Asia

In advance of today’s inauguration of Tsai Ing-wen as Taiwan’s first female president, The Cipher Brief interviewed Randy Schriver, founding partner at Armitage International LLC […] More

As Tsai Ing-wen officially takes office as Taiwan’s first female president, she will face the difficult task of balancing the competing interests of her political […] More

The United States this week eased some sanctions against Myanmar to support political reforms in the country and try to open up opportunities for American […] More

North Korea’s first Party Congress in three decades, a grand spectacle at which Kim Jong-un’s greatest achievement seems to have been giving himself the newly-created […] More

The 7th North Korean Workers’ Party (WPK) Congress –the first event of its kind in 36 years– began and ended with the flair for the […] More

North Korea held its Seventh Workers’ Party Congress last week. The primary focus of the Congress was to consolidate Kim Jong-un’s domestic power base and […] More

Foul-mouthed strongman, Rodrigo Duterte, declared victory in the Philippines’s presidential election this week after one of his rivals, Grace Poe, conceded to his insurmountable lead.  […] More

Fiery Cross Reef, a contested geographic feature in the South China Sea, is the latest site for the growing maritime tensions between China and the […] More

China sent a major signal to the U.S. last week, when it turned away the USS John C. Stennis aircraft carrier and accompanying vessels from […] More

China’s President Xi Jinping has committed himself to the country’s development as a maritime power and to protecting its sovereignty. One can reasonably assume that […] More

China’s neighbors are gravely concerned about what they see as a clear and determined strategy being implemented by Xi Jinping, the leader of the Chinese […] More

Among Republican frontrunner Donald Trump’s array of foreign policy positions is the suggestion that South Korea and Japan develop nuclear weapons for their own security […] More

North Korea’s nuclear saber rattling is raising concerns about further proliferation in the region.  There is a risk that should they feel sufficiently threatened by […] More

The Cipher Brief: Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan have the technical ability to pursue nuclear weapons, but all three have refrained. What conditions would have […] More

At 11:00 AM, five years ago Monday, sailors on the USS Carl Vinson watched the shrouded body of Osama bin Laden slide into the North […] More

Five years ago, U.S. special operations forces killed Osama bin Laden in a raid on his hiding place in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Although al Qaeda had […] More

The Pentagon announced Friday that U.S. forces have killed Abu Sayed, the leader of ISIS-Khorasan – ISIS’ affiliate in Afghanistan – in a drone strike […] More

Beijing’s “Great Wall of Sand” in the South China Sea is likely to expand: a recent report in the South China Morning Post unveiled China’s […] More