Asia is challenged by a number of non-traditional security issues including the food-energy-water nexus, climate change, transnational crime, terrorism, disaster relief and economic performance. This volume categorizes and clarifies some key emerging issues in the area and looks at their interconnectedness and implications. The essays explore how non-traditional issues can manifest as security challenges, and the role of the state and military in dealing with these. Issue-based and area-specific, they rely on facts and interpretation of data, avoiding alarmist predictions. A nuanced and analytical approach into an uncharted area, this book will be essential for policymakers, researchers and students of security and strategic studies, foreign policy, sociology and political economy, as well as the general readers.

Asia is challenged by a number of non-traditional security issues including the food-energy-water nexus, climate change, transnational crime, terrorism, disaster relief and economic performance. This volume categorizes and clarifies some key emerging issues in the area and looks at their interconnectedness and implications. The essays explore how non-traditional issues can manifest as security challenges, and the role of the state and military in dealing with these. Issue-based and area-specific, they rely on facts and interpretation of data, avoiding alarmist predictions. A nuanced and analytical approach into an uncharted area, this book will be essential for policymakers, researchers and students of security and strategic studies, foreign policy, sociology and political economy, as well as the general readers.

The world is entering an era with increased global demand for energy, price volatility, and rising concerns about environmental burdens and the global impact of climate change. Directly or indirectly, these factors have given rise to related concerns such as deregulation and geopolitical uncertainties. Moreover, the challenges related to the energy issue go beyond scientific or technological aspects and extend to access to resources, regional conflicts, pricing and energy infrastructure management. For Asian countries, the challenge is more critical. Rapid and sustained economic development has placed these countries at the epicentre of growth in global energy demand, which has changed direction from the West to the East, thereby altering the geopolitics of global energy. Climate and environmental concerns are driving technological innovations, causing a sea change in the kind and manner in which energy is used. In turn, these changes have thrown up new energy policy and security challenges for Asian governments. Conversely, the choices and policies that have, and will be, adopted by the Asian countries will have far-reaching implications for the world. The focus of Asian Strategic Review 2017 is on tracing the contours of the current energy markets, the policies adopted by some of the key nations in their quest to enhance their energy security, and the challenges that are likely to come up in the future.

With huge supplies, including from unconventional plays, and its low carbon properties as compared to oil and coal and decreasing transport hurdles, natural gas has what it takes to fulfil the escalating demand for energy. Yet, the promise that it held a few years ago as the fastest growing major source of energy appears to be fading, ironically due to abundant supplies. On the one hand, while the risk of recovering producers' costs for the high capital investments required for production and liquefaction is increasing, on the other, consumers are demanding lower prices in a market that has turned in favour of the buyer. As a result, geopolitics, which was always in play in the energy market, is growing, as gas producing and exporting countries compete for a larger share of the market, or at the very least, retain their existing ones. More importantly, the entry of new supply sources is also pushing the market from the traditional oil-indexed pricing mechanism that was prevalent in the European and Asian markets, towards a more flexible mechanism, including a hub-based one. As liquidity in the gas market is increasing, there are also signs that a global market, as against the current regional one, may be emerging. This volume looks at the evolving gas market and the various players who influence it - both as producers and consumers. However, some of the players, such as Australia and the new African producers, as well as Japan and South Korea, the two largest LNG consumers, have not been included as their approach tends to be more commercial than geopolitical in nature.