SEPTEMBER 7-9: Traveling to Xian to present a paper, “Geography, Technology, and the Pacific Rivalry,” co-authored with Daryl G. Press (Dartmouth). The conference is entitled, “Building Tomorrow’s US-China Relations Amid Today’s Global Uncertainties,” and is co-sponsored by the Carter Center/Clemson University Center for China Studies/Global Times Foundation. Our paper, described here, departs from the conventional scholarly wisdom that expects geography to play a stabilizing role in East Asia, and describes how this maritime environment creates several challenges for the robustness of deterrence.