Copyright 2022 Jeff M. Smith Thu, 10 Feb 2022 07:16:02 -0500 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Jeff M. Smith :: Writings http://smith.pundicity.com smith@afpc.org (Jeff M. Smith) webmaster@pundicity.com en-us http://smith.pundicity.com/19524/trump-should-read-india-playbook-for-taunting Tue, 20 Dec 2016 09:00:00 EST Donald Trump's decision to break protocol and become the first president-elect in decades to speak by phone with a Taiwanese president was either a colossal blunder or a shrewd strategic coup, depending on which Beltway insider you ask. At the least,... http://smith.pundicity.com/19522/china-drone-grab-and-the-dangers-of-strategic Tue, 20 Dec 2016 09:00:00 EST Last week the USNS Bowditch, an unarmed U.S. Pathfinder-class survey ship manned by a civilian crew, was shadowed by a PLA Navy (PLAN) Dalang-III-class salvage and rescue vessel as it operated 50 nautical miles (nm) northwest of the Philippines' Subic... http://smith.pundicity.com/19523/waking-the-beast-india-defense-reforms-under-modi Fri, 16 Dec 2016 09:00:00 EST With all due respect to Parrikar—who has been a breath of fresh air after the paralytic reign of his predecessor, AK "Mr. No" Antony—few in Washington or Delhi would agree. Fortunately, the reforms he and Prime Minister Narendra Modi have shepherded are... http://smith.pundicity.com/19362/why-duterte-deals-with-china-may-be-security Wed, 2 Nov 2016 09:00:00 EST When Roridgo Duterte, the impish and combustible president of the Philippines, paid a state visit to China last month the press contextualized the trip as part of his jarring U-turn away from the U.S. alliance and toward China's lucrative embrace. That... http://smith.pundicity.com/19361/assessing-us-india-defense-relations Thu, 6 Oct 2016 09:00:00 EST In the words of U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, two "handshakes" now define the increasingly intimate Indo-U.S. defense partnership. The "strategic handshake" was examined in detail in my last article for The Diplomat. We will now turn our... http://smith.pundicity.com/19215/assessing-us-india-relations-the-strategic Fri, 16 Sep 2016 09:00:00 EST Last month, U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter reflected on the remarkable progress he and his Indian counterpart, Manohar Parrikar, have overseen in bilateral defense ties over the last two years. With his gift for memorable analogies, Carter insisted... http://smith.pundicity.com/19216/the-region-seeks-balance Thu, 1 Sep 2016 09:00:00 EST In retrospect, China did a remarkably effective job managing threat perceptions across the first two decades of its spectacular rise. International relations theory posits that China's rapid ascent to regional hegemony would provoke one of two responses... http://smith.pundicity.com/19221/setting-the-record-straight-on-us-india-south Wed, 8 Jun 2016 09:00:00 EST In the days preceding Prime Minister Modi's visit to Washington, the state of the Indo-U.S. defense relationship has been a popular topic of conversation. Assessments in both Washington and Delhi have mostly lauded the progress in defense ties overseen... http://smith.pundicity.com/19213/dont-be-scared-to-squeeze-pakistan Wed, 8 Jun 2016 09:00:00 EST Pakistan returned to the headlines last month, after a U.S. air strike eliminated Afghan Taliban commander Mullah Mansour inside Pakistani territory. It marked the first ever U.S. strike on an Afghan Taliban leader inside the group's Pakistani sanctuary... http://smith.pundicity.com/18881/china-investments-in-sri-lanka Mon, 23 May 2016 09:00:00 EST By late 2014, the Chinese-built Hambantota Port was hemorrhaging money: fewer than 100 vessels berthed at the port in 2013, and Sri Lanka was paying China $30 million per year in interest alone. During a trip to Colombo in September 2014, Xi agreed to... http://smith.pundicity.com/19214/china-long-global-march Fri, 15 Jan 2016 09:00:00 EST Book Review - China's Long Global March By Jeff M. Smith Michael Pillsbury, The Hundred-Year Marathon: China's Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower (Henry Holt & Co., 2015), 336 pp. $30.00. Over the course of eight U.S.... http://smith.pundicity.com/18281/an-innocent-mistake Thu, 3 Dec 2015 09:00:00 EST Before year's end, the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama is reportedly planning to conduct a second freedom of navigation operation (FONOP) around one of China's new artificial islands in the South China Sea. Designed to show that the United... http://smith.pundicity.com/17976/deck-is-stacked-against-the-us-in-afghanistan Mon, 12 Oct 2015 09:00:00 EST Unlike some critics of the Afghan war, I do not believe the conflict was unjust or doomed to failure. I simply agree with the assessment of the U.S. director of national intelligence in 2009: "No improvement in Afghanistan is possible without Pakistan... http://smith.pundicity.com/17885/what-does-china-really-think-about-the-south Sun, 27 Sep 2015 09:00:00 EST For all the coverage the South China Sea disputes have received in the U.S. press this year, one key perspective have been conspicuously absent: China's. To be sure, China's "official" view on the disputes, offered in regular, soporific briefings by... http://smith.pundicity.com/17873/rip-america-engagement-strategy-towards-china Wed, 23 Sep 2015 09:00:00 EST Since its historic rapprochement with Beijing in the 1970s [4], America has approached a rising China with an "engagement" strategy guided by two key assumptions: first, that political liberalization would ultimately follow economic growth; and second,...