By Rowan Allport, The Strategist (ASPI): “Japan’s plans to acquire cruise missiles for its combat aircraft are a step forward in its ability to provide for its own defence. But these weapons won’t give the country the capacity to pre-emptively destroy North Korea’s ballistic missiles because of the major weaknesses in Japan’s ability to locate mobile targets.”
China’s ‘Soft Power’ in Central Asia Both More and Less than It Appears
By Paul Goble, Eurasia Daily Monitor: “From one perspective, China has enormous “soft power” in Central Asia, the ability, as Joseph Nye defined it (Bound to Lead: The Changing Nature of American Power, New York, 1990), “to persuade others to do what it wants without force or coercion.””