mandag 7. august 2017

The Coming War in Asia: Why It Is Hard to Imagine the Unimaginable


There has not been a large-scale war in Asia since 1945. Interstate conflicts in the region over the past decades included the 1962 Sino-Indian War, the 1971 Indo-Pakistani War, the 1979 Sino-Vietnamese Border War, and the 1999 Kargil War. With the exception of the 1971 clash between India and Pakistan (along with the Bangladesh Liberation War), these wars were low in casualties and involved limited military resources.

Nevertheless, the Asia-Pacific region is the most militarized region in the world. According to the International Institute of Strategic Studies’ Military Balance 2017, the three largest defense budgets in the world (the United States, China, and Russia) are by countries with significant military assets in the region. Six Asia-Pacific powers were under the top ten global military spenders in 2016. The world’s seven largest militaries including China, the United States, India, North Korea, Russia, Pakistan, and South Korea are all (at least partly) found in Asia. Furthermore, out of the seven six are nuclear powers.