Amid the intensifying security rivalry between the United States and China and the rapidly changing power balances in the Indo-Pacific, India has emerged as an increasingly important partner for U.S. interests in the region. What factors will shape India’s relationships with the world’s two largest superpowers? How should Washington interpret New Delhi’s evolving understanding of strategic autonomy? And is Indian defense policy equipped to meet today’s security threats?  

These are some of the questions that occupy Arzan Tarapore, our new research scholar on South Asia effective September 1. At APARC, Tarapore will continue his research on Indo-Pacific security and military effectiveness. He will also be at the forefront of advancing the Center’s South Asia research and engagement effort – a role to which he brings his experience that combines academic scholarship with over a decade of government service. Before his appointment at Stanford, Tarapore was an adjunct assistant professor at Georgetown University. He continues to serve as a nonresident fellow at the National Bureau of Asian Research and an adjunct researcher at the RAND Corporation.

Here, Tarapore explains how “internal balancing” may shape India’s relationships with China and the United States, considers what’s at stake for India’s military strategy, and shares some of his plans for APARC’s South Asia initiative.

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How is India’s own tense relationship with China, which burst into view in the recent border clash in the Himalayas, poised to affect its ties with the United States and its approach to strategic partnerships with other countries, such as Japan and Australia?

Tarapore: In the last two decades, Washington has latched on to India as a strategic partner in large part because it recognizes that India is a natural competitor to China. This is rooted in structural reasons – because of India and China’s geography, history, and strategic interests. So India has pursued its own brand of strategic competition with China for over half a century – it’s just that its tactics may sometimes appear desultory to some American (and Indian!) observers. Those tactics, which in the recent past have included back-slapping summitry and avoidance of provocations, are largely rooted, at bottom, in India’s relatively modest power.

Now, some observers have asserted (or hoped) that the current border crisis in Ladakh may shake New Delhi out of this posture and catalyze a closer relationship – even an alliance – with the United States. As I’ve argued elsewhere, an alliance with the U.S. is neither plausible nor necessary. India has forged a much closer defense relationship with the United States and other like-minded regional states like Japan and Australia. The current crisis may accelerate some of that alignment a little, but this trend was already well underway. To be sure, the crisis – and especially the Indian fatalities – has hardened popular opinion against China. But Indian officialdom did not need to be convinced of the China threat, or the merits of cooperation with the United States. Their inhibitions to an alliance – just like their threat perceptions of China – are structural and not likely to be dispelled anytime soon.

Rather than focusing just on India’s alignments – what scholars call “external balancing” – we should watch closely for changes in India’s defense policy and military modernization – or “internal balancing.” There is a chance this crisis will prompt India to correct some of the long-standing distortions in defense policy. If it does, those changes – rather than any outward displays of alignment – will have a far greater impact on India’s competition with China, and on its partnership with the United States.

One of your research areas is focused on strategic effectiveness, particularly Indian military strategy-making. In your recent Carnegie India paper, The Army in Indian Military Strategy, you argue that the Indian army must rethink its use of force to meet today’s new challenges. What is the problem with its prevailing doctrine and what are your specific recommendations for it and Indian defense policy?   

Tarapore: I’ve argued that Indian military strategy over at least the past half-century has been dominated by an army doctrine that is designed to fight large conventional wars. This doctrine drives the Indian military’s force structure and its ideas about how to use force. The problem is, the doctrine is unsuited to the more-common security challenges that India currently faces – challenges exemplified perfectly by China’s borderland grab in Ladakh this past summer.

The Indian Army should certainly still prepare for major wars, but I argue in this paper that it also needs to develop new concepts for dealing with threats below the threshold of war. If it does not rethink its doctrine, it risks becoming less and less relevant as a tool of statecraft. Specifically, I argue that the Indian Army should consider new “theories of victory” that focus on denying the enemy’s goals rather than threatening to punish it; consider how to better support the air force and navy; and consider emphasizing certain niche capabilities of modern warfighting.

What are some of the projects and activities you plan to focus on at APARC, both in your research and as part of the effort to revitalize the Center’s research and education initiative on South Asia?

Tarapore: As mentioned at the outset, Washington sees India as a central partner in the Indo-Pacific. I want to position APARC and Stanford to effectively support that policy. My research, at least for now, focuses on Indian defense issues. For example, I have a book project that looks at how India has historically approached the use of force – our policymakers need to understand India’s particular constraints and patterns. Second, I will continue to engage in a stream of research on how the United States, India, and their like-minded partners can manage security risks in the Indian Ocean region.

Beyond my own research, I want to take advantage of Stanford’s community of scholars, and build on my network in the region, to work on issues that are often overlooked by Washington-based policy tribes. For example, I am keen to explore the effects of climate change across South Asia – the challenges it poses to security and governance, and how it may force regional states to respond. These issues are critically important but often overshadowed by more urgent crises.

Your career combines both academic scholarship and government experience. Tell us more about your government service, what drew you to it, and how you became interested in Indo-Pacific security issues.

Tarapore: My government work completely shaped my scholarship. I served for 13 years in the Australian Defence Department, as an analyst, leader, and liaison officer. My time there was dominated by the post-9/11 wars and security crises – so even as a civilian, I deployed on operations and worked closely with the military. This has left me with an abiding dedication to being task-oriented – ensuring that my scholarship has direct utility for decision makers – and an abiding preference for working among teams of people smarter than I am. With my professional background in Australia, my academic interest in India, and my new home in the United States, I’m entirely comfortable with the concept and the region of the “Indo-Pacific.” This is why Stanford and APARC, with policy focus and community of scholars working on Asia, are so exciting.

What is it like to begin a new academic post remotely in a COVID-19 world? How has the pandemic affected your work?

Tarapore: I’ve often thought about how fortunate I am to work in a field where I can keep working, with some adjustments, even amid a global pandemic. If we’re honest, I suspect some people even thrive on the enforced solitude. For me, it’s a nuisance and it requires adjustments – none more so than rethinking childcare arrangements. From a professional perspective, one of the biggest obstacles it creates is the inability to travel to India for fieldwork, or around the region to build our professional networks. The other, more quotidian difficulty is the obstacle to in-person teamwork. Obviously, something is lost when we have to stare at each other through screens, so I can’t wait to walk the halls of Encina Hall.

The ASEAN nations trail the PRC by enormous margins in geographic size, population, and GDP. Though ASEAN overtook the EU to become China’s main trading partner in Q1 of 2020, China’s economic capacity is easily quadruple that of all ASEAN’s member countries combined.  Southeast Asia is also one of the most diverse regions in the world, and these differences have proven a historic and ongoing challenge to ASEAN’s effectiveness as a political body. This has been particularly observable in the fractured responses to China’s increased presence in the South China Sea. But these factors do not mean Southeast Asia must always fall in line with the policy goals of Beijing. Like mousedeer, these smaller nations can draw on other strategies and strengths to push back against encroachments from PRC initiatives.

The fourteen chapters in The Deer and the Dragon aim to provide perspectives on how such strategies can be developed, as well as giving detailed context on the complexities of Southeast Asia-China relations and the impact these dynamics have both for the region and the global community. The contributors offer insights into the tensions between diversity and dependence in ASEAN-China investment and trade, discussions of the very divergent strategies nations such as Singapore and Indonesia have taken in their relations with China, and remarks on the political and developmental disparities nations such as Cambodia and Laos face in trying to balance their autonomy against China's influence and levy influence within ASEAN.

In looking at the broader conclusions of the book, Emmerson writes, "The future of Southeast Asia will greatly and probably decisively depend on what its individual states themselves either do or fail to do, [and] nothing can substitute for the creativity of Southeast Asian states in individual and joint pursuit of their own and their region’s security."

The volume will be available August 2020 through APARC’s in-house series with the Brookings Institution Press and on Amazon.

Few nations have maintained the level of isolation and control the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea has orchestrated for decades. The advent of COVID-19 has seen even more stringent restrictions put in place along the DPRK’s borders and a dire increase in economic and social strain on North Koreans living throughout the peninsula.

Tomás Ojea Quintana, the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the DPRK, reports in a June 9, 2020 statement that the closure of the border between the DPRK and China has “exacerbated the food crisis, devastating cross-border trade and sapping income from merchants.” In Seoul, the South Korean Unification Ministry roused ire when it announced plans to prosecute groups of North Korean defectors for distributing anti-Pyongyang leaflets across the border. The action followed the DPRK’s abrupt shutoff of communication with South Korea over the leaflets and threats of unrest along the border.

On the morning of June 16, 2020, the DPRK further retaliated against the protest literature by destroying a joint liaison office in the border town of Kaesong. The building had functioned as a de facto embassy since 2018, and the action was meant to force North Korean defectors and their South Korean supporters “to pay dearly for their crimes.”

This dramatic escalation of tensions highlights the need for international attention to the ongoing humanitarian violations in the DPRK and for proactive, collective action to address the problem. This is the focus of the 2020 Koret Conference, which opens today, June 16. Each year, APARC’s Korea Program hosts the conference in partnership with the Koret Foundation. Held virtually this year due to COVID-19, the conference sessions aim to reestablish the human rights crisis in North Korea as an international priority.

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Speaking to the importance of this topic in his welcome remarks, APARC Director Gi-Wook Shin states that, “human rights in North Korea have become a matter rivaling the nuclear issue in seriousness.” Michael Kirby, former chair of the Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights, echoes this view and warns that “the continuation of the present blindfolded approach [to human rights violations in North Korea] is perilous.”

The conference brings together international experts to discuss the intersections of multiple issues in addressing the North Korean human rights problem, such as inter-Korean relations, denuclearization, information flows to the DPRK, and international cooperation. Participants will discuss presentations released earlier this year and the conference proceedings will be collected into a forthcoming publication.

On March 31, Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported that two Chinese Air Force (PLAAF) J-11 jets crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait. This violated the long-held tacit agreement between China and Taiwan that neither side should cross the median line.

Taiwan deemed this “an intentional, reckless & provocative action,” which triggered “a 10-minute standoff” in the air. As Asia security expert Bonnie S. Glaser notes that, if intentional, this would be the first PLAAF crossing of the median line in about 20 years. In this case, it’s likely that Taiwan, not the South China Sea, prompted Beijing’s actions.

An unresolved issue from the Chinese civil war, Taiwan has always been a “core interest” to party leaders in Beijing. Here are some key takeaways from my research on China-Taiwan relations…

Read the full article in The Washington Post.

To hear more from Ketian, don't miss her recently posted video Q&A. In addition, be sure to RSVP for her April 16 seminar "Killing the Chicken to Scare the Monkey: Explaining Coercion by China in the South China Sea."

Former U.S. ambassador to South Korea Kathleen Stephens spoke on the "PBS News Hour" about the first high-level talks between North Korea and South Korea in more than two years. The two nations agreed to hold future military talks aimed at easing border tensions and the North pledged to send a delegation to the Olympic Games next month.

Stephens called it a good first step and an “all-too-rare positive development” on the peninsula. The decrease in potential for disruptions to next month’s games could—according to Stephens-be seen as the first deliverable by South Korea’s new president, Moon Jae-In, on a promise to reengage with the North.

Ambassador Stephens said it was not surprising that denuclearization did not come up during Tuesday’s talks, noting North Korea’s position that the issue is one to be dealt with the United States. Ambassador Stephens speculated that once the Olympics closed, the peninsula might experience a period of reduced tensions along with confidence building. However, she believes that come the spring there would still remain important questions about military exercises as well as nuclear weapons.

Asked about news reports of discussions within the Trump administration on the possibility of targeted strikes against North Korean military sites, Ambassador Stephens described it as a very risky strategy, adding that the discussions alone could prove unnerving in South Korea as well as North Korea.

The full interview is available on PBS.