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Contests of Initiative: Countering China’s Gray Zone Strategy in the East and South China Seas

by Dr. Raymond Kuo

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China is engaged in a widespread assertion of sovereignty in the South and East China Seas. It employs a “gray zone” strategy: using coercive but sub-conventional military power to drive off challengers and prevent escalation, while simultaneously seizing territory and asserting maritime control.

Contests of Initiative: Confronting China’s Gray Zone Strategy provides three courses of action for the US and its Asian security partners to preserve regional peace, uphold freedom of the seas, and deter conflict. Building on theories of escalation dominance, Dr. Kuo casts gray zone strategies as “contests of initiative.” States that direct the operational tempo and choice of engagements can exploit gaps in political commitment to seize objectives. Once lost, their opponents face much higher costs to reestablish control.

Using case analysis backed by statistical methods, the three courses of action reach different balances between American leadership, allied costs, and Chinese responses. Ultimately, the book recommends the U.S. employ an “extended deterrence” approach. Washington should foster a regional sovereignty settlement, establish a political-military coordinating institution, and attain dominance in sub-conventional capabilities using unmanned ISR and strike platforms to contest and break Beijing’s control.

The study will be of great value to those in the national security community with responsibility for US policies in East Asia, but it also provides important insights for strategic planners and analysts who will be grappling with the larger strategic dimensions of US-China relations, certain to be the paramount issue in global politics for the foreseeable future.

Dr. Raymond Kuo is an independent political scientist focused on international security and East Asia. In addition to this book, he authored Following the Leader: International Order, Alliance Strategies, and Emulation (Stanford University Press, forthcoming 2021), explaining how military alliance strategies generate international order. Dr. Kuo’s other research has appeared in International Security, the Journal of Conflict Resolution, The National Interest, and The Diplomat, among others.

He previously served in the United Nations, the National Democratic Institute, and the Democratic Progressive Party (Taiwan). Dr. Kuo holds a Ph.D. and M.A. from Princeton University, an M.Sc. from the London School of Economics, and a B.A. from Wesleyan University.

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Managing Challenges for the Flint Water Crisis

Edited by Toyna E. Thornton, Andrew D. Williams, Katherine M. Simon, Jennifer F. Sklarew 

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The field of emergency and crisis management covers countless natural and human-induced hazards as well high threats. Focusing events occur at every level of governance; however, it is at the local level in which the ‘rubber’ response efforts meets the proverbial ‘road.’ While politicians and policymakers typically attempt to reduce the impacts associated with disasters by anticipating the unexpected, many challenges remain. Understanding disaster meaning, even causality, is essential to the problem-solving process.

While the resources of local governments are shrinking, expectations for delivering real-world results are greater than ever before. In the water crisis of Flint, Michigan, decision-makers believed to be making sound choices by changing the treated water source from the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department– water that was sourced from Lake Huron and the Detroit River–to the Flint River. Since the water from Flint River was contaminated, and officials failed to apply corrosion inhibitors to the water, it resulted in an environmental water quality disaster; that is, exposing 100,000 residents to elevated levels of lead.

This edited volume examines several public management and intergovernmental failures, with particular attention on social, political, and financial impacts. The editors come from a variety of backgrounds, including a pracademic, an academic connected with communities of practice, a local government expert, an emergency management professional, and an environmental policy scholar. The collection of chapter authors includes professional colleagues and experts from the social sciences, public administration, emergency and crisis management, and environmental policy fields, most of which are affiliated with the key professional association, the American Society for Public Administration.

 

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Ongoing Issues in Georgian Policy and Public Administration

Edited by Bonnie Stabile and Nino Ghonghadze

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Thriving democracy and representative government depend upon a well functioning civil service, rich civic life and economic success. Georgia has been considered a top performer among countries in South Eastern Europe seeking to establish themselves in the post-Soviet era at the start of the 21st century. Georgia’s challenges in pubic administration reform provide unique illustrations of universal struggles of governance, including encouraging civic engagement, inculcating the values of public service, combatting corruption and nurturing economic development. Written from the vantage point of Georgian academics, many with first hand experience as public servants, in collaboration with US scholars, the chapters in this volume offer insights that should be of broad interest to public administrators and policymakers everywhere.

Bonnie Stabile is Director of the Master of Public Policy Program and Research Assistant Professor at the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University in Arlington, Virginia, USA.

Nino Ghonghadze is Professor at the Georgian Institute of Public Affairs in Tbilisi, Georgia.

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Conflicts in Health Policy

Conflict in Health Policy COVER FRONT ONLY

Edited by Bonnie Stabile, Introduced by Randy S. Clemons & Mark K. McBeth

When conflicts arise in health policy, the insights of policy scholars can contribute to crafting solutions to seemingly intractable problems.   Beyond their mere technical attributes, health and medical policy issues require political acumen and policy knowledge to diagnose problems, inform debate, and devise policy interventions.  The cases in this volume cover a range of health issues and illustrate how political theory and philosophy are critical to efforts aimed at treating public health challenges.

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