Think Tank (5/2021)

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RSIS Publications
Think Tank (5/2021)

Think Tank (5/2021)

HIGHLIGHT

Strategy and Command in an Age of Extreme Uncertainty

06 Oct 2021

As part of IDSS’ 25th anniversary celebrations and in conjunction with the 2021 Asia-Pacific Programme for Senior Military Officers (APPSMO), Sir Lawrence Freedman, Emeritus Professor of War Studies at King’s College London, delivered the APPSMO 2021 Distinguished Lecture on 6 October 2021. The lecture was on the topic of “Strategy and Command in an Age of Extreme Uncertainty”.

Stra ...

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Chinese Nationalism: How Its Past is Shaping Its Future

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The Communist Party of China (CPC), under Mao Zedong, was opposed to Confucius, whose teachings were deemed the source of China’s backwardness and condemned. Decades later in the 21st century, a New Year ceremony commemorating his birth was broadcast on state television. This incident w ...

Tackling the Nexus Between Climate Change and Security — Singapore and German Perspectives

27 Oct 2021

The third dialogue between RSIS and the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) was held online on 27 October 2021. This year’s dialogue was titled, “Tackling the Nexus Between Climate Change and Security — Singapore and German Perspectives.” The dialogue was organ ...

Climate Security in the Indo-Pacific: Strategic Implications for Defence and Foreign Affairs

25 Oct 2021

On 25 October 2021, the Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR) Programme at the RSIS Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies (NTS Centre) hosted a virtual roundtable titled “Climate Security in the Indo-Pacific: Strategic Implications for Defence and Foreign Affairs”. Chaired b ...

Religion and the Common Good

23 Oct 2021

The RSIS Studies in Inter-Religious Relations in Plural Societies (SRP) Programme jointly organised the 2nd Inter-religious Dialogue Skills Workshop with its partner organisations — the Buddhist College of Singapore (BCS), Catholic Theological Institute Singapore (CTIS), the Hindu C ...

The ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific

22 Oct 2021

As members of the Policy Research Network on Contemporary Southeast Asia (PRN-SEA), RSIS, Indonesia’s Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and Japan’s National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies (GRIPS) co-organised two recent webinars related to the ASEAN Outlook on the In ...

The Europeans in the Indo-Pacific: Jointly or National, and What Does Asia Think?

19 Oct 2021

On 19 October 2021, RSIS held a panel webinar titled “The Europeans in the Indo-Pacific: Jointly or National, and What Does Asia Think?”. Assistant Professor Sarah Teo of RSIS facilitated the discussion with five panellists: Dr Frederick Kliem, Research Fellow at RSIS; Ms Alice Billon-Galland, ...

Countering Online Radicalisation in Southeast Asia

11 Oct 2021

Punctuated by intermittent lockdowns, these past two years have witnessed an uptick in digital content consumption as billions worldwide spend more time indoors and online than ever before. Accompanying this spike in internet usage are fears that terrorists may capitalise on the surge in scree ...

APPSMO 2021

05 Oct 2021

APPSMO 2021 focused on “The Evolving Security Environment in the Asia-Pacific and its Challenges”. This was an update of previous APPSMO themes on security challenges and opportunities in the Asia-Pacific, while acknowledging at the same time the uncertainties that underlie any future conceptu ...

International Law and Rule of Law Approach in the Indo-Pacific Region

28 Sep 2021

A range of actors threaten the rule of law at sea in the Indo-Pacific region. By doing so they undermine political stability, endanger use of international waters to support commerce, and interfere with coastal states’ legitimate governance activities. The results directly threaten the economi ...

Defining Maritime Security: Regional Divergence and Commonalities

21 Sep 2021

“Maritime Security” has emerged as a central concept in Southeast Asia’s policy lexicon. However, as is the case in much of the world, the term’s precise meaning is not consistently clear. Which challenges and state activities should be categorised as maritime security and which should be cons ...

Non-Traditional Security Concerns in the New Normal: Part 2

20 Sep 2021

The global COVID-19 outbreak has demonstrated that non-traditional security (NTS) issues pose existential threats to individuals, society and the state, as evident in the high death toll and significant disruptions to socioeconomic activities. Vulnerable groups such as women, children, migrant ...

Understanding Christian Far-Right Extremism

16 Sep 2021

The Studies in Inter-Religious Relations in Plural Societies (SRP) Programme hosted a webinar on 16 September 2021 titled “Understanding Christian Far Right Extremism (CFRE): Politics, Theologies, Conspiracies”. RSIS Associate Professor Paul Hedges chaired the discussion, which involv ...

RSIS-CAES International Relations Exchange Workshop

09 Sep 2021

On 9 September 2021, RSIS in partnership with the Center for Asia-Europe Studies (CAES), Xian-Jiaotong University, held the inaugural International Relations Exchange workshop, which is a platform for scholars from the two institutes to exchange views. The virtual workshop saw scholars exchang ...

Trump, Biden, and the Fate of America’s Alliances

03 Sep 2021

The tragic scenes in Kabul in the wake of the US withdrawal and the capture of the city by the Taliban triggered ruminations across the world and raised two critical questions: Has the withdrawal and its consequences hurt and diminished America’s global prestige and credibility? Will its allia ...

What Next for Afghanistan and the War On Terror?

03 Sep 2021

The prospects for Afghanistan since the Taliban takeover in August 2021, ranging from the Taliban’s ideological evolution and their relations with regional powers to the issue of women and the rights of minorities, was the subject of the webinar “What’s next for Afghanistan and the War o ...

Four Years After Marawi: Threat and Societal Response in the Philippines

02 Sep 2021

The 2017 Marawi siege was the deadliest urban battle in Southeast Asia. More than 1,000 pro-Islamic State (IS) terrorists participated in the siege in Mindanao, Southern Philippines, which lasted from May to October 2017. To review the IS threat since the siege and how the country has responde ...

Malaysia’s Policy Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic: Drivers, Players, Consequences

31 Aug 2021

Malaysia is widely acknowledged to have managed well the first wave of COVID-19 in 2020, befitting a resource-rich, upper middle-income country with one of the best healthcare systems in Southeast Asia and a strong centralised state. However, the pandemic has since evolved into a more complex ...

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