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In this Adelphi book, Bill Emmott evaluates the diplomatic and deterrence strategies that countries in and outside the Indo-Pacific region are using to try to reduce the risk of that conflict occurring. The goal must be for all sides to regard such a US-China conflict as 'inevitably catastrophic and therefore inconceivable'.
List of contents
Author
Acknowledgements
Map 1: Taiwan and its surrounding region
Introduction:
Danger, hiding in plain sightChapter One:
Why Indo-Pacific deterrence mattersWhy the stakes in Taiwan are so high
The conflict to be deterred
Chapter Two:
Deterrence lessons from UkraineEight lessons from Ukraine
Specific implications for China
Specific implications for Taiwan
Specific implications for the United States
Chapter Three:
Yardsticks for deterrenceA world in flux
Rationality without MADness
An unstable status quo
Yardsticks for Indo-Pacific deterrence
Chapter Four:
Consistent America, inconstant AmericaPolitical will: consistency and clarity of deterrence messages
Military capability and coalition credibility
The narrative yardstick
Chapter Five:
Taiwan and its predicamentMilitary resilience
Civil resilience
Narrative clarity
Chapter Six:
Coercive China, deterrent ChinaDeterring an intervention
Controlling the nuclear risk
Controlling the narrative
Chapter Seven:
Allies and partners: the role of JapanJapan, from self-defence to constrained deterrence
Constrained but speedy?
Many unanswered questions
Chapter Eight:
The Philippines, Australia and other partnersThe Philippines as an unsinkable logistics centre
Australia: far away but now committed
Other allies and bystanders, near and far
ASEAN non-centrality
Limits to the ASEAN way
Dreaming of a more balanced region
Conclusion:
Nostalgic for Cold War realism Needed: the good aspect of Cold War diplomacy
Notes
Index
About the author
Bill Emmott is Chairman of the IISS Trustees and an independent writer and consultant. He spent 26 years at
The Economist, which he joined in 1980, working as a correspondent and editor in Brussels, Tokyo and London, on subjects ranging from politics to finance, economics and business. In 1993, he was appointed editor-in-chief, a post he held for 13 years before stepping down in 2006.
He is Senior Adviser, Geopolitics for Montrose Associates, Chair of the Japan Society of the UK, an Ushioda Fellow of Tokyo College, University of Tokyo, Chair of the International Trade Institute, a trustee of the Chester Beatty Library, and a member of the Comitato Scientifico of the Centro Einaudi in Turin. He writes for
La Stampa in Italy,
Nikkei Business and the
Mainichi Shimbun in Japan, and occasionally for the
Financial Times. He is the author of numerous books on Japan, Asia, Italy and the West, his latest being
The Fate of the West (Profile, 2017) and
Japan's Far More Female Future: Increasing Gender Equality and Reducing Workplace Insecurity Will Make Japan Stronger (Oxford University Press, 2020).
Summary
In this Adelphi book, Bill Emmott evaluates the diplomatic and deterrence strategies that countries in and outside the Indo-Pacific region are using to try to reduce the risk of that conflict occurring. The goal must be for all sides to regard such a US–China conflict as ‘inevitably catastrophic and therefore inconceivable’.
