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Asia Program

Advancing U.S. security and prosperity while responsibly competing with China

The Asia Program seeks to operationalize and promote a U.S. grand strategy for Asia based on realism and restraint. That means capitalizing on a balance of power that favors defense, encouraging allies and partners to do more, and optimizing our posture to surge in the event of a crisis. While engaging with this dynamic region, the strategy seeks to advance U.S. security and prosperity and avoid a war with China.

Lyle Goldstein

China, Asia, Chinese military, Deterrence, Diplomacy, Drone warfare, Europe and Eurasia, Grand strategy, Great power competition, Naval power, North Korea, Nuclear weapons, Russia, South China Sea, South Korea, Taiwan, The Quad, and Ukraine-Russia

Director, Asia Program

Lyle Goldstein is director of the Asia Program at Defense Priorities.

Lyle J. Goldstein is the Director of Asia Engagement at Defense Priorities. In this role, he oversees a range of studies that evaluate U.S. foreign policy and defense strategy in the Asia-Pacific region, including with respect to such key flashpoints as the Korean Peninsula, the South China Sea, the Sino-Indian border, and Taiwan. He maintains expertise in both Chinese and Russian military strategic development, and also has knowledge regarding particular issues in the China-Russia relationship, including especially the Arctic and Central Asia.

Goldstein serves concurrently as Director of the China Initiative and Senior Fellow at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University. At Brown, he is investigating the costs of great power competition with both China and Russia in association with the Costs of War Project at Watson. He is also assisting in the further development of Watson’s China Initiative. He teaches a lecture course on “War and Strategy in the 21st Century.”

In October 2021, Goldstein retired after 20 years of service on the faculty at the U.S. Naval War College (NWC) after being promoted by his peers to the rank of Full Professor. During his career at NWC, he founded the China Maritime Studies Institute and has been awarded the Superior Civilian Service Medal for this achievement. He has written or edited seven books on Chinese strategy and is currently finishing a book that examines maritime aspects of the China-Russia quasi-alliance in the twenty-first century.

Goldstein has a PhD from Princeton, an MA from Johns Hopkins SAIS, and a BA from Harvard. He is fluent in both Chinese and Russian languages, and is studying Korean.

ASIA EXPERTS

Lyle
Goldstein

Director, Asia Program

Defense Priorities

Daniel
Davis

Senior Fellow & Military Expert

Defense Priorities

Benjamin
Friedman

Policy Director

Defense Priorities

Peter
Harris

Non-Resident Fellow

Defense Priorities

Jennifer
Kavanagh

Senior Fellow & Director of Military Analysis

Defense Priorities

Andrew
Latham

Non-Resident Fellow

Defense Priorities

David
McCourt

Non-Resident Fellow

Defense Priorities

Rajan
Menon

Non-Resident Senior Fellow

Defense Priorities

Mike
Sweeney

Non-Resident Fellow

Defense Priorities

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Asia Engagement

This program seeks to operationalize and promote a strategy of restraint for the U.S. in Asia.

This means capitalizing on a balance of power that favors defense to do less militarily and encourage allies and partners to do more. While engaging with this dynamic region, the strategy seeks, above all, to advance U.S. security and prosperity.

Within that broad framework, this program works to define U.S. defense policy goals in Asia and to chart a course of meeting them by laying out policies in the following areas:

Responsible competition with China: evaluating how exactly China challenges U.S. interests, bearing in mind the imperative to avoid a dangerous overreaction and treating it as an enemy
U.S. military posture, basing, force structure, and procurement and how these align with U.S. security interests
U.S. relations with major military allies in the region—Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, and Australia—and distribution of burdens and responsibilities within the alliances
The role of the U.S. on the Korean Peninsula and dealing with a nuclear-armed North Korea
Issues of common concern with China, including sea lane security, peacekeeping, anti-terrorism, energy, public health, climate change, arms control, and nuclear proliferation
Crisis management and escalation issues related to the delicate Taiwan issue and how the island could pursue viable self-defense
U.S. naval assets, presence, and patrols in the region, including freedom of navigation operations in the South China Sea
China’s prospects for continued improvement in its military capabilities and the implications for regional arms racing
U.S. relations with India and how that bilateral relationship might impact the regional security architecture
The closer relationship between China and Russia and resulting strategic implications for the U.S.