Major Powers and Maritime Security in Indo-Pacific Asia
Chapter 4: Stability without trust Power shifts, interstate competition, military modernisation, transnational challenges, institutional pressures and political choices to exploit differences over territory and nationalism: together, these factors are making Asia’s waterways more contested, crowded and at risk of armed strife. The analysis in this paper suggests that differences of interests among major powers in Indo-Pacific maritime Asia – in particular China’s frictions with the United States, Japan and India – are likely to persist and intensify. This will continue to manifest in so-called incidents at sea: close-range encounters involving vessels and aircraft from competing powers, typically in sensitive or contested zones, and with accompanying possibilities of miscalculation, casualties, crisis and even conflict. The probability that any particular incident will lead to military clashes is relatively small, and the possibility that this might escalate to major war is smaller still. Many incidents have occurred in the past decade, and there is little evidence in the public domain that these have prompted elevated alert levels, wider mobilisation, or escalating threats of force. But the dynamics of strategic competition suggest that the number and tempo of incidents is likely to increase, the probability that any particular incident will get out of hand is well above zero, and the consequences of such a breakdown could be profound. Moreover, an accumulation of incidents could play negatively into a wider deterioration of security relations among major powers, raising the likelihood that any particular future incident might become a spark for conflict. Serious efforts to minimise these risks are therefore critically important to the region’s future peace and stability. For the foreseeable future, hopes for comprehensive cooperation at sea among major powers in the Indo-Pacific region – something approaching a maritime concert of powers – are forlorn. There is also a need to be realistic about the prospects even for more modest CBMs to eliminate the risks of incidents or of their escalation. Yet the alternative is grim: a vast region, increasingly central to global prosperity and order, in which powerful maritime states competitively seek to advance and safeguard their interests, in the absence of agreed rules of restraint or habits of cooperation. Such a situation will involve frequent friction points with a constant need for diplomatic attention to prevent or manage crises, and no guarantee that conflict can be avoided. In this concluding chapter, we fi rst offer some generalised analytical conclusions derived from the analysis and research set out in the preceding chapters. Drawing upon these conclusions, we then present some brief recommendations on how states
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