Podcast: Most people aren’t radicalized
Contemporary Nuclear Dynamics in Southern Asia: Many Challenges, Few Possibilities
In this Policy Brief, Dr Manpreet Sethi, Distinguished Fellow at the Centre for Air Power Studies, New Delhi, assesses the increasingly dangerous security situation among Southern Asia’s three nuclear weapons powers: China, India, and Pakistan. She proposes several concrete policy steps that, if taken, will greatly reduce the risk of an inadvertent nuclear exchange.
China’s coercive diplomacy: Why it’s on the rise and what it means for Scandinavia
Amid a wider deterioration of relations between China and the West since around 2018, the Chinese government has stepped up its use of economic coercion and other types of non-military coercive measures, targeting Western countries that challenge its core interests. The observed change is distinctive in both quantitative and qualitative terms as the Chinese authorities have not only employed coercive measures more frequently, but also across a wider set of policy objectives than previously. Using a revised dataset, the Brief offers new insights into these development trends, demonstrating how they are driven primarily by perceived violations of China’s expanding development interests. The Brief discusses the findings in the specific context of the Scandinavian countries which have also found themselves on the receiving end of China’s coercive diplomacy.
Japan ruster opp
(This op-ed is in Norwegian): Japan kan få det tredje største forsvarsbudsjettet i verden, skriver Wrenn Yennie Lindgren og Per Erik Solli i denne DN-kronikken.
Evolving Japan–NATO Relations in the Leadup to the Madrid Summit
In response to growing security concerns in East Asia, Japan has increased its engagement with NATO at both the organisational and individual member-state level.
RESOLVED: Japan Should Maintain Investments in Russian Oil and Gas Projects
In this issue of Debating Japan, experts assess Japan’s investments in Russian oil and gas and whether Japan should fully divest from Russian energy.
Fossil Fuels in Central Asia: Trends and Energy Transition Risks
This data article provides an overview of fossil fuel trends in Central Asia from 2010 to 2019. Data on the production, consumption, export and import of coal, natural gas and oil are summarised for Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. While promoting renewable energy, Central Asia continues to rely on and expand the use of coal, natural gas and oil with no major phase-out plans yet on the horizon.
Central Asia is a missing link in analyses of critical materials for the global clean energy transition
The energy transition is causing a surge in demand for minerals for clean energy technologies, giving rise to concerns about the sources and security of supplies of critical materials. Although Central Asia was one of the Soviet Union's main sources of metals and industrial minerals, it has been forgotten in contemporary global critical materials analyses. Here we review the Central Asian mineral resource base and assess its current and potential contributions to global supply chains. We find that the importance of Central Asia lies mainly in the diversity of its mineral base, which includes mineable reserves of most critical materials for clean energy applications. This renders the region important in mineral economics, security of supply, and geopolitical perspectives alike. In sum, Central Asia is likely to become a new hotspot for mineral extraction and a major global supplier of selected critical materials for clean energy technologies.
Local and Global Aspects of Coal in the ASEAN Countries
By 2020, coal mining and power generation had been growing in Southeast Asia for decades and were projected to rise to new heights of prominence in regional energy systems, weakening the energy security of all states in the region except Indonesia, jeopardizing the NDCs of the ASEAN states under the Paris Agreement and deepening existing domestic political fault lines. Coal utilization has well-known public health, agricultural, water security and economic consequences, many of which are magnified in Southeast Asia, with its high population density and limited wind and arable land. Paradoxically, the short-sighted focus on affordability imposes significant longer-term economic risks on these states as renewable energy prices fall, while ASEAN markets for such energy sources remain underutilized.
Hva er sikkerhet for Hongkong?
Op-ed about the situation leading up to a new security law in Hong Kong.