The South China Sea is arguably one of the world's most dangerous regions, with conflicting diplomatic, legal, and security claims by major and mid-level powers. To assess these disputes, CSIS brought together an international group of experts--from Australia, Canada, China, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Vietnam. This volume gathers these experts' analyses to provide a diverse and wide-ranging set of perspectives on the region and to explore possibilities for future cooperation.

This report tracks and analyzes trends in Chinese military strategy, force structure, and regional activity. Open source material is used to detail how each branch of the People's Liberation Army has pursued modernization. Chinese perspectives on their military's role and development are featured, as well as the views of other relevant regional actors. The purpose of this report is to provide the basis for an unclassified dialogue on the military developments in China. By presenting data on the regional military balance alongside perspectives on China's military development, the Burke Chair...

This report is the first regional study in the CSIS Federated Defense series. The Federated Defense Project aims to shift the paradigm with key allies and partners from capacity building to a federated approach that would expand regional security and prosperity by joining regional allies and partners together in the pursuit of shared security objectives across the conflict spectrum. Federated defense should include forward-thinking strategies for how to develop and share capabilities and capacity, thereby more deeply integrating the US military with its allies and partners. In this report,...

In light of growing discussion about the future of the Korean peninsula, the CSIS Korea Chair held a major conference featuring senior-level policy and scholarly discussions on the topic of unification, and this report provides a record of that conference. It was a landmark event addressing economic, business, political, and security opportunities of unification, and it was cohosted with the National Research Council for Economics, Humanities and Social Sciences (NRCS) of the Republic of Korea and a consortium of other institutions.

Sub-Saharan Africa is on the verge of an energy boom. New discoveries off the East and West coasts have raised hopes of significant revenues that can accelerate poverty reduction and enhance Africa's status as a destination for industrial investment. The question that African governments, citizens, and international partners confront is whether this time will--or can--be different. Can the harsh lessons offered by Africa's more established producers and the continent's previous energy booms be learned?

Maintaining international security and pursuing American interests is more difficult now than perhaps at any time in history. The security environment that the United States faces is more complex, dynamic, and difficult to predict. At the same time, no domestic consensus exists on the purposes of American power and how best to pursue them. The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) will look ahead in this annual volume at the "flashpoints" that will likely arise in 2015, how best to deal with them, and what lasting effects they might leave for the next American administration...

Maintaining international security and pursuing American interests is more difficult now than perhaps at any time in history. The security environment that the United States faces is more complex, dynamic, and difficult to predict. At the same time, no domestic consensus exists on the purposes of American power and how best to pursue them. The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) will look ahead in this annual volume at the "flashpoints" that will likely arise in 2015, how best to deal with them, and what lasting effects they might leave for the next American administration...

Across the United States, individuals and small businesses are increasingly buying and selling goods and services online. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the total value of online transactions in the United States grew from $3 trillion in 2006 to $5.4 trillion in 2012.

This volume is a collection of the 2014 papers from the Nuclear Scholars Initiative.

Maintaining international security and pursuing American interests is more difficult now than perhaps at any time in history. The security environment that the United States faces is more complex, dynamic, and difficult to predict. At the same time, no domestic consensus exists on the purposes of American power and how best to pursue them. The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) looks ahead in this annual volume at the "flashpoints" that will likely arise in 2016, how best to deal with them, and what lasting effects they might leave for the next American administration and...