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Strategic and Defence Studies Centre · ANU College of Asia and the Pacific
This course exists for three reasons. First, it introduces students to the leading concepts that sit at the heart of Strategic Studies and allows them to study these in real depth. Second, the course examines how these ideas can be applied in the ‘real world’ of strategy, especially in terms of conflict issues in the Asia-Pacific. And third, given that most of these concepts were developed – or, at the very least, took on new meaning - during the 1950s and 1960s at the height of the Cold War, the course also critically analyses how well they apply today in a much different cultural, geographic and temporal setting. Do they usefully illuminate contemporary Asia-Pacific conflict and how this might work out? Or are adapted and possibly even new versions of these strategic concepts needed as this region enters an era of deepening strategic competition?
Class participation
Learning outcomes 1, 2, 3
Short review essay (2,000 words)
Learning outcomes 2, 3
Long applied methods essay (4,000 words)
Learning outcomes 1, 2, 3, 4
This course comprises some 130 hours of activity over 12 weeks, both interactive/seminar based and independent research. The course comprises a maximum of 6k words of assessment or the equivalent. Please note this is a general guide, averaged over the semester and the final hours ultimately depend on the individual's ability in reading and writing.
N/A Preliminary Reading Robert Ayson, ‘Asia’s Diplomacy of Violence: China-US Coercion and Regional Order’, Survival, vol.59, no.2, April-May 2017, pp.85-124. Robert Ayson and Desmond Ball, ‘Can a Sino-Japanese War Be Controlled?’, Survival, vol.56, no.6, December 2014-January 2015, pp.135-66. Coral Bell, The Conventions of Crisis: A Study in Diplomatic Management (London: Oxford University Press, 1971). Victor Cha, Powerplay: The Origins of the American Alliance System in Asia (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2016). Thomas J. Christensen, ‘China, the U.S.-Japan Alliance and the Security Dilemma in East Asia’, International Security, vol.23, no.4, Spring 1999, pp.49-80. Lawrence Freedman, Strategy: a history (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2013). Lawrence Freedman, ed., Strategic Coercion: concepts and cases (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998). Lawrence Freedman, Deterrence (Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2004). Evelyn Goh, ed., Rising China’s Influence in Developing Asia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016). Michael J. Green, et.al., Countering Coercion in Maritime Asia: The Theory and Practice of Gray Zone Deterrence (Lanham, Boulder, New York and London: Rowman & Littlefield for the Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2017). Van Jackson, Rival Reputations: Coercion and Credibility in US-North Korea Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016). Robert Jervis and Mira Rapp-Hooper, ‘Perception and Misperception on the Korean Peninsula’, Foreign Affairs, vol.97, no.3, May/June 2018, pp.103-117. Robert Jervis, Perception and misperception in international politics (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976). Alastair Iain Johnston, Cultural Realism: strategic culture and grand strategy in Chinese history (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995). Thomas C. Schelling, Arms and influence (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966). Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict (Cambridge, MA: Harvard 1960).