The Indo-Pacific — A New Era of Adversarial Geopolitics

I decided to write this story based on what I read on Medium by Sylvain Saurel Sylvain Saurel about China’s Rise in the Indo-Pacific. It’s an in-depth look at how the United States intends to counter a rising China in the Indo-Pacific. Read it here:

As for me, I’ve been writing about Energy and Commodites a lot lately. My background is in International Relations but I’m also a Legal Analyst. That’s why I believe it is plausible to view all recent trends in Energy and Commodities from the perspective of what is going to happen in the international maritime domain — and thus how Maritime Areas connect with Geopolitics — which is vital to understand the Indo-Pacific.

This is a question not only of Geopolitical Trends but of the future of International Maritime Law. With so much global activity occuring in Maritime Areas — just look at what’s happened on the Black and Caspian Seas during the Russia-Ukraine Conflict — there’s going to be significantly more problems related to maritime issues in International Conflict.

Energy & Commodities

Water is at the heart of the globe, from both a geographical vantage point and global economic perspective. While from the perspective of the Energy Transition, it’s the lifeline to save industrial production and mitigate the grave effects to humanity derived from Climate Change.

No wonder some of the world’s largest corporations and entities are betting big on their investments in Energy Transition, such as hydrogen, ammonia and carbon-capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) technologies, among others.

According to British Petroleum (BP) CEO Bernard Looney, capital spending on hydrogen development forms part of the company’s strategy to invest only in “low carbon energy” projects while taking the once-oil producing major and transforming it into an “integrated energy company.”

Those collaborations are particularly prevalent in the Asia-Pacific and Oceania areas, which is now collectively referred to as the Indo-Pacific (along with the India sub-continent and its surrounding maritime neibours and areas). In other words, from both a geographical and industrial point of view, the future of the world is being transformed to meet the needs of both corporations and humanity; hence the importance of Environment, Social, Governance (ESG).

The potential success of outcomes in the Energy Transition and ESG frameworks hold the key to humanity’s race to cut down on carbon emissions through the Net Zero 2050 Strategy, called for by climate scientists, advocates and activists from all around the world.

But the world still needs Energy and Commodities to sustain each country’s Global Domestic Product (GDP) and meet its survival needs in the future. This is a core problem.

Enter Nord Stream 2 and South China Sea

The Nord Stream 2 and South China Sea are two examples that explain how Energy, Commodities and Maritime Areas will form a synthetic issue-area in determining dispute resolutions within the framework of international conflicts in the future.

Moreover, both of these disputes will continue to face dynamic maritime threats from non-state actors, such as extremists and pirates, who have been given very little attention to maritime law issues due to the significant interstate tensions in international politics.

In fact, these tensions have become so outstanding that two grand strategies have been developed and publicized as a vision for the future of World Order: the Indo-Pacific Strategy (IPS) and the Maritime Silk Road Initiative (MSRI) (part of the Belt and Road Initiative), of which the maritime dimension is the focal point of these strategies.

Like the Nord Stream 2 and South China Sea dispute, both the IPS and the MSRI serve as indicators that the world has entered into a new era of Adversarial Geopolitics. (Ignore the “new/next Cold War” jargon).

For instance, these competing visions for the future of World Order encompass a wide array of areas and actors — like the Nord Stream 2 Pipeline and South China Sea — so it’s worthwhile to analyze how these maritime strategies are driving the future of the global economic activity too.

Plausible Concepts and Conclusions

• Taking these two examples, this new era of Adversarial Geopolitics is being driven by similiar concepts — to build more and invest more — across a broad range of areas, boundaries and peoples and cultures. Therefore, non-state actors should be given more attention to the outcomes of Energy, Commodities and Maritime Areas.
• One of the key themes is to improve on how countries share information, known as “information-sharing” capabilities, so that dispute resolution mechanisms between countries can be more transparent and equitable. This is ultimately going to be one of the only solutions to avoid war in the Indo-Pacific.
• Scenarios of international maritime law outcomes and dispute resolutions should explain how the future is being driven by energy development (economy), commodities supplies (politics) and maritime strategies (military/security). The big-picture questions include whether or not these outcomes meet the criteria of those competing visions for World Order: the Indo-Pacific vs. the Silk Road.
• In any event, it’s the maritime domain, including international maritime law and cooperation, that deserves attention for future scenarios encompassing international law and dispute resolutions.

I cite two examples of recent international events in the global economy and commodities sector to indicate how conflict in the Indo-Pacific is likely to revolve around resource conflicts and energy security: