AP Photo
October 2011
"China's Aircraft Carrier: Chinese Naval Nationalism and Its Implications for the United States"
Policy Brief
By Robert Ross
China's carrier program reflects the Chinese Communist Party leadership's surrender to the forces of nationalism....As Chinese domestic instability has grown, the increasingly insecure Communist Party leadership has used the carrier program to bolster its nationalist legitimacy—just as it used the 2008 Olympics, the 2009 Shanghai Expo, high-speed rail, the 'world largest airport,' and other high-profile projects for this purpose."
Fall 2010
"Correspondence: Debating China's Naval Nationalism"
Journal Article, International Security, issue 2, volume 35
By Michael A. Glosny, Former Research Fellow, International Security Program, 2006-2007, Phillip C. Saunders and Robert Ross
Michael Glosny and Phillip Saunders respond to Robert Ross's Fall 2009 International Security article, "China's Naval Nationalism: Sources, Prospects, and the U.S. Response."
AP Photo
Fall 2009
"China's Naval Nationalism: Sources, Prospects, and the U.S. Response"
Journal Article, International Security, issue 2, volume 34
By Robert Ross
Three factors — nationalism, a demand for great power status, and domestic interests — suggest that China will soon begin to build a power-projection navy. The first step in this process is likely to be the construction of an aircraft carrier. Challenges to China's territorial security as well as its commitment to a large ground force capability, however, will constrain China's maritime power and limit its ability to challenge U.S. maritime security. Still, the United States should begin to develop policies that will help to manage U.S.-China naval competition and promote continued political cooperation between the two nations.
Fall 2002
"Navigating the Taiwan Strait: Deterrance, Escalation Dominance, and U.S.-China"
Journal Article, International Security, issue 2, volume 27
By Robert Ross
Robert Ross considers the prospects for a U.S.-China war over Taiwan.
Fall 2000
"The 1995-96 Taiwan Strait Confrontation: Coercion, Credibility, and the Use of Force"
Journal Article, International Security, issue 2, volume 25
By Robert Ross
The author ends on a cautionary note: "Washington cannot permit American ideological support for Taiwan's democracy…to undermine the politics of war and peace between the United States and China."
Spring 1999
"The Geography of the Peace: East Asia in the Twenty-first Century"
Journal Article, International Security, issue 4, volume 23
By Robert Ross
The author reaches a more optimistic conclusion about the future of East Asian security. He focuses on the role of geography and structure in maintaining the current East Asian balance of power into the twenty-first century.
