Nuclear Order in the Indo-Pacific: An Overview of Intermeshing Dyadic Rivalries in the Emergent Geostrategic Space

Abstract

This essay seeks to provide an overview of the dynamics of nuclear order in the newly emergent geostrategic space of the Indo-Pacific. With the onset of increasingly sharp access/denial competition between the United States of America and China, the otherwise bilateral and dyadic rivalries are getting meshed together into the newly emergent geostrategic arena of the Indo-Pacific. This poses proliferation risks and miscalculations among the rival nuclear-armed dyads which populate the Indo-Pacific. Accordingly, the essay draws out the contours of the nuclear order and the attendant strategic necessities which mold the challenges posed to nonproliferation by the competition between nuclear armed states in the Indo-Pacific. It is argued that an action-reaction dynamic abounds in the region and as such given increasing competition between the United States & China and simultaneous Sino-India competition, the prospects for nuclear nonproliferation look bleak.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Sugata Bose (2009, 6) has referred to the Indian Ocean as an “interregional arena” wherein it is lies between the abstractness of a world-system yet above the specificity of a defined region. It is used here in a similar way.

2 Intermeshing here is understood as increasing interconnectedness such that a dyad/s which otherwise has no bearing on another dyad or triangle comes to have increasing effect on it and vice-versa. In the Indo-Pacific the US nuclear policy, has a cascading effect/produces an action-reaction dynamic across the dyadic pairings in the theatre, is an important driver of intermeshing dyadic rivalries.

3 Understood here as places or rivalries which are prone to escalation during political strife/tensions and/or outbreak of hostilities e.g. in terms of place the Taiwan straits or the South China Sea and in terms of dyadic rivalries the United States-North Korea dyad or the South Korea-North Korea dyad.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Syed Murtaza Mushtaq

Syed Murtaza Mushtaq is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Strategic & Security Studies, Aligarh Muslim University, India. E-mail: [email protected]

Mujeeb Kanth

Mujeeb Kanth is a Doctoral candidate in the department of International Relations at South Asian University, New Delhi.