Nautilus Peace and Security Weekly

Recommended Citation

"Nautilus Peace and Security Weekly", NAPSNet Weekly Report, May 03, 2012, https://nautilus.org/napsnet/napsnet-weekly/nautilus-peace-and-security-weekly/

3 May 2012

The Nautilus Peace and Security Weekly Report presents articles and full length reports each week in six categories: Austral security, nuclear deterrence, energy security, climate change adaptation, the DPRK, and governance and civil society. Our team of contributors carefully select items that highlight the links between these themes and the three regions in which our offices are found—North America, Northeast Asia, and the Austral-Asia region. Each week, one of our authors also provides a short blog that explores these inter-relationships.

CONTENTS

NEW! See this week’s blog from our deterrence expert, Peter Hayes.


DETERRENCE: NWFZs and extended nuclear deterrence- squaring the circle, Jayantha Dhanapala, NAPSNet Special Report (1 May 2012)

There can be no transitional grey period, in which the DPRK remains nuclear armed, justifying continued US nuclear deterrence or where some NWS (e.g. the US) retain extended deterrence for Japan and ROK if China does not ratify the Protocols and poses a threat to these allies of the US. Therefore, attempts to tailor the NWFZ proposed to particular interests of states and some nuclear weapon states (NWS) would be counter-productive.


Want a more in-depth discussion of this week’s deterrence section and how it relates to current issues in the DPRK? See this week’s blog from our deterrence expert, Peter Hayes:

“It is sobering that a diplomat of Dhanapala’s experience avers that a NWFZ in Northeast Asia must be born complete and wholly free of nuclear threat, or not at all…”

Read more here.


DPRK: Allies to form nuclear attack contingency plan, Choi He-Suk, The Korea Herald (29 April 2012)

For the first time, ROK and U.S. militaries will develop operational scenarios for possible nuclear attacks. Both sides agreed to cooperate on research in cyber and space domains and to hold seminars for high-level decision makers. Nautilus recently assessed North Korea’s operational nuclear capability as severely constrained. China’s Vice Foreign Minister said, “peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and Northeast Asia is China’s national interest.”


CLIMATE CHANGE ADAPTATION: Climate variability and change in the Himalayas: Community perceptions and responses, Mirjam Macchi et al., International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), Kathmandu, Nepal (2011) [PDF, 3.12 MB]

International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) investigates how climate and socioeconomic change is affecting mountain people’s livelihoods, what makes them vulnerable, and how they are coping with and adapting to change. It conducts a community-based vulnerability and adaptive capacity assessment in four different areas of India, Nepal and Bhutan.


ENERGY SECURITY: Japan finding it’s not so easy to go nuclear free, Ezra Klein, Washington Post (30 April 2012)

First oil, then nuclear (some 25 years before and after 1975, respectively) changed Japan’s energy mix – in particular, for power generation – at a pace unprecedented for any large country save France. Now its over-nuclearization is extracting additional costs of adjustment to Fukushima, adding to the world oil price pressures and nervousness about Kyoto Protocol targets. It will be a hot summer as domestic political wars also heat up.


GOVERNANCE AND CIVIL SOCIETY: Little results so far from Obama’s ‘reset’ with Russia, ‘pivot’ to Asia as counter to China, Associated Press (28 April 2012)

The US’s Pacific shift has seen few real results, with no resolution of the North Korean nuclear issue and lack of cooperation with China and Russia on international issues. The US relationship with other Pacific partners has been strengthened, however, with renewed military commitments from the Philippines to Japan. The ROK and Japan are showing signs of increased military cooperation in response to a perceived growing China and DPRK threat.


AUSTRAL PEACE AND SECURITY: Army should be careful with its aim: Its amphibious-power ambitions do not make strategic sense, Hugh White, Sydney Morning Herald (1 May 2012)

Australia has to decide what it could and should do to support its strategic interests in Asia. The army wants the leading role. The idea is to transform itself into a primarily amphibious force. But Australian amphibious forces would be vulnerable in a major war. Even if it doubled in size, the army could not put more than a few thousand troops ashore anywhere in Asia. Meanwhile, we also need to reconsider how to defend this island continent.


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