How in the long run will the relationship between Russia, with its underdeveloped and underpopulated east, and China, with its massive population directly to the south, develop? Can China and India take their rightful places in the world and in their regions without further major military confrontations?
Does the fact that China and India are nuclear powers, and so is Pakistan, make the situation more stable as well as more dangerous, or just more dangerous? How will a potentially nuclear Iran influence the equilibrium? How important is the North Korean nuclear threat, and how long will Japan be willing to remain non-nuclear in the face of that and other threats?