Search

Begin New Search Political Geography Indo-Pacific Author Thomas S. Wilkins

1. Searching for a middle path: ASEAN and the “Indo Pacific”

Author:
Thomas S. Wilkins
Publication Date:
02-2020
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Japan Institute Of International Affairs (JIIA)
Abstract:
The notion of the “Indo Pacific” (IP) as a regional construct has gained significant traction in the last few years, at least in part due to its adoption in the centerpiece “Free and Open Indo Pacific” (FOIP) strategies of the United States and Japan. The continued application of the term by policymakers, analysts and scholars has served to further entrench its prominence within the regional security discourse. As a consequence, all states with major interests in this “new” region have felt compelled to engage with the concept and formulate appropriate policies to embrace or otherwise react to it. This task is made all the more difficult due to the fluidity of its definitions, interpretations, and the differing motivations of competing regional states that either adopt or reject it.
Topic:
Regional Cooperation, Geopolitics, and ASEAN
Political Geography:
Japan, United States of America, and Indo-Pacific

2. Does Australia have an “Indo Pacific strategy”?

Author:
Thomas S. Wilkins
Publication Date:
07-2019
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Japan Institute Of International Affairs (JIIA)
Abstract:
The US Department of Defense (DOD) released its longawaited Indo Pacific Strategy Report (IPSR) in tandem with the IISS-Shangrila Dialogue in Singapore on 1 June 2019. This IPSR appears to subsume or extend the earlier Free and Open Indo Pacific (FOIP) strategy (sometimes referred to now as a “vision”) into a more comprehensive regional Indo Pacific Strategy (IPS), that is anchored in the earlier 2017 National Security Strategy (NSS) and 2018 National Defense Strategy (NDS) documents. Australia has yet to produce an analogous document dedicated to profiling its own “Indo Pacific Strategy”, but with the US iteration in view, it is possible to construct an plausible image of such a strategy in the Australian case by drawing upon various pertinent materials from a range of government sources. Indeed, the notion of an overarching IPs is gradually taking shape in Australian strategic thinking, as testified to by a variety of official documents, including large portions of the 2016 Defence White Paper, and especially 2017 Foreign Policy White Paper, alongside other policy statements and initiatives, framed in the context of analysis and debate undertaken by nationally-based strategic commentators. A small case “s” in “Indo Pacific strategy” is specifically employed in this paper to distinguish the author’s conception from any formally mandated government “Strategy”.
Topic:
Defense Policy, International Affairs, and Grand Strategy
Political Geography:
Australia, Australia/Pacific, and Indo-Pacific

3. The Quad process: The evolution of diplomatic and maritime security cooperation in the Indo Pacific

Author:
Thomas S. Wilkins
Publication Date:
12-2019
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Japan Institute Of International Affairs (JIIA)
Abstract:
The US-Japan-Australia-India Quadrilateral Strategic Dialogue (QSD), or simply “Quad,” process continues to attract the attention of policy-makers, analysts, and scholars interested in the impact of this new and potentially significant alignment formation on the security dynamics of the Indo Pacific region. The reemergence of the Quad meetings in 2017 after their abrupt termination over a decade ago in 2007 has led analysts to wonder if it is now here to stay this time as an enduring additional component of the region’s multifarious security architecture. It has also animated a heated debate about its true nature and purpose, with commentators bitterly divided in their appraisal. Some believe it lacks real substance and cohesion, whilst others argue it has the portentous makings of a new military alliance aimed at containing the PRC. Nevertheless, despite prodigious efforts on behalf of the strategic commentariat, the actual substance and nature of the Quad itself remains enveloped by mixed signals, misapprehensions, and mischaracterizations. As Graeme Dobell recounts: ‘The Quad is more notable for the questions it provokes than the answers it offers.’
Topic:
Security, Diplomacy, International Cooperation, and Maritime
Political Geography:
Japan, India, United States of America, and Indo-Pacific

4. The Role for Middle Powers in the Free and Open Indo-Pacific: Looking at Opportunities for Canada and Australia

Author:
John Berkshire Miller and Thomas S. Wilkins
Publication Date:
06-2019
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Japan Institute Of International Affairs (JIIA)
Abstract:
The Indo-Pacific, as a geographic concept that connects the vast oceans of Pacific and the Indian along with the states in between, is not a new idea. Indeed, the idea of a broader geographic region – rather than more traditional subsets such as East Asia, South Asia, or the more expansive Asia-Pacific – has been used for more than a decade by scholars and practitioners in the region. An Indian naval captain began using the concept in geopolitical terms more than a decade ago, but the terminology has not been limited to scholars in Delhi. Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, back during his first stint as Prime Minister in 2007, spoke to India’s parliament about his country’s vision for Indo-Pacific noting a “confluence of the two seas” and pressed for a need to transcend beyond traditional frameworks that often separated or minimized the geopolitical connections between South Asian and the Indian Ocean region with that of East Asia and the Pacific.
Topic:
Regional Cooperation, International Affairs, and Geopolitics
Political Geography:
Canada, Australia, Asia-Pacific, and Indo-Pacific