The Spratly Islands have represented a potential political and military flashpoint in the South China Sea for years, involving as they do various claims by China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Taiwan. This edited volume examines the issues involved in light of confidence- building measures that new high-resolution satellite imagery can offer to this, and other, regions.

Baker, Wiencek, and their contributors assess the potential role for cooperative monitoring in mitigating the risk of conflict arising from multinational disputes over the Spratly Islands. They analyze how this new generation of civilian and commercial observation satellites can be used to reduce the changes of armed conflict breaking out by providing transparency that will detect and identify politically significant activities occurring at disputed islands and reefs among the Spratlys. Of particular interest to policy makers, scholars, and other researchers involved with military issues in Asia and international security concerns.

This thoroughly revised and updated edition of Asian Security Handbook focuses on the new challenges to security in the Asia-Pacific region presented by international terrorism. It reviews "old" security realities covered in previous editions, and highlights more recent security issues in the region, including the North Korean threat, weapons of mass destruction proliferation, the South China Sea dispute, and the future U.S. China rivalry. Featuring contributions by a distinguished group of international security and Asia experts, this new edition has been reformatted and restructured. A new introductory chapter on terrorism sets the stage for the country-by-country profiles and assessments of the political-security situations in twenty-three individual nations. A new appendix on foreign terrorist organizations is also included.

Featuring contributions by a distinguished group of international security and Asia experts, this thoroughly revised and updated edition of Asian Security Handbook focuses on the new challenges to security in the Asia-Pacific region presented by international terrorism. It reviews old security realities covered in previous editions, and highlights more recent security issues in the region, including the North Korean threat, weapons of mass destruction proliferation, the South China Sea dispute, and the future U.S.-China rivalry. The new edition has been completely reformatted and restructured. A new introductory chapter on terrorism sets the stage for the country-by-country profiles and assessments of the political-security situation in twenty-three individual nations. A new appendix on Foreign Terrorist Organizations is also included.

Western interests in the Asia-Pacific region have dramatically expanded over the last few years; particularly in terms of economic relationships and commercial investment. While economic development is predicted to continue in the region, the assumption of political stability on which it depends is clouded major security uncertainties lurking in the background, these could undermine the relative stability the region has come to expect, and new strains and fissures could develop in the region that would likely reverberate elsewhere. Featuring nineteen individual country profiles, which makes a unique contribution to the existing literature, this volume seeks to shed light on the key political and security factors and geopolitical trends that bear monitoring and to point out new trends that have greater significance in the post-Cold War environment.