Review: Southeast Asia and Australia Indo-Pacific Strategy
Review: Southeast Asia and Australia Indo-Pacific Strategy
Amid evolving Indo-Pacific dynamics, a new book details how Australia should reimagine its security and shape engagement with key regions like Southeast Asia.
A new book details how Australia should reimagine its security in the Indo-Pacific and shape engagement with key regions like Southeast Asia.
WonkCount: 1,253 words (~ 6 minutes)
Review: Southeast Asia and Australia Indo-Pacific Strategy
Context
"[A] stable and sustainable strategic order in the Indo-Pacific cannot be contingent on the internal order of states or on illegitimate concepts such as containment,” Australia Defense Minister Richard Marles said at last week’s Shangri-La Dialogue defense forum in Singapore1. As we noted on ASEAN Wonk in a full assessment of key sessions for our readers, Marles’ speech captured Australia’s effort to calibrate between raising questions about aspects of behavior by both China and the United States while simultaneously staying clear of equivalence or wider cynicism about contested but important conceptions like the rules-based order. This calibration also factors into Australia’s outlook on the Indo-Pacific, which emerged far earlier in publicized government policy documents than it did even in the United States and has continued developing in strategic spaces such as Southeast Asia2.
Select Recent Developments in Australia-Southeast Asia Relations
A new book titled Girt By Sea: Re-Imagining Australia’s Security by academics Rebecca Strating and Joanne Wallis shines more light on Australia’s approach to the Indo-Pacific, including Southeast Asia. In doing so, it builds on works like Contest for the Indo-Pacific by scholar Rory Medcalf, one of the earliest adopters of the Indo-Pacific who stressed the power of the concept as a “mental map” in shaping statecraft and strategy3. Girt By Sea has 231 pages and seven main chapters, along with an introduction and conclusion4.
Analysis
Girt By Sea adopts a comprehensive lens to granularly analyze Australia’s Indo-Pacific security outlook. The book examines key maritime spaces around Australia — such as the South China Sea, the Indian Ocean and the Western Pacific — across a wide range of issues that include submarines, gray zone coercion, supply chains, energy, climate and illegal fishing5. It also highlights opportunities with subregions such as Southeast Asia, which is judged to be “fertile ground” for Canberra if it can look beyond a more blinkered ‘China competition’ lens6. “It was never wise for Australia to overlook its region, and as strategic competition intensifies, it is now unsustainable,” the authors warn in one pointed passage. “Reversing this habit will require Australia to reimagine how it understands and engages with its near region.”7
The book also provides specific recommendations across priority theaters (see table below for a summary of these priority theaters, major trends and key recommendations to watch. Paid subscribers can also read the rest of the “Analysis section” and an “Implications” section looking at how these dynamics may play out in the future).
Key Indo-Pacific Priority Theater Recommendations and Trends
