In south asia and the Indo-Pacific, we see ourselves as a region in churn—the geopolitical pathways wind their way to conflict and to peace; they crisscross in perpetual motion. India through its history has been a hub country, porous and permeable, weathering waves of migration, conquest and assimilation, and providing the ultimate definition of being (as the English poet Kathleen Raine put it) “the place of every arrival”.
The region is uneasy about the likelihood of intensified America-China rivalry, particularly after America’s debacle in Afghanistan. The two powers’ competition, confrontation and conflict—or the alternative, an unbridled Chinese hegemony—ought not be the sole, binary choice. A healthy multipolarity among countries, with roles for mid-sized ones as much as for great powers, would provide the ideal political equilibrium for the region.
All involved must understand that the strategy of each country is to safeguard national power, uphold self-interest but also to ensure survival. When superpowers try to trample each other, the ground trembles and fissures deepen for everyone else. The creation of aukus, an agglomeration of Australia, Britain and America, marks a new iteration of naval power in the Indo-Pacific. It is clearly designed to counter China’s capabilities, yet it gives rise to new uncertainties and greater risks of confrontation.
The Indian Ocean is one of the busiest trade channels in the world and its security is of crucial strategic importance. Even as America gets tough on China over trade and technology, and as their armed forces are adversarial, many Asian countries, notably mid-sized powers, watch this emerging “tournament of shadows” with unease. Choosing between superpowers is hardly easy and both belong in the region. Governments in the Indo-Pacific want to avoid geopolitical games: they have lives to improve, economies to develop, borders to secure, infrastructure to build and dreams to fulfil.
New alliances for new challenges
The waning of trust in American power and influence, however, is troubling. Even without a formal alliance with India, the United States is viewed as a natural ally: as a democracy, a champion of freedom and pluralism, and with numerous family ties between the countries.
This is why India places a premium on groupings like the Quad, which enable co-operation with like-minded democracies including Japan and Australia, along with America. India is focused on interests such as: the security of sea lanes in the Indo-Pacific; supply chains that are resilient to disruptions and are not held hostage by China; and the negotiated settlement of disputes in consonance with a rules-based international order.
But the Quad must not neglect the continental dimension of the region’s priorities. It must not turn away from salvaging a “development dividend” for Afghanistan that empowers women and promotes minority rights. Co-operative “grids” will be required, involving China and even Iran and Russia. Regional unity against terrorist forces and the Taliban’s known propensity to interact with such elements is crucial. There is also a need to ensure that Pakistan—which is said to have masterminded the Taliban’s resurrection, and is virtually the keeper of this graveyard of empires and thus deeply mistrusted by many Afghans—learns to work for Afghanistan’s betterment rather than its continued ruin.
All this entails co-operation across strategic divides and the adoption of rational approaches that work for the good of the Afghan people.
America’s lack of a grand strategy in the region lets the Chinese see this period as one of great opportunity. The situation has helped China and Russia build a closer partnership, in a display of strategic and political alignment. Theirs is an attempt to define a new, political environment which emphasises dealing with threats to internal stability above everything. Their abilities in the dark arts of online misinformation let them disrupt the existing global order.
There is today a blurring of boundaries between peace and war, military and civilian—grey zones where actions stay below the threshold of major conflict and advanced technologies are deployed in virtual and physical spaces. The cyber domain is as central to the theatre of contest in the Indo-Pacific as is sea and land. One of the areas identified for co-operation in the Quad is technology, and there is scope for a “grand coalescence” among members to collaborate in defence, aerospace, infrastructure, cyber-security and science.
America’s strength in relationships
Despite the failure in Afghanistan, a perceived eclipse of its power and troubling internal divisions, the United States does not have the luxury of time to reassert itself. Only America, with its technological prowess, leading research institutions and universities, open society, institutions of governance and constitutional freedoms can provide a sustainable alternative to China’s advance in the Indo-Pacific.
Yet America’s competition with China must not chart a course for the future of the region in a way that causes irrevocable fault lines. Simplifications like “my enemy’s enemy is my friend” or picking sides do not apply in South-East Asia in particular. Nations there are not averse to practising what some call “promiscuous diplomacy”. Hedging and balancing are in their political dna.
This is where a better understanding of the complex environment and the support of countries like Japan, India, Indonesia, Vietnam and Singapore can be invaluable to navigate what would otherwise be a perilous passage for America through the Indo-Pacific, as competition with China replaces the give-and-take of dialogue and engagement. The future of Taiwan is just one area where both wisdom and allies are needed.
China’s overreach can be countered by a strategy that covers demonstrations of military preparedness, including joint exercises and training, political and strategic dialogue with the region’s democracies, co-operation in critical technologies, promoting trade and supply-chain integration, and infrastructure connectivity.
At the same time, America and India can tap well-established mechanisms such as the East Asia Summit and the asean Defence Ministers' Meeting—which includes countries from outside the region. Countries in the region would prefer that America’s hub-and-spoke approach to security (where countries are connected to it but not to each other) be replaced by a regional order built on “multiple stilts of different sizes and functions” that match the architectural style for houses in the tropics, as nicely described by Evelyn Goh of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore.
The lessons of the past 20 years since 9/11 and the failures of America’s interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq show that more emphasis should have been placed on strengthening multilateral institutions, on reforming the United Nations to give voice to countries beyond a disunited five permanent Security Council members, and on abandoning economic sanctions as a default punishment that only raises ire against the West.
Today the world must tackle the misery and needs of millions of people displaced from their lands by the tumult of the post-9/11 world. America needs to lead the way, buoyed by its democratic values and an international order based on multilateralism.
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