It has become increasingly common to refer to the changing geopolitics of the so-called Indo-Pacific as representing something of a return to Cold War-style superpower rivalry and confrontation.
The logic underpinning this increasingly popular analogy is that the globe – with the Indo-Pacific as a kind of ground zero – is experiencing bipolarization between a U.S.-led vision of international order and a rival China-led vision. Key geopolitical flashpoints have emerged in Ukraine, Taiwan, and the South China Sea that evoke Cold War memories of Korea, Berlin, and Eastern Europe.
Certainly, the clear breakdown of the China-U.S. relationship over the last decade has precipitated a marked shift in rhetoric and there is an undoubted feeling of anxiety in the Indo-Pacific and, increasingly, growing paranoia between China and the United States.
But, there are significant differences between the current state of affairs and the original Cold War that make the analogy, at face value at least, clumsy and analytically bereft.
Crucially, the clear bipolarity that defined the Cold War is not present in the current system. Even though the erosion of U.S. unipolarity is important and changing international politics, the current system remains heavily interdependent, rendering it more interpolar than anything else.
Additionally, today there is not the same level of ideological messianism that enveloped the Cold War; if anything, there appears to be ideological ambivalence or even nihilism.
Yet, the Cold War is useful to help unlock a different perspective on the Indo-Pacific, as we argued in our recent article in The Pacific Review.
In this article, we push back on the dominant notion that the Indo-Pacific is a geopolitical region and rather identify it as an active attempt of macrosecuritization by a group of like-minded actors, chiefly the United States, Japan, Australia and, more recently, the European Union (and key member states like France) and the United Kingdom.
Macrosecuritization, a concept that was developed by Barry Buzan and Ole Waever, is a process whereby a state or collection of states (as the chief securitizing actors) identifies an “existential threat” to something deemed precious and worth protecting (a referent object), which demands an immediate and, if necessary, extraordinary collective response to protect it.
The discourse underpinning the growth of the idea of the Indo-Pacific geopolitical region – especially since the United States formally adopted the Indo-Pacific concept at the center of its strategic thinking and, in the process, identified China as a clear “strategic competitor” – can be interpreted as a macrosecuritization effort. The referent object is the rules-based international order (or, in the specific Indo-Pacific context, the “Free and Open Indo-Pacific”) and the existential threat is the rise of China.
The Cold War is an interesting case because, for Buzan and Waever, it can also be conceptualized as an example of macrosecuritization by a group of like-minded actors. In this case, the existential threat was the Soviet Union, with its nuclear weapons and Marxist-Leninist internationalism, and the referent object was Western notions of liberty, democracy, and human rights. The extraordinary policies this justified were many, ranging from bloc formation and a macro-strategy of containment, the creation of NATO (and SEATO), and interventions in Korea, Vietnam, Congo, and Chile (the list goes on and on).
Thus, the Cold War framing was an example of highly successful macrosecuritization – partly aided by the Soviet Union’s willingness to engage in competition, rivalry, and confrontation – as it dominated global and regional geopolitics (and popular culture) for the best part of four decades.
The Indo-Pacific, so far, is nowhere near as successful a macrosecuritization effort. Certainly, the growth of the Indo-Pacific in the security discourse of states is plain to see, as it has become the dominant frame used to discuss the geopolitics of broader Asia, the Indian Ocean, and the Pacific Ocean. This has precipitated a proliferation of Indo-Pacific strategies, ranging from within the Indo-Pacific (such as the United States, Australia, Canada, India and Japan, among others) to others that are farther away (such as the United Kingdom, the European Union, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Mongolia, and Lithuania, among others).
Furthermore, China – to a greater extent than the Soviet Union during the Cold War – has sought to desecuritize the Indo-Pacific by pointing out the underlying “Cold War mentality” of the concept. Instead, Beijing emphasizes the previously popular Asia-Pacific concept, which was not based on underlying macrosecuritization dynamics but rather rested on an optimistic vision of China’s rise. China has also attempted to shift focus from the geopolitical ramifications of its rise to the opportunities it presents, such as greater economic interaction, development and infrastructure partnerships, and a larger role for the Global South.
The Indo-Pacific macrosecuritization has also come unstuck by Trump 2.0. The Biden presidency – which espoused an “America must lead again” foreign policy platform – saw an escalation in macrosecuritization efforts. This led to the revitalization of the Quad, the creation of AUKUS, the launch of the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, and the creation of the Indo-Pacific 4 grouping at NATO Summits.
However, under the leadership of Trump, the Indo-Pacific has taken a notable backseat due to more pressing geopolitical issues in Ukraine and the Middle East, but also the U.S. president’s whimsical and idiosyncratic obsession with punitive tariffs and the search for “deals.”
The lack of Indo-Pacific thinking was most glaringly illustrated during Trump’s Oval Office meeting with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, in which he responded to a question about AUKUS by asking, “What does that mean?”
Ironically, for all the global unease and frustration Trump 2.0 has produced to date, when it comes to the Indo-Pacific, it has had something of a desecuritizing effect.
States that adopted the Indo-Pacific concept did so on the confidence that they were aligning with a powerful and trustworthy ally in the United States to balance the perceived threat of China. However, the way Trump has treated the United States’ closest allies and friends has left many states reconsidering their strategic positions.
For example, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently stated that he is seeking to return the Sino-India relationship to its previous standing before the 2020 border clashes in Galwan Valley. Japan and South Korea have also started engaging with China in order to reduce geopolitical tensions.
It is also clear that Trump does not view China as an existential threat but, rather, as a state he might be able to make a deal with – despite China being one of the clear targets of his tariff strategy so far. In a visit to Beijing in March, Senator Steve Daines stated that his trip was “the first step to an important next step, which will be a meeting between President Xi and President Trump.”
Furthermore, whispers from the White House suggest that Trump is keen to strike an agreement – primarily to do with trade but also attaching issues of nuclear weapons and regional security – with China similar to the 2020 one he orchestrated.
Seemingly, Trump’s goal is not to contain China, but rather to bring it to the negotiating table.
Even if a grand deal between the United States and China does not materialize, it appears that the underpinning of the macrosecuritization dynamics that drove the geopolitical instability of the Indo-Pacific in recent years has receded since Trump returned to power. Thus, unlike the Cold War, which was a clear-cut case of successful macrosecuritization, the idea that the Indo-Pacific “region” is headed for decades of geopolitical strife should not be viewed as a fait accompli but rather as something more fluid and contestable.
