{"id":20643,"date":"2015-05-29T15:27:34","date_gmt":"2015-05-29T05:27:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=20643"},"modified":"2015-06-24T12:38:21","modified_gmt":"2015-06-24T02:38:21","slug":"aspi-suggests-29may","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/aspi-suggests-29may\/","title":{"rendered":"ASPI suggests"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a><\/p>\n The\u00a0IISS Shangri-La Dialogue<\/a>\u00a0in Singapore is the place to be this weekend. The stage is set for a fiery (cross) dialogue this year, with US Defense Secretary Ash Carter recently emphasising that the US\u00a0won’t be recognising<\/a>\u00a0China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea, commenting<\/a> that US forces ‘will fly, sail and operate wherever international law allows, as we do all around the world’ and will ‘remain the principal security power in the Asia-Pacific for decades to come.’ See the\u00a0whole speech\u00a0here<\/a>.\u00a0Australian Defence Secretary Dennis Richardson echoed similar sentiments when delivering the Blamey Oration at the RUSI\u2019s International Defence and Security Dialogue in Sydney this week, stating that:<\/p>\n ‘China now has more law enforcement and Coast Guard vessels in the South China Sea than the other regional countries put together. And given the size and modernisation of China’s military, the use by China of land reclamation for military purposes would be of particular concern.’<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The full text is here<\/a>. The\u00a0Financial Review<\/em><\/a>\u00a0<\/em>has a piece looking at how Australia has been drawn into the US and China’s conflict. To further fan the flames, China has released an English version of its\u00a0Defence White Paper<\/a>. Branding foreign interventions in the South China Sea as ‘meddling’, the document notes that China will continue to \u2018safeguard its maritime rights and interests’.\u00a0Stay tuned on The Strategist<\/em> for Shangri-La news next week.<\/p>\n Also on the South China Sea, Chinese media group\u00a0Sina<\/em>\u00a0has released a number of images of\u00a0Vietnam\u2019s own land reclamation projects<\/a>\u00a0(in Chinese). Despite China’s concern, the Vietnamese projects\u00a0pale in size and pace when compared to China’s own efforts.<\/p>\n Moving now to South Asia, Tuesday marked the one-year anniversary of Indian Prime Minister Modi’s inauguration.\u00a0Al Jazeera<\/em>\u00a0has released an interesting\u00a0infographic<\/a>\u00a0detailing the timeline of his promises both pre- and post-election under his election slogan: ‘good days are coming’. Modi also\u00a0released an open letter<\/a>\u00a0on his personal website to the people of India to commemorate the milestone, indicating the importance placed on the Modi government\u2019s war against poverty.<\/p>\n Turning to the Middle East, Glen Bowersock has penned a\u00a0piece for The New York Review of Books<\/em><\/a>\u00a0that looks at the history of the ancient city of Palmyra, which fell to Islamic State (ISIS) forces last week.\u00a0He concludes by stating that although Palmyra has been immortalised through historical records, the survival of reports and photographs can in no way compensate for the possible destruction and looting of the 2,000-year-old city to fund the purchase of weapons, explosives and vehicles for ISIS.<\/p>\n The New York Times<\/em>\u00a0has a fascinating read on the\u00a0experiences of a female lieutenant<\/a>\u00a0who served in Afghanistan in 2010 and 2011. The piece details the struggles that Lieutenant Wilson faced leading a predominantly-male platoon, and the study of a group of social scientists who\u2019ve determined that the mental costs borne by minorities in margins of a culture\u2014females in professions dominated by males, and African Americans attending Ivy League schools to name just two\u2014are the same.<\/p>\n For this week’s tech picks,\u00a0we\u2019ve got two stories for you. First,\u00a0the US Air Force\u00a0has finally cleared<\/a>\u00a0SpaceX for launch. Second,\u00a0The New York Times<\/em>\u00a0has released an article that looks at\u00a0DARPA’s robotics challenge<\/a>, to be held in California next month. Although\u00a0films that focus on artificial intelligence like\u00a0Ex Machina<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Chappie <\/em>are in vogue, none of the 25 robots competing in the Challenge will be autonomous.\u00a0Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk and Bill Gates can breathe a sigh of relief<\/a>\u2014for now.<\/p>\n Podcasts<\/strong><\/p>\n This week,\u00a0The Guardian<\/em>‘s\u00a0Global development podcast<\/a>\u00a0takes a look at the factors that drive conflicts around the world, and then assesses the role that women and the UN can play in creating lasting regional peace (35 mins).<\/p>\n The stalwart podcast from CSIS\u2019 CogitAsia blog this week takes a look at the Rohingya refugee crisis<\/a> currently unfolding in the region.<\/p>\n Videos<\/strong><\/p>\n Still on Rohingyas, the Oslo Conference to End the Systematic Persecution of the Rohingyas took place on May 26-28 at the Nobel Institute. Messages of support were sent from around the globe, with a notable and powerful contribution from philanthropist George Soros, who drew attention to the ‘alarming’ similarities between the persecution of the Rohingyas and the Nazi genocide. Watch his speech\u00a0here<\/a>\u00a0(30 mins).<\/p>\n