This course provides an overview of the key security challenges facing the Asia-Pacific region. It begins by examining academic debates over definitions and conceptions of the term security and how these have played out in an Asia-Pacific context. It then provides an overview of key regional flashpoints – on the Korean Peninsula, across the Taiwan Strait, and over Kashmir – before looking at intrastate conflicts in Myanmar, Southern Thailand, the Southern Philippines and West Papua. It considers the security challenges posed by weak states through the lens of recent Australian-led interventions in the Solomon Islands and East Timor. It analyses those dilemmas occasioned by great power rivalries in Asia and the prospects for these drifting into more intense strategic competition with potential for major war. It canvasses a range of so-called non-traditional challenges, including environmental security challenges and transnational crime. The course concludes by considering the potential for regional institutions to meet this increasingly demanding security agenda and what it might imply for Australia's national security in the so-called Asian century.

• To provide course members with a general introduction to the demanding and diverse range of security challenges confronting the Asia-Pacific region.
• To equip course members with the basic frameworks required for undertaking more in-depth analysis of Asia-Pacific security challenges – international, internal and transnational – covered in later year core courses.
• To assist course members with developing the skills required to clearly and confidently articulate their ideas about Asia-Pacific security through in-class discussions, a variety of written assessments and tutorial based activities.

Tutorial attendance and participation (10 per cent); Short assignment (700 words) (20 per cent); Essay plan (500 words) (10 per cent); Research essay (2,500 words) (30 per cent); Take home exam (1,500 words) (30 per cent).

34 contact hours per semester

A 2-hour lecture session per week for twelve weeks and a 1-hour tutorial per week for ten weeks of the semester.

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An e-brick will be provided free of charge to course members