This course focuses on the key security challenges in the contemporary Asia-Pacific region. The course assesses strategic challenges in all parts of the region including Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia, the South Pacific and Australasia. It includes coverage of great power strategic issues involving the regional role of China, Japan and the United States, as well as regional flashpoints including the Korean Peninsula and the Taiwan Straits. It also deals with the particular security challenges facing Southeast Asia (including terrorism in the region) and the South Pacific (including the security challenges facing Melanesian countries). The course also investigates some of the major thematic security issues in the Asia-Pacific region including regional security cooperation and transnational security issues.

On satisfying the requirements for this course, students will have built a strong analytical framework and sound empirical knowledge base with which to explain and understand the most pressing security challenges currently facing the Asia-Pacific. They will have a keen understanding of different approaches to geographically defining this complex and increasingly important region. They will have developed an in-depth understanding of traditional security challenges in this part of the world - such as managing relations between the region's 'great powers' (China, Japan, India, the United States and Russia). Students will also understand a range of newer, so-called non-traditional security challenges including terrorism, natural disasters, infectious disease and climate change. They will be able to evaluate the utility of possible solutions to this raft of challenges, such as multilateral institutions. Through a combination of formal lectures and classroom discussions, tutorials and a variety of written assessments, students completing this course will have built strong academic foundations in the field of Asia-Pacific security which will benefit them in other courses, as well as in their future academic and professional careers.

Assignments 60%, Examination 40%

Students undertaking this course could expect a workload of 20 hours a week. This is inclusive of actual contact hours for lectures and also out of class preparation time.

Delivery Mode:

On campus, Semester 2.