east Archives - Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies

Philippines

By APCSS Editor|2020-03-31T15:35:54-10:00March 31st, 2020|

Richard Siga-an (EC05-2) The COVID-19 pandemic is testing the resilience of the Philippines and her resolve to cope. A common action is quarantine or community locked-down to prevent people from roaming around and spreading the virus. While lock-down is seen as closing the borders, it actually could be viewed as a unifying factor among political entities in inter-state or intra-state relationships. The armed services were tapped to either lead or support the implementation of lock-down. There is an Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF), headed by the President and the Secretary of Health and the armed services are part of it. At the moment, the Philippines immediate problem in the community lock-down is logistics and the President has delegated the power to source logistical requirements to local government units. The IATF is encouraging self-quarantine for those persons under investigation and monitoring of the possible [...]

East Asia Implications

By APCSS Editor|2020-04-06T09:14:29-10:00March 27th, 2020|

By: Lt.Gen.(ret) Jun Nagashima (TSC 15-1) As the world is united and fighting against this coronavirus, I would like to provide my insights on East Asia from a long-term security perspective. Here, I would like to elaborate on three points. One is that some of the weaknesses of biological weapons have been resolved, assuming that the virus will be more utilized as a weapon in the future. I think this incident might increase the accessibility, ease of use, and transportability of biological weapons, which raises our anxiety in the case where these could be used by extreme terrorists. The second is [...]