"As Far Forward As Possible"

Of the territorial disputes in Asia since1945that have resulted in periodic violence, the vast majority have been fought between what some international relations scholars classify as rivals. In addition to being more violent, territorial disputes between rivals have been much more difficult to resolve. Yet despite what the literature contains about how rivalry conditions influence states to behave differently from states in non-rival dyads, most territorial dispute research still attempts to explain different outcomes across a wide range of cases while failing to take the presence or absence of rivalry into account. This study therefore seeks to focus on explaining states’territorial dispute strategies solely in the context of rivalry. What factors lead these states to attempt violent coercion or make peaceful concessions? This question is important for both international relations scholars and policymakers for several reasons. First, this research will test the validity of existing theories of both rivalry and territorial dispute management, and advance an improved theoretical framework for better understanding the use of violence or concessions in territorial disputes. Second, this study aims to improve the understanding of scholars and policymakers of five territorial dispute-rivalries in Asia, including China and India, India and Pakistan, Indonesia and Malaysia, China and the Soviet Union, and China and Vietnam. This study finds that in these disputes the timings of the outcomes of escalation or compromise are best explained by a framework built on the rivalry literature’s domestic and international mechanisms of rivalry maintenance and termination.