Volume 71, Number 1 (2018) Winter 2018

USS Harnett County, shown just before departure for Vietnam in 1966, is now BRP Sierra Madre. The dilapidated former U.S. tank landing ship is currently “on station” in the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea—aground on Ayungin, or Second Thomas, Shoal. Philippine marines stationed aboard the ship maintain a maritime presence to bolster their country’s claim to the disputed area, also claimed to varying degrees by China, Vietnam, and Malaysia.

In this issue, in “Getting Serious about Strategy in the South China Sea,” authors Hal Brands and Zack Cooper analyze the four basic strategic options by which the United States might respond to China’s mode of advancing its interests in this area of contrasting and conflicting claims, capabilities, methods, and values.