The Indo-Pacific and the nature of conjoinment (Rod Lyon, The Strategist)

Let’s cut to the chase. Few strategic assessments have ever recommended the deleting of a hyphen in favour of a dash as a principal policy recommendation. So Andrew Phillips’ recent ASPI Strategy paper, From Hollywood to Bollywood?, is distinctive on those grounds alone. But much more importantly, it’s a nicely-weighted exploration of the concept of the Indo-Pacific in Australian strategic thinking. Underlying Andrew’s claim—that we’d be better off emphasising Indo/Pacific differentiation rather than Indo-Pacific aggregation—is an argument about the important strategic differences between the Indian and Pacific oceans, and the practical difficulties of conjoinment in an increasingly interconnected world.

http://www.aspistrategist.org.au/indo-pacific-nature-conjoinment/