Australia and the challenges of order-building in the Indian Ocean region

Abstract

This article considers the regional order-building challenges that Australia presently confronts in the Indian Ocean region (IOR). The author argues that while regional stability within the IOR constitutes an increasingly important Australian security interest, policy makers will struggle to translate the order-building strategies they have previously pursued in East Asia into an Indian Ocean context. In East Asia, Australia has historically pursued a ‘dual track’ order-building strategy centred on its participation in a US-dominated ‘hub and spokes’ alliance system alongside multilateral regional engagement. The absence of an equivalent alliance system or an established tradition of multilateral security diplomacy conversely precludes an extension of this strategy into the IOR. Growing tensions between the USA and China and between China and India, meanwhile, further complicate IOR security dynamics, while underscoring the urgent need for a more coherent approach to regional order-building. With these challenges in mind, the author concludes by proposing a range of bilateral, minilateral and multilateral initiatives that Australia should pursue to stimulate the emergence of a more cooperative IOR security environment.

Keywords:

• Australia
• Indian Ocean region
• regional order
• regional security architecture

Notes

1. This paper evolved from my public submission to the Senate Inquiry into the Indian Ocean and Australia's Foreign, Trade and Defence Policy, and formed the basis of my subsequent testimony as an expert witness called to testify before the Senate Inquiry on 17 August, 2012.

2. Kurt Campbell's pending departure as Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and Pacific Affairs and Hillary Clinton's intention not to serve a second term as Secretary of State may invite scepticism concerning the durability of the US ‘rebalancing’ towards Asia, given the prominent role both played in championing this shift in US foreign policy. The breadth of US diplomatic outreach towards established and new regional strategic partners, together with the apparent increase in local demand for US security assistance following tensions in the South and East China Seas, nevertheless cautions against unduly pessimistic expectations concerning the longevity of the ‘rebalance’. I do, however, remain grateful to the anonymous reviewer for pressing me on this point.

3. The insight that regional security architectures may evolve from ‘bottom-up’ initiatives promoted by multiple architects as much as they can from the unfolding of a single architect's ‘top-down’ ‘grand design’ derives from Tow and Taylor (2010, 111–112).

4. The regional consternation flowing from reported US plans to base drones in the Cocos Islands provides a foretaste of the challenges Australia may face in reconciling its expanding alliance commitments with the requirement of regional reassurance (Sydney Morning Herald, March 31, 2012).

5. On the significant divergences in Australian and Indian security interests and their implications for efforts to promote regional security cooperation, see, generally, Brewster (2010a).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Andrew Phillips

Andrew Phillips is a Senior Lecturer in International Relations and Strategy in the School of Political Science and International Studies at the University of Queensland