Future Reconfigurations in Asia

The Andrew W. Marshall Paper Prize on Future Reconfigurations in Asia 2045 sought submissions that explore the character of the Asia region over the coming decades. How might Asia be restructured internally? How might Asia interact with the non-Asian world in new ways? What could drive those changes? What might the consequences of those changes be?

Throughout his life, Andrew Marshall was interested in broad changes in the competitive environment. Beginning with his interest in Arnold Toynbee’s A Study of History, Marshall endeavored to understand the circumstances in which new actors or new regions rose to prominence while others dissipated, including the character of the social and cultural dynamics around these shifts.

In the late 1980s, Marshall began to suspect that such a broad change might be taking shape: as part of his participation in the Commission for Long Term Integrated Strategy, he and Charles Wolf directed a study of the future security environment. Completed in 1988, this study concluded that observable economic trends could reshape the world by making Asia – not Europe and North America – the economic center of gravity of the world. Though many others found this thesis fanciful, Marshall continued to sponsor research to understand the ways in which in which the countries of Asia might develop as economic and military powers, and the concomitant paths along which the Asia-Pacific region more generally might evolve.

Marshall was also interested in how Asia itself might develop new internal structures and institutions. Describing how the map of Europe had changed from 1900 to 2000, or a map of China’s borders during this same period, he encouraged analysts to consider how the map of the Asia-Pacific might change by 2050, and the dynamics that might drive those changes. Borders might change. Patterns of interactions within Asia might change. Europe in 1800 was shaped by family relations among trans-national dynastic elites, but by 1900 it was dominated by competitions among ethnolinguistic demographic cores identifying themselves as nations. Might Asia change in as dramatic and qualitative a way? Marshall encouraged cross-disciplinary work to understand these changes, and chronicle their histories and trajectories forward, to make informed forecasts for the United States about the possible shapes of the region in the decades to come.

The most obvious topic areas are the geostrategic changes that may come from Asia’s emergence as a major locus of global productivity. The re-emergence of Asia as the dominant economic force in the global economy has consequences for the character of Asia’s interaction with the rest of the world and the internal structure of the region.

Within this topic, papers might explore questions such as the implications of demographic change, the possible future course of economic developments, the role of scientific-technological competition, the prospect for new and existing alliances, the possible dynamics of protracted peacetime military competition among major military powers, scenarios of future conflict, or other aspects of the region that might affect the goals and national interests of the United States.

Papers could combine these themes to explore, for example, how new alliances might create the basis for unexpected military contingencies, or how changes in cultural, economic, and demographic conditions could drive the creation of new political regimes. AWMF encourages papers that explore other less obvious areas that could drive changes in the internal structure of Asia and the interactions between Asia and the rest of the world that emerge from many other dynamics, such as the biology of communicable disease, human interaction with the environment, or the global movement of human capital.

Speculation about future reconfigurations of Asia should be supported by data or analyses describing historical trends or developments, concrete observations about historical patterns, or another firm foundation for forecasts. Futures described should be well-supported by evidence, but they do not necessarily need to be likely or straight-line projections from today. Authors should place emphasis on addressing questions or aspects of problems frequently overlooked or insufficiently studied; originality and boldness will be rewarded.

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