Central Asia. The menace of Terrorism and internal conflicts could interrupt the process of globalization by significantly increasing the security costs associated with international commerce, encouraging restrictive border control policies, and adversely affecting trade patterns and financial markets. Also current nuclear weapons states will continue to improve the survivability of their deterrent forces and almost certainly will improve the reliability, accuracy, and lethality of their delivery systems as well as

Additionally, the author paddles Washington because of its unwillingness to get involved with China, he calls it “the wrong course.” However, later in the article he acknowledges that Washington’s involvement can stir some instability with Russia, India, Pakistan, and other countries in the region. What at first was a sweet deal, it becomes a possible lemon later in Luft’s essay. Nevertheless, even if the geo-strategic challenges previously mentioned do not represent a problem for the United States, assuming that China’s

Despite she fact she acknowledges that both countries can gain from cooperation in security, energy, economic issues; U.S.’s self-interests comes first. As China advocates for more international involvement, open market policies, territorial assurance from the U.S., the U.S. on the other hand strives to maintain its position in global leadership and interest because it still considers China as a threat, trying to seize China to prevent it from gaining excessive international power. In the following, I will first analyze the similarities and differences between the two speeches, point out U.S. and China’s problematic intentions that cause diplomatic challenges, and argue about why it is crucial for the U.S. to keep interfere with China’s diplomatic situations. To defend my position, I will examine China and the U.S.’s take on the South China Sea dispute, which has risen up to be a major flashpoint for conflicts in Asia after the Cold War.

We first turn to David Kang’s 2003 article “Getting Asia Wrong: The Need for New Analytical Frameworks.” This piece attempts to analyze the response of neighboring Asian states to China’s rising economic and military power since the end of the Cold War. In this, Kang analyzes the situation through comparing the actual responses to what a realist perspective would dictate would occur.

The People’s Republic of China (PRC) has become more integrated and willing to cooperate within the global political and economic systems than ever in its history. However, there is growing apprehension in the Asia-Pacific region and the U.S. in regards to the consequences of rising in economic and military power in China. Descriptions about Chinese diplomacy in the policy and scholarly are less positive lately concerning China’s obedience to regional and international rules. There was little debate in the U.S. and elsewhere in regards to whether China was or was not part “the international community.” Scholars and experts in the early 1990s have contended

Realism assumes that under a balance of power, the overriding aim of all states is to maximize power and become the only hegemony in the system. States only help themselves in the anarchic international system. Therefore, China’s rise is regarded as a disconcerting threat to the U.S.’s primacy of power in the present international stage. The power shift in East Asia is creating security dilemmas; the U.S. thus demands more security to its Asian allies including Philippines, Japan and South Korea. The rapidly-rising Chinese power would inevitably challenge the current international balance of power and appear aggressively in the eyes of weaker power such as the Philippines. Therefore it seeks help to its ally, the U.S., to counterbalance the power of China. China intends to gain more resources and to transform current international order to its favor according to its national interests. The 2010 Chinese White Paper on National Defence states that: “Contradictions continue to surface between developed and developing countries and between traditional

Snyder claims that realism failed to predict the Cold War. Given this, Mearsheimer states “China cannot rise peacefully.” Since realists describe the world as a self-help system, according to Posen, every country “must look to its own interests relative to those of others” and because “security is the preeminent issue in an anarchic world, the distribution of capabilities to attack and defend should matter.” Thus, because China’s strive for regional hegemony inevitably threatens the power dynamic of the global system, the U.S. will, according to Mearsheimer, take an offensive realist approach that will eventually lead to war. In addition, as seen in post-Cold War, economic stability greatly determines the distribution of power. Friedberg notes, that the projected “speed and magnitude of China’s growth in recent decades appears to be unprecedented” and as early as 2015, “China’s economy could overtake that of the United States.” Although the U.S. faces an unprecedented challenge to economic power, according to Ikenberry, China has signaled cooperation by “redoubling its participation in existing institutions, such as the ASEAN Regional Forum and the East Asia Summit or working with the other great powers in the region to build new ones.” Nevertheless, following the actions of the U.S. post WWII, China strategically makes “itself more predictable and approachable” to reduce “the incentives for other