Strategic Minilateralism and The Regional Security Architecture of The Indo-Pacific

This book presents research on minilateralism; a major new trend within the security architecture of the Indo-Pacific region that commands attention. It specifically focuses on the predominant sub-category of strategic minilaterals exclusive small-group configurations of major powers driven by the imperatives of strategic competition in a bid to reshape the regional order. In a deteriorating Indo-Pacific security environment, a greater understanding of this phenomenon across its conceptual and applied dimensions is a priority for scholars and practitioners.

The book first accounts for the rise of strategic minilateralism as a response to strategic competition in the Indo-Pacific theatre. It then positions the resurgent phenomenon of minilateralism alongside multilateral organisations, military alliances, and strategic partnerships within a three-layer taxonomical model that captures the changing nature of the security architecture in the Indo-Pacific.  Following this, it generates a dedicated analytical framework for addressing the focal questions appertaining to strategic minilaterals , patterned around their design, functionality, and future solvency. The framework is then applied to probe the inner workings of the Quad, AUKUS, and US-Japan Australia Trilateral Strategic Dialogue (TSD) to evaluate their relative strengths and weaknesses as instruments of strategic competition. The book s distinctive contribution is to codify and conceptually substantiate strategic minilaterals as a significant new form of security alignment and situate them within their multiple external and internal operating contexts.