NEWS & EVENTS

On October 25th, 2018 the Edwin O. Reischauer Center for East Asian Studies hosted a discussion with Dr. Sarah C. Paine, professor of strategy at the U.S. Naval War College, about geopolitics and competing maritime powers and world orders.

Titled “China, Russia, and the United States, through the Divergent Security Paradigms of Maritime vs. Continental Powers,” Dr. Paine’s talk reviewed the history of China, Russia, and the United States’ territorial expansions and the theories of a nation’s geography in contributing to their “grand strategy.” Dr. Paine applied the theories of Halford Mackinder, Sun Tzu, and Nicholas Spykman to continental theories of security, including China’s Belt and Road Initiative and Russia’s presence in Ukraine and Crimea. Questions fielded from the audience covered the role of nuclear weapons in the maritime and continental power theories, the hybridization of continental and maritime power theory through the Belt and Road Initiative, and the role of China’s reeducation camps for their ethnic minority populations in Xinjiang. ​