A Crowded Affair: Indo-Pacific’s Evolving Security Architecture and Delhi’s Path

 Keywords: Indo-Pacific Region, Security Architecture, India, the US, Russia, China

Date: 27th May, 2024

After the recent inauguration for his fifth term as President of Russia, Vladimir Putin made his first foreign trip to China, to solidify their “no limits” partnership. In the joint statement released with his Chinese counterpart President Xi Jinping, Moscow recognised that “Taiwan is an integral part of China”, and firmly supported “the actions of the Chinese Side to protect its own sovereignty and territorial integrity, as well as to unify the country.”

Moscow and Beijing also declared “their opposition to the creation of closed associations and bloc structures in the Asia-Pacific region, in particular, military alliances and coalitions directed against any third party” particularly noting “the negative impact on regional peace and stability of the US “Indo-Pacific” strategy.”

To give a historical reference and emphasise the dynamism of geopolitics in the region, whether it is referred to as Indo-Pacific or Asia-Pacific based on one’s strategic perceptions and calculations, the 1972 Shanghai Communique between the United States and China is worth recalling.

This joint communique, which was not only a hallmark in the US-China rapprochement but also had a significant impact on Asian geopolitics, noted, “…neither should seek hegemony in the Asia-Pacific region and each is opposed to efforts by any other country or group of countries to establish such hegemony.” It was geopolitical pragmatism, then, for Washington to leverage the rift between Beijing and Moscow, and for Beijing to join hands with capitalist America to manage the fallout of the Sino-Soviet differences.

Fast forward to 2024, a new comprehensive great power rivalry has emerged between the US and China, and the manifestation of new strategic orientations among the major stakeholders of the Indo-Pacific region, including India.

America’s current expression of threat perceptions and strategic responses form important components in the unclassified declaration of its national defence and military strategies where China occupies an infamous position in all of them. China’s military and technological rise is seen as the most prominent and long-term challenge to America’s global primacy, and one that the latter intends to counter with allies and like-minded partners.

As the fundamental logic of great power behaviour informs, Washington intends to recalibrate its foreign policy and national security toolkit to deter China’s growing material and ideational influence across the Indo-Pacific region. Besides the more formidable threat perceived from China’s assertive rise, Russia’s resurgent military threat, particularly to the European security order, and countries such as Iran and North Korea, are seen as posing clear and present dangers to US-led regional security frameworks.

However, many of its Indo-Pacific partners, including India, do not share the same threat perceptions, and in some cases where they do, the ways to deal with them do not necessarily align. For instance, a reported deal between India Port Global Limited (IPGL) and the Ports and Maritime Organization (PMO) of Iran to operate a terminal at the strategically located Chabahar port over 10 years, has ignited public displeasure from Washington and threat of American sanctions.

Therefore, how countries like India adapt to the implementation of America’s new concept of integrated deterrence will be imperative as integrated deterrence “entails working seamlessly across warfighting domains, theaters, the spectrum of conflict, all instruments of U.S. national power, and our network of Alliances and partnerships.”

Quite evidently, the regional security architecture in the Indo-Pacific has been evolving rapidly, with major powers reorienting their respective national security strategies to promote and protect their interests. The region has been a theatre of great power competition, contestation and confrontation during the Cold War as well, and as such, it is crowded with older security frameworks, alongside bilateral, multilateral and minilateral mechanisms that have emerged recently. 

A new grouping, generally being referred to as the Squad, involving the United States, Japan, Australia and the Philippines, is the new talk in the Indo-Pacific geopolitics. Already, there exists the AUKUS, the trilateral security partnership comprising the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom, which now partly envisions an evolving partnership with Japan, mainly aiming to augment cooperation in the defence industrial technologies, focusing on advances in areas including hypersonics, anti-submarine warfare and cyberweapons, as well as quantum computing and artificial intelligence.

Moreover, the recent release of America’s National Defense Industrial Strategy (NDIS) and the comprehensive arrangement between India and the US with the Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technology (iCET) reflects the risks and opportunities inherent in advances that are dramatically changing the way technologies impact defence, commerce, and development.

The emergence of any new minilateral in the Indo-Pacific, involving American allies and partners, has often questioned the relevance of the most comprehensively designed minilateral in the region, the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad), which includes the United States, India, Japan, and Australia.

As part of public diplomacy, the Quad as well as other minilaterals often project themselves as groupings that are not directed against any country. However, the China factor looms large in their strategic calculations and their goals are primarily geared towards deterring China's unilateral actions in the region. 

The Quad has made a strong leap from maritime cooperation, with a focus on Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR) activities, to a grouping of like-minded countries that intends to build a comprehensive network of public good distribution in the Indo-Pacific in a way that aligns with the aspirations for a rules-based order in the region.

Then, there are different permutations and combinations, including the China-led Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) and the US-led Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity (IPEF) that aim to shape the political economy of the Indo-Pacific region, often testing India’s negotiating strategies that aim to promote and protect its interest in the emerging geopolitical risks and opportunities.

Several other trilateral formats that India engages with its partners in the Indo-Pacific are intended to plug into the network of like-minded countries attempting to affect favourable outcomes in the politics, economics and security of the Indo-Pacific region.

Power transition in the region, primarily owing to China’s assertive rise, has led to new threat perceptions, responses, and counter-responses. India and China cannot totally de-couple their relationship, especially when it comes to economics and issues of multilateral global governance that requires them to coordinate.

However, China’s border transgressions and its unilateral activities in the region meant that the security dynamics between these Asian powers will remain competitive and lead to confrontations, occasionally. In this aspect, India’s strategic embrace of the United States and its allies is a response to the geopolitics and geo-economics of the Indo-Pacific informed by a hard-nosed realism to protect and promote its interest.

Monish Tourangbam is a New Delhi-based strategic analyst and the Honorary Director of the Kalinga Institute of Indo-Pacific Studies. He is a regular commentator on international affairs and Indian foreign policy.

Disclaimer: The views expressed above and the information available are those of the author/s and can therefore in no way be taken to reflect the position of Asian Confluence