DKI APCSS professor Cmdr. Jonathan G. Odom has an article featured in the March issue of Proceedings magazine, highlighting the growing tactical risk arising in the geopolitical competition between the United States and China.  The article, entitled “China’s ‘Riskfare’,” calls for the United States to spotlight China’s risky operational behavior in and over the waters of the Asia-Pacific region and take deliberate actions to counter these dangerous tactics.

Odom points out that “Risk is not always synonymous with threat.”  However, China’s behavior, particularly in and overthe South China Sea and East China Sea, produces risk and elevates it to a weapon, hence the term “Riskfare.”   The desired effect of this riskfare is to achieve the objective of anti-access and aerial denial, minus kinetic force that would trigger the use of force in self-defense.  He calls this riskfare a “serious situation, involving risk to human lives” and calls for the United States and other nations to scrutinize Beijing’s commitment to operational safety in the oceans and airspace of the Asia-Pacific region.

In the article, Odom provides recommendations for policy approaches to deal with this riskfare and geopolitical competition.

Read the full article on the Proceeding website at:   https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2019/march/chinas-riskfare

Proceedings is a magazine published monthly by the U.S. Naval Institute.  Launched in 1874, it is one of the oldest continuously published magazines in the United States, and is widely read by Naval officers, experts, and enthusiasts around the world.

Cmdr Jonathan Odom is a military professor at the Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies. The views expressed in the article are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of DKI APCSS, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.