The Indo-Pacific as An Emerging Geography of Strategies

The hardening rivalry between the US and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is now taken as a given, and many will agree that the theater of this strategic competition is the Indo-Pacific. Spanning the Pacific and Indian Ocean worlds, this region is a vast, maritime arena that defies control in a way the terrestrial world does not. This is where China, the US and other major powers attempt to spread their influence or, conversely, see it diminished. While many states across the world continue to support the existing rules-based order, the attempts made by China, in particular, to disrupt and revise it have cast doubt on its sustainability. This challenge is most salient in the Indo-Pacific, which also happens to be the location of the world’s most populous states, China and India, and where global wealth is progressively being concentrated.In this introductory chapter, we will present an overview of the Indo-Pacific as an emerging geography of strategies. First, the authors argue that the Indo-Pacific is an overture for principled regionalism. Second, we examine strategic opportunities and conundrums for the Indo-Pacific states. Third, this chapter addresses critical issues related to Eurasia in terms of the Indo-Pacific. The maritime-driven Indo-Pacific narrative understandably tends to omit its geographical counterpart, yet the question of Eurasia remains a serious conceptual challenge. Lastly, we present the organization of this book and introduce the subsequent chapters as well as our authors’ valuable scholarly contributions