Great Powers, Grand Strategies: The New Game in the South China Sea

This book focuses on grand strategic approaches to the South China Sea dispute by major powers in the region — those capable of projecting force to the South China Sea and abroad. It explores international dimensions of the South China Sea dispute, and how military, diplomatic, and economic strategies of global actors have both contributed to solutions and exacerbated conflict. Key international organizations and major powers have their own chapters, including China, the United States, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the European Union (EU), Japan, India, Australia, and Russia. The book is unique in the existing literature in that it provides an all-encompassing, interconnected, and theoretical explanation of major powers involved in the South China Sea conflict. Grand strategy — which includes not only military, but economic, political, and diplomatic strategies, is addressed in the volume as a whole. Authors seek to put the grand strategies of the major powers into analytic juxtaposition to determine likely outcomes of, and optimal major power strategies for, the South China Sea conflict over time. The volume focuses on the deeper aspects of grand strategy and history, not customarily in the daily news coverage of incidents-at-sea and negotiations. The South China Sea Conflict has been ongoing since at least 1909, when the Qing sent a German-guided ship on a two-day voyage to the Paracels to fire cannon and claim the area. The two major adversaries — China and the U.S. (plus allies), are in a long-term stalemate with incremental changes and frequent outbursts of brinkmanship. Occupation and economic activities in foreign exclusive economic zones (EEZs) increased substantially in the 1980s, and are the basis of a conflict that will likely persist for the next 10-20 years. Country-specific specialists are in discussion with one another between the covers of this book, in order to better understand the strategies of major players and their likely outcomes. One cannot understand the South China Sea dispute without understanding the interaction of grand strategies, and that requires consideration of military, diplomatic, and economic aspects of the conflict across all major powers. This book provides that comparative strategic analysis of the dispute that is required to make progress towards its solution.