Christian Bueger

Tag Archives: Indo-Pacific


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Indo-Pacific Regional Dialogue in New Delhi – Special Address

The Indo-Pacific Regional Dialogue (IPRD) is one of the major strategic dialogue formats in India. Organized as a collaboration between the Indian Ministry of Defense, the Indian Navy and the National Maritime Foundation it focuses on the maritime domain.

One of the key purposes of the forum is to discuss the Indian maritime policy of SAGAR – Security and Growth for All in the Region – and advance its related action plan known as the Indo-Pacific Oceans Initiative (IPOI).

NMF Leadership

I had the pleasure to attend the 2024 dialogue in October and to deliver one of the special addresses at the event. Here is the script of my talk which investigated the future of maritime security in the region:

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Inside Naval Exercises: SEACAT in Singapore

Enhancing maritime domain awareness (MDA) is one of the corner stones of maritime security. Yet, it only works if countries develop a culture of sharing and collaboration across agencies and regional seas.

Practicing MDA through multi-national exercises is a key component of developing such a culture. As part of my ongoing research on the international practice of exercises, last week I had the opportunity to get some first hand experience of how the U.S. navy aims at advancing regional MDA . I participated in the exercise SEACAT 2024.

SEACAT is one of the oldest MDA exercises. Starting as a counter-terrorism exercise in 2002, it was focused on MDA through the 2016 Maritime Security Initiative, and was broadened to the Indo-Pacific in 2019. Over that history it has grown in size, with 2024 seeing more than 200 participants, including many from outside Southeast Asia. What happens at such exercises? What can be learned from them?

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Small islands states in the Indo-Pacific. Visit to Seychelles

During my recent visit to Seychelles, I participated in an event jointly organized by the University of Seychelles and Khalifa University (UAE). The symposium focused on the strategic consequences of Indo-Pacific thinking and geostrategic rivalries for small island states.

Drawing on my earlier research on small states in the Indo-Pacific, how islands face a militarization dilemma, and how they are able to expand their action space through creole foreign policy, I argued during my talk that Seychelles needs to highly alert to geopolitical dynamics and the new vulnerabilities it causes, and indeed needs to rethink its repertoire of foreign policy tools.

Panelists of the Symposium on the Indo Pacific, University of Seychelles, 7.3.2024

As a champion of the blue economy, and its high profile in counter-piracy, Seychelles has navigated such troubled waters extremely well in the past. However, it is now also time for new ideas.

What such new ideas might be, and how Seychelles could utilize its presidency of the Indian Ocean Commission to shape the global agenda, was one of the core issues of my discussion with representatives from the ministry of foreign affairs. Global ocean politics clearly can benefit from leadership of small states, such as Seychelles.


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Discussion on Maritime Security in the Indo-Pacific

What are the political and strategic implications of the new world political region, the Indo-Pacific? This continues to be a question that puzzles many think tanks and strategy makers. More and more states and regional organizations develop genuine strategies for this region, and debate if and how they have a role in the region. Since the Indo-Pacific is in the first instance an aquatic region, such debates often directly point to maritime security.

Maritime security, as we have come to conceptualize it, is comprised of three dimensions: 1) Inter-state relations and conflicts emerging from disputes over territorial claims, borders and resources and grey zone activities that can be harmful to international connectivity or the marine environment; 2) extremist violence at sea, comprised of terrorist organizations using or directly targeting maritime activity, or spillover from such activities into the sea; 3) transnational organized crime, or ‘blue crime’ including marine piracy, the smuggling of narcotics and other illicit goods, irregular migration, or illegal fishing and deliberate pollution. In many ways, it is the latter category that forms the conceptual heart of maritime security and it’s relate field of study, not the least since such threats are often transnational and emerging.

In the Indo-Pacific debate, often the opposite is the case. The new regional lenses often imply a focus on great powers and their relations. It is the inter-state dimension that gains most of the attention. Too quickly the discourse turns to what happens in the capitals of Washington, Beijing, London and Paris. The challenges that matter the most to smaller states, such as islands, the livelihood of coastal populations, or to the maritime industry quickly fade into the background: blue crimes, piracy, illegal fishing, climate change mitigation. Such issues are not only important because they directly affect the lives and human security of billions of people. They are also issues that can only be addressed through international cooperation. They are also issues that cannot be addressed by military means in the first place.

Re-centering the understanding of maritime security in the Indo-Pacific in such challenges, is an important reminder that our futures are not by necessity determined by great power rivalry. An action space of cooperation and shared global problem solving persists; an alternative future is possible. Navies will have an important part in that future, but solving the emerging challenges in the Indo-Pacific order implies to think beyond great powers and the military instrument.

These are some reflections that came out of my participation in an event on October 26th organized by the European Council on Foreign Relations Indo-Pacific Strategy Group, titled Comprehensive Maritime Security in the Indo-Pacific.


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Presentation on maritime security in the Indo-Pacific

What are the costs and benefits of thinking in terms of an Indo-Pacific region? Why do certain actors advocate to strategize in those terms? On June the 3rd and 4th I had the pleasure to attend a conference in Paris that discussed these questions. The conference was organised jointly by IRSEM, Science Po, the University of Cambridge and GIGA.

My own presentation was titled “More than a sum of its parts? Networked maritime security and the fabrication of the Indo-Pacific”. In the presentation I drew attention to the scalar politics of the Indo-Pacific pointing in particular to the political effects the fabrication of the Indo-Pacific region has in terms of how it limits agency to states with blue water naval capacities, and how it undermines regional cooperation. Contact me if you are interested in the full presentation.