Publication Year: 2022
Tailored engagement: Assessing Japan’s strategic culture and its impact on U.S. – China competition
DOI: 10.1080/01495933.2022.2087434
Abstract: The concept of “Strategic Culture” has enjoyed a resurgence in the last two decades as a method for understanding the behavior and decision making of potential adversaries. Strategic culture assessment methodologies offer a way to examine the policy choices of states, while accounting for ethnocentric biases. While these assessments have been used widely for analyzing adversaries, they are underutilized in assessing allies. The emergence of great power competition between the U.S. and China will increase pressure on the U.S.-Japan alliance. Increasing the understanding of Japan’s strategic culture will provide the United States insight into ways to engage with Japan to make strategies to compete with China more effective.
Publication Year: 2022
The Biden Administration’s First Year in the Indo-Pacific: Balancing, Order-Building and Managing Competition with China
DOI: 10.1080/13439006.2022.2026635
Abstract: The Biden administration’s engagement in the Indo-Pacific is driven by three major endeavors: balancing, order-building, and management of competition with China. The US is currently enhancing its balancing act by leveraging its alliance with Australia epitomized by AUKUS and the Enhanced Force Posture Cooperation launched by AUSMIN. Order-building advanced by the Quad is promoting three functions: regional public goods provision, mutual resilience enhancement, and standard-setting for critical and emerging technologies. The Biden administration is attempting to pursue “responsible competition” with China, but its ultimate goals remain undefined. Based on these observations, the article will conclude by pointing out major tasks that lie ahead for the Biden administration in these areas.
Publication Year: 2021
China–US Strategic Competition and the Descent of a Porous Curtain
DOI: 10.1093/cjip/poab008
Abstract: Since the onset of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) global pandemic, Sino–US strategic rivalry has dramatically heightened to a pitch where there is a mounting discussion over whether or not China and the United States have embarked on a “new Cold War.” There are three main views in this regard. The first is that China and the United States have indeed entered a new Cold War; the second is that China and the United States are heading for a new Cold War; and the third is that China and the United States will not descend into a new Cold War. Different views reflect different scholarly understandings of the essential properties of the Cold War concept. Fundamentally, the two core features of the Cold War were ideological confrontation and proxy war. Considering that current US–China strategic competition is in the technological rather than ideological domain, and that neither side has instigated any proxy war; however, the phrase “new Cold War” is inappropriate; that of “Porous Curtain” is more apt. The ever-narrowing power gap between China and the United States has undoubtedly prompted the US government’s adoption of a policy of blockade and containment to curb China’s rising power. However, the deep integration of the international system and historical inertia of US–China interaction preclude the US’s complete isolation from China. This has resulted in bilateral relations of a more porous nature. Although the future may not be promising, competition does not necessarily lead to conflict. For this reason, managing the bilateral competitive relationship and striving towards coexistence under competition should be the key task of both countries.
Publication Year: 2021
The US–China Rivalry in the Emerging Bipolar World: Hostility, Alignment, and Power Balance
DOI: 10.1080/10670564.2021.1945733
Abstract: This article argues that although the US–China rivalry has not presented with some essential elements of the US–Soviet Cold War, the emerging bipolarity has led to misplaced ideological hostility and repeated failling attempts of building alliance systems. Delicate power balance between the two countries has further complicated the rivalry by giving each side the false conviction to prevail.
Publication Year: 2021
Balancing China: Indo-US relations and convergence of their interests in the Indo-Pacific
DOI: 10.1080/09733159.2021.1952618
Abstract: The Indo-Pacific has emerged as an important region in international politics where the major powers are deeply engaged in reshaping the security architecture. Over the last few years, India and China have drawn their policies by employing competitive strategies that strengthen as well as neutralise their respective power positions in the Indian Ocean Region, particularly in South Asia and the South China Sea. China’s “String of Pearls” strategy and the “Belt and Road Initiative” undermine India’s influence in the Indian Ocean Region, where the changing geo-economic and geostrategic imperatives pose threat to its interests. This mounts pressure on New Delhi to respond by pursuing counter-strategies to secure its interests in the Indo-Pacific region. The article further explains how India and the United States’ interests are converging against an assertive China in the Indo-Pacific and how the two states’ security and maritime collaborations are balancing their common rival by maintaining a favourable status quo in the region.
Publication Year: 2021
Unravelling the Thucydides’ Trap: Inadvertent Escalation or War of Choice?
DOI: 10.1093/cjip/poaa023
Abstract: No other text in the intellectual history of International Relations has become as frequent a victim of confirmation bias and selective presentism as has Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War. Most recently, misinterpretations of the classical treatise have engendered the popular catchphrase, “the Thucydides’ Trap”, and thinkers and politicians’ resultant drawing of erroneous parallels between the Peloponnesian War and current Sino-US relations. This article seeks to deconstruct the Thucydides’ Trap core thematic of inadvertent escalation, and to outline the logic of hegemonic transition as it is actually expounded by Thucydides. Although Thucydides is the first thinker in the West clearly to identify the significance of structure in interstate affairs, his hegemonic transition theory is complex rather than purely systemic. Thucydides thus dedicates most of his work to assessing the strategic decisions made in fervid political debates, evidencing his perception of polity and politics as key elements that dynamically interact with structural conditions to effectuate strategic choice. Consequently, the Peloponnesian War was not an outcome of inadvertent escalation, but of premeditated strategic choices made by adversaries with clashing policy objectives. Therefore, within the structural constraints, it is on leadership and strategy that Thucydides puts a premium, and hence prioritizes prudence (Sophrosyne/Σωφροσύνη) as the most consequential virtue of statesmanship. Building on the Thucydidean logic of hegemonic transition, we conclude by presenting six strategic corollaries of contemporary Sino-US relations, remaining attentively cognizant at all times of the limitations of historical analogies, and abiding by ex antiquis et novissimis optima.
Publication Year: 2021
The Quad: An emerging multilateral security framework of democracies in the Indo-Pacific region
Abstract: The Indo-Pacific region houses the largest share of global GDP, the world’s busiest trade routes, largest population and most powerful militaries. After having successfully worked side by side in coordinating the 2004 tsunami relief, in 2007 Australia, India, Japan and the US (the Quad, short for Quadrilateral Security Dialogue) held meetings with each other to discuss security-related issues, and their navies held a military exercise. Although the grouping ended its activities prematurely in 2008, China’s growing assertiveness in the region prompted it to remain active in bilateral and trilateral cooperation on security issues. Meetings among senior officials resumed in November 2017 in Manila. In November 2020, the Quad navies held a major military exercise. The first Quad summit took place in March 2021. The grouping has emphasised that its goal is to maintain the liberal rules-based international order, which China seeks to undermine through a revisionist challenge of the status quo. Its efforts are not focused on creating institutions or military alliances, but rather, on generating gradual convergence of cooperation on multiple issues, including Covid-19, climate change, critical and emerging technologies, counterterrorism, cybersecurity and disaster recovery. Establishing further cooperation with other like-minded countries in the region and co-existing with ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) are among the Quad’s future challenges. The EU is not a traditional security player in the Indo-Pacific; however, as the region is particularly relevant to its trade, it has a strong interest in avoiding disruption of the sea lanes. The Indo-Pacific could be an area of cooperation with the new US administration. France, Germany and the Netherlands have published strategies or guidelines for the Indo-Pacific region, which has stepped up expectations about the forthcoming strategy for the region by the EU as a whole.
Publication Year: 2021
Building Resilient Global Supply Chains: The Geopolitics of the Indo-Pacific Region
Abstract: Global supply chains have evolved in recent decades with the aim of maximizing efficiency. However, rising labor costs in China and protectionist trends globally, especially in the United States, have forced a shift in approaches to international commerce, and the Covid-19 pandemic and acceleration of strategic rivalry between the United States and China have made the restructuring of supply chains an urgent task. Global companies are now searching for responses to supply chain challenges such as “reshoring,” “near-shoring,” and “China+1,” while the United States and China devise strategies to protect their own industries and improve their international competitiveness. The risk for companies being drawn into U.S.-China strategic competition, including the potential violation of U.S. sanctions, will also increase. For the global business community, a careful strategy to rebuild a resilient supply chain is indispensable, and nowhere is that more important than in the Indo-Pacific, the center of dynamism in the global economy.
Publication Year: 2020
Allied Decoupling in an Era of US–China Strategic Competition
DOI: 10.1093/cjip/poaa014
Abstract: The turn towards an openly competitive relationship between the United States and China today carries acute consequences for U.S. policy toward North Korea (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea or DPRK) and South Korea (Republic of Korea or ROK). The military and economic requirements of enacting such a policy of competition with China complicates U.S. policy with its ally South Korea, as it exacerbates three core dilemmas that the ROK contends with regarding China. These dilemmas compel choices for a U.S. ally that must increasingly become zero-sum in nature where Seoul must make choices that alienate its patron ally or its neighbor. This article draws out propositions for how changes in U.S.-China relations impacts strategy on both sides of the Korean peninsula. The primary finding is that changes in the independent variable (U.S.-China relations) have opposing impacts on South Korean and North Korean strategic thinking (dependent variable). What might be considered opportunities afforded by U.S.-China relations to South Korea are seen as threats by North Korea. Conversely opportunities created by U.S.-China relations for North Korea register as threats for South Korea.
Publication Year: 2020
Why Quasi-Alliances Will Persist in the Indo-Pacific? The Fall and Rise of the Quad
DOI: 10.1177/2347797020962620
Abstract: The rise of and increasing assertiveness by China presents a significant structural challenge in the Indo-Pacific region (IPR). In an effort to retain the status quo, a number of states have signed-up to the ‘free and open Indo-Pacific’ (FOIP). In support of FOIP, operational mechanisms have emerged—most importantly the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad). The United States, Japan, Australia and India have come together in this informal format to exchange views on current security challenges and coordinate their strategic approaches. This article analyses both form and function of Quad and argues that both the diplomatic and military arrangements between Quad members are a direct response to ever-increasing Chinese assertiveness. Alongside a detailed empirical analysis of Quad, this paper addresses the question why Quad 2.0 will thrive although previous attempts at security networks failed. Balance of threat theory will illuminate why informal quasi-alliances vis-à-vis China are going to be the structural new normal for the IPR.
Publication Year: 2020
Sino-US Disorder: Power and Policy in Post-COVID Indo-Pacific
DOI: 10.1177/2631684620940448
Abstract: Great powers have invested in order-building projects with competing vision of political values and ideologies. How the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic shapes the balance of power and order are debated. The pandemic arrived in the midst of Sino-US strategic contestation, a crumbling European project, de-globalisation and contested economic governance architecture. While the pandemic exacerbated Washington abdicating leadership role, Beijing also has alienated itself from the followers of rules based order. It has sharpened the clash of rhetoric, narratives, and perceptions. The pandemic will reorganise the international system and power structures. Situating the Indo-Pacific project in this backdrop, this article critically analyses the debates, discourses and nuanced divergences that are shaping the Indo-Pacific puzzle in the power corridors of Washington, Tokyo and Delhi, in addition to mapping Beijing’s approach to Indo-Pacific. The article evaluates the contrast in their respective visions of order, China strategy, ASEAN centrality and multilateral free-trade regimes. But these subtle departures have not restricted major Indo-Pacific powers to weave a strategic web of democracies and pursue a win-win issue-based multi-alignment on matters of mutual strategic interests. With new realities in play, the India-US-Japan triangle will feature as one of the key building blocks of Indo-Pacific to deliver on the shared responsibility of providing global public goods.
Publication Year: 2020
Emerging Contours of Contemporary Asian Maritime Connectivity: Economic and Strategic Objectives
DOI: 10.1177/0974928420936136
Abstract: This article intends to look at how contemporary and future Asian connectivity linkages are likely to impact Asian geopolitics and geo-strategy. While China has dominated the contemporary connectivity discourse with its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), other players such as Australia, India, Japan and the USA are engaged in their own connectivity bids which often converge and intersect in the region. As a result, the countries involved in the Indo-Pacific cross-linkages are tacitly entering a game of one-upmanship. Influence through connectivity linkages has also shifted the discourse around balance of power for countries to balance of influence. It is in this context that initiatives such as the Mausam find centrality in the country’s changing outlook. This article attempts to look at Asian connectivity from a dual perspective of economic competition, on one hand, and strategic calculations, on the other hand. The scope of the article is limited to analysing China, India and Japan as leading Asian countries in the emerging connectivity competition, besides the USA as the most important external players in Asian connectivity geopolitics and geo-strategy.
Publication Year: 2020
Indo-US Convergence of Agenda in the new Indo-Pacific Regional Security Architecture
DOI: 10.1177/0262728020915564
Abstract: Strengthened Indo-US proximity has become a notable factor in the regional security architecture of the Indo-Pacific region, and also it raises ongoing concerns about its robustness. This article analyses the geostrategic, geoeconomic, security-related and defence-connected Indo-US relations in the region over the last two decades, highlighting the growing multidimensional convergence of US and Indian interests in the Indo-Pacific regional security architecture. In the final part, this article also sketches the future implications of Indo-US proximity and seeks to identify potential risks.
Publication Year: 2020
The Indo-Pacific Strategy and US Alliance Network Expandability: Asian Middle Powers’ Positions on Sino-US Geostrategic Competition in Indo-Pacific Region
DOI: 10.1080/10670564.2020.1766909
Abstract: Will the US-led Indo-Pacific strategy lead to an extensive alliance network against China? This article shifts focus to non-Quad Asian states—in particular, Indonesia, Vietnam, and South Korea—that face a strategic dilemma in the US-China competition and examines their positions regarding a rising China and the Indo-Pacific strategy. While reluctant to join the US strategy for the Indo-Pacific region, Asian middle powers now aim to tame, rather than contain, China despite their slight variations of response to the Indo-Pacific strategy. The US and its three partners—Japan, India, and Australia—have not been successful yet in recruiting new members to their coalition, mainly because of the declining hegemon’s (seemingly) weakened commitment to a liberal international order and the rising challenger’s (potential) opposition and punishment.
Publication Year: 2022
Enhancing Democratic Partnership in the Indo-Pacific Region
Abstract: This study builds on a report CSIS published in 2020 on ways the United States can partner with allies and partners to enhance democratic partnership in the Indo-Pacific region. This follow-on effort includes case studies on the democracy support efforts of Australia, Japan, India, Indonesia, South Korea, and Taiwan; comparisons of democracy support strategies; data on official development assistance (ODA) funding related to democracy broadly defined; and recommendations for ways the United States can coordinate democracy support initiatives in the region with like-minded partners as well as regional networks and institutions.
