Chris Rahman

A Strategic Perspective on Security and Naval Issues in the South China Sea

Maritime security in the South China Sea faces a number of challenges, ranging from lower-level nontraditional threats to traditional politicostrategic considerations, including the potential for conflict between regional states over territory or marine resources and the possibility of conflict between major powers. This article focuses on the major South China Sea sea lines of communication, regional naval developments, and a case study of Chinese opposition to military operations in its South China Sea exclusive economic zone. It argues that Beijing is again exhibiting a more assertive posture to bolster its strategic position in the South China Sea while the other South China Sea states are also asserting their claims and developing naval capacity.

Book Review: Lukas Milevski, The Evolution of Modern Grand Strategic ThoughtThe Evolution of Modern Grand Strategic Thought by MilevskiLukas. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016. 175pp., £50.00 (h/b), ISBN 9780198779773

provides a welcome alternative to mainstream positivism. Since reality is not ‘out there’ (p. 55) to be discovered, the universality and timelessness of security knowledge is challenged. Subsequently, she immanently critiques internal contradictions in assumptions about 9/11 that made the high-handed response permissible. Among other things, Manichean and ‘existential threat’ narratives of elites can be exposed through this approach. The final part of this section explores the construction of ‘otherness’. The selection of cases is somewhat Westerncentric, which reduces the diversity when considering the argument about multiplicity of identities. Furthermore, this section could have been more expansive in terms of engaging with broader ontological and epistemological positions. The final part looks at practical aspects of critiquing processes through which threats and insecurity are produced and reproduced. Some threats that are not considered as traditional security problems are pounced upon by elites through speech-acts and constructed as requiring extraordinary responses. The chapter on human (in)security is commendable, in that it provides a detailed historical development of the concept, although the case made for emancipation is less convincing as its links to the European Enlightenment and instrumental reason will always make it controversial in the Global South. Overall, Fierke’s powerful views and persuasive writing style provide an informative read for anyone who is interested in security.

Book Review: Ping-cheung Lo and Sumner B Twiss (eds), Chinese Just War Ethics: Origin, Development, and DissentChinese Just War Ethics: Origin, Development, and Dissent by LoPing-cheungTwissSumner B (eds). Abingdon: Routledge, 2015. 320pp., £90.00 (h/b), ISBN 9781138824355

This edited collection brings together both new and previously published work on traditional Chinese views on the ethics of war. As James Turner Johnson notes in his foreword, Chinese Just War Ethics is the first ‘substantive’ study on this topic (p. xv), in comparison with copious works on the Western just war tradition and an increasing volume of work on Islamic traditions. Following a useful introductory chapter, the book is divided into three parts. The first deals with what the editors term the military strategy tradition, with the other two addressing the war ethics of four traditions of ancient Chinese philosophy which were originally developed during the aptly named Warring States period of Chinese history (475–221 BCE). The military strategy tradition is based on a corpus of work named The Seven Military Classics on the art of war composed by military professionals rather than civilian philosophers. The best known of these classics is Sunzi’s (Sun Tzu, ca. sixth century BCE) Art of War, which has been widely popularised in both the East and West. The second part deals with the Confucian tradition, particularly the thinking of Mencius and Xunzi. The third part addresses the war ethics of the Daoist, Mohist and Legalist traditions. Overall, the contributors identify similarities to Western just war thinking, particularly in relation to jus ad bellum (just causes for the resort to war) in all traditions, except the Legalist one. There is arguably sufficient context provided to avoid charges of anachronism. Most chapters deal with arguments on the ethics of war in their historical and philosophical contexts rather than looking for direct contemporary relevance. The two exceptions are Ping-cheung Lo’s chapter on Legalism, which applies the International Relations theory of offensive realism and relates these ideas to contemporary China, and his chapter on the art of war corpus, which briefly attempts to discern the extent of just war thinking in today’s People’s Liberation Army. The issues the book does not address explicitly at length are the extent to which the different Chinese traditions led to a distinct and identifiable Chinese practice of the ethics of war (as opposed to abstract philosophising) and identification of which tradition(s) remain most influential in today’s China. Although this book may not provide clear answers, it ably lays the groundwork for subsequent work. This would most profitably include work from fields such as history, strategy and current sinology, not just military ethics and moral philosophy.

Book Review: James Turner Johnson and Eric D Patterson (eds), The Ashgate Research Companion to Military EthicsThe Ashgate Research Companion to Military Ethics by JohnsonJames TurnerPattersonEric D (eds). Farnham: Ashgate, 2015. 443pp., £90.00, ISBN 9781472416285

The competition for status between states and the contestation over the fundamental principles of the global order may seem like such well-covered ground in the International Relations literature that there is little left to be said on the topic. Yet Maximilian Terhalle has resolutely contradicted such complacency with this terrific book. By looking specifically at the issue of constitutive legitimacy and how this is negotiated between the major powers, Terhalle has managed to shed new light on how the emerging US–Sino relationship is being translated into a major transition in the global order. The book begins with an extended discussion of the nature of global order and the negotiation of systemic legitimacy among the major powers. Terhalle makes effective use of the work of authors such as Robert Gilpin and Ian Clark to refashion a new framework for analysing what he refers to as today’s hybrid global order. This is then used to analyse the specific ways in which discursive and normative contestation either allows for or impedes largescale institutional redesign in three areas: the security-related rules of global order (including global regimes and East Asian regionalism), the environmental rules of global order (with a particular focus on climate change governance) and the ideology-related aspects of global order (using Responsibility to Protect (R2P) debates over Libya and Syria to illustrate this). While at times the focus on US–Sino relations may slightly overshadow some of the larger challenges posed by a wider set of nonWestern rising/re-emerging powers, the empirical discussion effectively demonstrates the utility of Terhalle’s nuanced understanding of modern great power management. The key to the approach adopted here is in providing a more careful distinction between the internal and external elements of great power management –in other words, treating great power management as an institution of international society with two fundamentally distinct layers: that which is negotiated between the great powers themselves and that which is negotiated between them and the non-great powers. Importantly, Terhalle argues that there is a critical relationship between these two layers – there are no ‘special responsibilities’ conferred on the great powers by the rest of the international society without agreement between these powers about the legitimacy of their respective roles. This is a theoretically sophisticated book that is also not shy about spending time in the empirical details of this relationship. The result is a compelling read that tells us much about how global orders are negotiated and contested but also about how issues of great power politics, global governance and the evolution of global norms can and should be studied in International Relations.

Book Review: Stephen J Cimbala, The New Nuclear Disorder: Challenges to Deterrence and StrategyThe New Nuclear Disorder: Challenges to Deterrence and Strategy by CimbalaStephen J. Farnham: Ashgate, 2015. 254pp., £65.00 (h/b), ISBN 9781472455024

It took a decade for the original calls to provide a progress check in social scientific enterprise within the domain of International Relations (IR) to be reborn in a smaller and more integrated Security Studies scholarship. Two nearly simultaneously published works by Patrick James (2002) and Colin and Miriam Elman (2003) brought the philosophy-of-science debate and the quest for scientific progress to the field of IR studies. Fred Chernoff’s book, Explanation and Progress in Security Studies, although not referring explicitly to these two earlier endeavours, continues the domain’s effort to develop a metric for theory appraisal and to answer the fundamental question: ‘Does the study of international relations and security lead to knowledge?’ (p. vii). Concerned primarily with the limited progress in IR and security studies, when compared with the natural sciences, the book seeks first to define the problem, that is progress, and then to seriously examine obstacles to it within the field. Chernoff’s understanding of progress is that of an ‘approach-to-consensus’ – a dynamic condition presupposing that (a) there exists a point at which social scientists would have to admit that they were wrong in some regards and (b) there is a willingness among scholars, for the sake of progress, to admit that alternative explanations may be better. Why this hasn’t yet been the case is due to the absence of the two aforementioned factors. The different sets of criteria the authors apply to validate their ‘own’ theories and approaches, as well as the absence of wellestablished research and evaluation criteria, are thus to be blamed, the author argues, for the sorry state of affairs in social science. Tellingly, IR scholars and social scientists in general, unlike natural scientists, cannot over time come to agree on facts and explanations, thus preventing the necessary accumulation of knowledge, predictability and progress itself. Chernoff’s effort is thus to determine how authors judge good explanations by thoroughly examining three core debates in security studies: nuclear proliferation, balance of power and alliance formation, and democratic peace. The sample of 10–12 signature works for each area helps to build a solid research basis for establishing what is field-internally understood as ‘evidence’ and how to build explanation strategies. As the book’s findings show, a shared set of criteria has already facilitated greater progress in democratic peace studies, unlike in the other two areas. This seems to duly confirm the book’s hypothesis. In the age of ‘big data’, Chernoff’s reasoned appeal for consensus and progress has a good chance to materialise and level up the evidence and explanation in Security Studies, just as it will bridge the theoretical divides in IR.

Oil on Water: Tankers, Pirates and the Rise of China – By Paul French and Sam Chambers

dictions to appear within his argument. He defines diaspora through its attachment to its country of origin (p. 14), while a few pages later he states that ‘not all diasporas maintain a sympathetic attachment to their former homeland’ (p. 18). However, in general the book presents a very clear, coherent, fascinating and original argumentation. The book will be of interest not only to social and political scientists but also to the general audience drawn to social studies, as the limited use of terminology and simplicity of argumentation make it easily accessible.