Edward Hunter Christie Profile picture
May 23, 2022 7 tweets 5 min read Read on X
1/7
On #defence and #security policy choices in the #IndoPacific :
I recently produced research assessing how 12 nations are aligning, looking at defence spending, arms imports, military exercises, intel sharing, and force presence agreements.

Who balances against #China?
2/7
Looking at trends in the values of stocks of imported #armaments, #Vietnam and #Indonesia seem clearly to be balancing against #China, whereas #Malaysia drops off strongly, suggesting #bandwagoning. Singapore stable.
3/7
A statistical analysis on trends in stocks of imported armaments shows most countries with a break (a change) around the year 2014 - this is consistent with threat perceptions towards #China going up around 2012.
4/7
It gets interesting with data on multinational military exercises - since around 2012, military exercises involving U.S. Allies in the region begin to attract new partner nations, and exercise scenarios orient more towards high intensity warfare.
5/7
Similarly with Force Presence Agreements (Status of Forces / Visiting Forces / Reciprocal Access), some interesting developments post 2012, notably involving #Japan - with #Australia and most recently the #UK
6/7
And at the same time, total defence spending in the region hasn't gone through large shifts if measured as a percentage of GDP - that was the initial research puzzle. But pulling in additional indicators helps make sense of the regional picture.
7/7
The paper is published with the journal Defence and Peace Economics and is available Open Access.

tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.10…

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More from @EHunterChristie

Apr 26
1-22

I've read Macron's speech in full.
It is actually quite good.
As is common with Macron, nothing is incorrect.
And there is also an emerging coherence to everything he touches on.

elysee.fr/front/pdf/elys…
2-22

Summarising the speech would make this a 50+ post thread and I won't go there. But here are some essentials:

- Europe needs stronger defence capabilities, and more of them home-grown and self-reliant, based on a stronger, more coherent European defence industry
3-22

- Europe needs a comprehensive economic security policy that address all critical dependencies, from food and energy to semiconductors and social media
Read 24 tweets
Apr 23
1-15

Velina makes a relevant point, namely that Polish President Duda's private meeting with Donald Trump likely had an important positive impact for what followed.

Note that the Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda also believes that this was the case (link follows).
2-15

Trump met with Duda on Thursday 18 April and stated to journalists that "we're behind Poland all the way".

reuters.com/world/trump-sa…
3-15

Looking back, Lithuanian President Nausėda said that "the talks with Trump were positive, they yielded a positive result, and I'm very happy about this achievement by Mr Duda."

pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2024/…
Read 15 tweets
Apr 22
1-8

We need to talk about another facet of American and America-focused propaganda: the weaponisation of the issue of drug addiction.

I believe this is a major blind spot in American discourse, with multiple core elements that are misunderstood 🧵
Image
Image
2-8

First, it is traditional anti-American propaganda, dating back to the days of the Soviet Union, to suggest to American voters a trade-off between money spent at home to alleviate social misery, notably homelessness, and money spent abroad, notably for military purposes.
3-8

Why anti-American? Because those who issue those messages want the Americans out of their way so they can practice their imperialism without resistance elsewhere.
That's the real reason for such messaging. It is not done in order to improve America's social conditions.
Read 8 tweets
Apr 17
1-15

Very important press conf. at NATO with 3 Prime Ministers: Netherlands, Denmark, Czechia.

DNK PM Frederiksen: "[all of us] are we not better off sending a few of our own AD systems to Ukraine at a time where they, not we, are struggling daily..."

2-15

"...to fight off never ending Russian attacks? We know we have systems in Europe. Some of them need now to be delivered into Ukraine. And I think the answer to this question is of course a yes."
3-15

"And this is why we have gathered here today and with this message I hope that we will have time during the Council meeting to have a very concrete discussion on how to ensure more air defence to Ukraine."
Read 15 tweets
Apr 10
1-11

"I mean it makes sense to me that we should destroy'em" ✔️

The right conclusion regarding Russia's refineries from U.S. Rep. Austin Scott (Republican, Georgia).

As for Celeste Wallander's legal reasoning, I believe it is incorrect in light of previous U.S. actions 🧵
2-11

Wallander stresses the civilian nature of the refineries and implies that civ. infra should not be hit.
Here, Scott's reaction missed the mark: for legal scholars, an enemy's IHL violations don't justify responding with IHL violations (and rightly so).
3-11

There is indeed quite some literature questioning previous military strikes on critical energy infrastructure, with most commentary focusing on electricity grids. Certainly, legal scholars who work with / for human rights orgs typically argue against such strikes.
Read 11 tweets
Apr 8
"Trump is already partially in power and stabbing Ukraine in the back". My view of what Trump and his political associates are effectively doing, featured in the Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet [in Norwegian].

1-4

dagbladet.no/nyheter/frykte…
Translated extract:
"This blockage has been going on in full for months, which is a very long time in a high-intensity war like we have in Ukraine. I mean, it's pretty sick."

2-4
"Just imagine that the United States, in the middle of World War II, had suddenly said that no, now we are not going to supply Britain any more. We've been doing it for a year now, but now we're going to stop."

3-4
Read 4 tweets

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