Play The Diplomat’s Quiz: December 10, 2017 Edition

Last week, a modified Indian Air Force (IAF) Sukhoi Su-30MKI fighter jet took off from Kalaikunda airbase in West Bengal and fired a BrahMos supersonic, nuclear-capable cruise missile at a target ship in the Bay of Bengal. Flying over a distance of 260 kilometers, the missile effectively destroyed the vessel. This test is a game changer for Indian offensive prowess in the Indian Ocean region as the missile will act as a potent aircraft carrier killer due to its speed, range, and launch platform.

With months left before the Trump administration puts out its first Nuclear Posture Review in early 2018, the nonpartisan U.S. Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has released a new report [PDF] on the costs of operating, sustaining, and modernizing U.S. nuclear forces over the next 30 years.

The topline takeaways are familiar: over 30 years, modernization of the air-, sea-, and land-based legs of the nuclear triad, in addition to associated improvements, maintenance, and operation costs, would bring total costs of U.S. nuclear forces to around $1.2 trillion. On a per-year basis, that’s about $41.4 billion.

Taiwan’s Tsai administration scored a victory for the “New Southbound Policy” this week, as Taiwan and the Philippines inked an updated investment deal in Makati, the Philippines’ financial hub. Under President Tsai Ing-wen, Taiwan is pursuing closer links with South and Southeast Asia, in an attempt to hedge against overdependence on mainland China.

Taiwan’s representative to the Philippines, Gary Song-huann Lin, and his counterpart, Angelito Banayo, signed the deal on December 7, in a ceremony also attended by Taiwanese Vice Economics Minister Wang Mei-hua and the Philippine Trade Undersecretary Ceferino Rodolfo. According to Taiwan’s CNA, the agreement “puts in place mechanisms that make investments more transparent and the treatment of investors fairer, including provisions on how investors can seek government assistance when they run into trouble.”

Unlike most disturbances at the Line of Actual Control (LAC) that serves as the de facto China-India border, the Doklam standoff attracted a surplus of international attention and commentary. It was perhaps the most highly-scrutinized border incident between China and India in modern times, and the most volatile since a large military buildup in the Eastern Sector of the border dispute in the late 1980s.