{"id":6096,"date":"2013-05-07T12:35:33","date_gmt":"2013-05-07T02:35:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=6096"},"modified":"2013-05-08T00:11:55","modified_gmt":"2013-05-07T14:11:55","slug":"the-indo-pacific-places-australia-at-the-centre-of-the-action","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/the-indo-pacific-places-australia-at-the-centre-of-the-action\/","title":{"rendered":"The ‘Indo-Pacific’ places Australia at the centre of the action"},"content":{"rendered":"
The Strategist<\/em> is giving the White Paper\u2019s newest strategic construct\u2014the \u2018Indo-Pacific strategic arc\u2019\u2014short shrift. Peter Jennings suggests it still needs thinking through<\/a>.\u00a0Rob Ayson sees it as nothing more than a smokescreen<\/a>. I\u2019m not sure I can agree with them.<\/p>\n Strategists notoriously crave neat metaphors. This latest one contains echoes of Paul Dibb\u2019s famous \u2018arc of instability\u2019 which, with characteristic precision, <\/span>Dibb used to describe the area to the North and East of Australia<\/a> (PDF) that \u2018stretches from the Indonesian archipelago, Timor-Leste and Papua New Guinea in the North, to the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Fiji, New Caledonia and New Zealand in the East.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n This degree of precision has thus far been absent from discussions on the Indo-Pacific. The <\/span>National Security Strategy<\/a><\/em> (PDF) was unduly sloppy in this regard, asserting that \u2018use of the term ‘Indo-Pacific’ complements the term ‘Asia-Pacific’\u2014they’re both useful frames through which to view Australia\u2019s national security interests\u2019. Such an approach served only to undermine the sense of coherence that the Gillard government has sought to achieve by releasing a trio of White Papers in such close succession.<\/span><\/p>\n Some Indo-Pacific enthusiasts have used the term quite broadly. In his inaugural SDSC <\/span>Centre of Gravity<\/em> paper, for instance, Rory Medcalf of the Lowy Institute <\/span>saw the Indo-Pacific<\/a> as \u2018encompassing both the Pacific and Indian Oceans, defined in part by the geographically expanding interests and reach of China and India, and the continued strategic role and presence of the United States in both\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n Defence Minister Smith <\/span>favours a similar broad brush approach<\/a>, referring to the Indo-Pacific as an amalgam of \u2018the Asia-Pacific and the Indian Ocean Rim\u2019. Others adopt a far narrower conception. DFAT Secretary Peter Varghese, for instance, sees the Indo-Pacific construct matching \u2018neatly\u2019 with the expanded East Asia Summit. <\/span>In a recent speech to the Asia Society<\/a>, Varghese referred to an emerging Indo-Pacific strategic arc that extends \u2018from India, through Southeast Asia toNortheast Asia.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n Yet none of these formulations is completely satisfactory. Insufficient strategic interdependence exists between the relatively large and diverse range of countries encompassed in the Medcalf and Smith approaches to justify calling the Indo-Pacific a \u2018strategic system.\u2019 For instance, the relevance to Australian strategy of Indian Ocean Rim countries such as Madagascar, Mauritius, Mozambique, Seychelles and Tanzania is presently unclear.<\/span><\/p>\n Similarly, there is little substantive difference between Varghese\u2019s narrower Indo-Pacific conception and existing regional descriptors, namely the Asia-Pacific. To be sure, India is arguably not an Asia-Pacific country\u2014a fact reflected by its continued exclusion from APEC. Yet other institutions with a distinctly Asia-Pacific flavor\u2014namely the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF)\u2014have shown sufficient flexibility here.<\/span><\/p>\n Clearly some middle ground between the Medcalf\/Smith and Varghese approaches could usefully be found. Before contemplating what that might be, however, it’s important to acknowledge the case for throwing up one\u2019s hands and abandoning the Indo-Pacific term altogether.<\/span><\/p>\n While that may seem pointless given that the construct has now officially become part of Australian Defence policy, the White Paper implicitly\u2014and probably quite unintentionally\u2014actually calls its own Indo-Pacific construct into question. The vast majority of the regional flashpoints it refers to, for instance, are concentrated in discrete sub-regions where no clear Indo-Pacific logic applies. Take the Korean Peninsula, East China Sea and Taiwan tensions in Northeast Asia. The fact that these flashpoints are arguably alsoAsia\u2019s most dangerous suggests that this particular deficiency with the Indo-Pacific construct cannot be too readily dismissed.<\/span><\/p>\n