Conflict and Cooperation in the Indo-Pacific

A review of Bernard D. Cole’s ‘Asian Maritime Strategies’ 

Few regions around the world today seem as ready to descend into armed conflict than the Indo-Pacific, an immense body of water with critical sea lines of communication (SLOC), “choke points” and natural resources. More than 40 percent of global naval trade occurs in this area, which is also plagued by piracy, a rising China, bitter territorial disputes, and unsettled historical grievances. 

In a new book, Bernard D. Cole, a professor at the National War College in Washington, D.C., walks us through this gigantic region, which extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the northeast all the way to the Red Sea, an area that accounts for nearly half the earth’s surface. 

My book review, published today in Thinking Taiwan, continues here.