2012-08-26 by Robbin Laird The Pacific is a big place. It often either not understood and not reflected upon the scope and nature of the Pacific region. This is not the Mediterranean; this is not the Indian Ocean; this is not even the Atlantic. As Ed Timperlake put it clearly: The…
2012-07-11 The East China Sea has been contested for decades by South Korea, China and Japan, all seeking to tap huge oil, gas and mineral reserves believed be buried under the seabed. With their extended continental shelves overlapping in the northeastern part of the ocean, the Asian powers are laying formal…
7/4/12: On Tuesday, June 26, 2012, the Hudson Institute hosted a lunchtime talk of former senior military officers and civilian national security policy makers to discuss security developments in Europe and Afghanistan. Among the guests were Lieutenant General (retired) Jean-Patrick Gaviard, French civilian strategists Olivier Zajec and Murielle Delaporte, and…
06/28/12: Has the International Ship and Port Facility Security Code (ISPS Code) prevented the expansion of organized crime, and reduced the threat to maritime shipping and to society by extension? Activity in US ports and major regional ports such as Australia and Canada suggest a mixed picture. In some ways,…
In late 2010 a collision between a Japanese Coast Guard (JCG) vessel and a Chinese fishing trawler in a disputed maritime area in the East China Sea saw Sino-Japanese relations enter into a deep freeze from which they are still recovering. The dispute itself, over not only a large maritime…
By Richard Weitz In a January 31, 2012 hearing on global threats of the Senate Select Intelligence Committee on worldwide threats, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Robert Mueller; warned about the growing cyber threat to the United States. “I do not think today it is necessarily…
Department of State: Cybersecurity Update By Richard Weitz The Department leads U.S. international efforts to strengthen global cybersecurity. It does so by building capacity in developing countries, promoting interoperable standards and enhancing international cooperation to respond to cyberthreats. The State Department is involved with almost every element of international cybersecurity…
The latest issue of Strategic Insights deals with a number of key maritime security issues. The mix of non-state and state conflicts is a key element of the evolving strategic challenge. In the first article, recent activities of Al Qaeda are the subject of attention. Al Qaeda in the Islamic…