Abstract
In this issue of The Journal of Strategic Studies, we join the debate over the role that seapower plays in the current re-shaping of security relations in Northeast Asia and we aim to make three contributions to it. First, we argue that seapower matters because East Asia is a maritime region, one in which maritime forces are a primary tool underscoring both cooperative and competitive regional dynamics. Second, we suggest that claims of an emerging naval arms race in East Asia are not supported by the way the different regional countries are debating the pursuit of enhanced capabilities. In the region, there are certainly signs of capabilities procured with neighbouring actors in mind, but these procurement plans are only a fraction of much more complex and articulated policies that have to do with the wider evolving strategic meaning that the sea has for each of the nation states under examination. The third contribution of this issue concerns the realm of methodology. Over the past decade and a half, a number of new source materials emerged in China, Japan, and the Republic of Korea (ROK) that enabled scholars with language expertise to engage in greater depth in the study of defence policy and military modernisation in East Asia. The articles in this issue aim to showcase how different methodologies, ranging from contemporary history to political science, can be applied to articulate nuanced analysis.
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Patalano, Alessio, and James Manicom
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