A Shaky “Wedge”: An Analysis of India’s Strategic Behavior under the US “Indo-Pacific” Strategy

America’s Indo-Pacific strategy is essentially a combination of its Asia-Pacific and Indian strategies: through the consolidation of its strategic alliances, it can deepen its relations with Asia-Pacific allies, and through its “wedging strategy” it can pull India into its orbit to become a strategic “fulcrum” bridging the region. India was both a key member and leader of the non-aligned movement, while also previously forming a “quasi-alliance” with the Soviet Union. At present, it has responded to the US Indo-Pacific strategy with cautious initiative. From the vantage point of a state targeted vis-à-vis a wedging strategy, India’s strategic behavior is shaped by the strategic environment, its primary strategic objectives, and the relations between allies within the context of a unique strategic environment. This paper identifies two types of strategic environments: the general strategic environment and the specialized strategic environment; it further identifies primary strategic objectives as economic development, sovereign integrity and independence, national security and great state status (especially with respect to that of regional or global major powers); meanwhile, the alliance relationship is defined according to the extent to which there are divisions across state interests and the capacity of states to act autonomously vis-à-vis the alliance. Through an analysis of India’s diplomatic experiences, this paper argues that against the backdrop of America’s “Indo-Pacific” strategy and a lose general strategic environment, the primary strategic objective of achieving major state status and a “large divide over interests and a major space for autonomous action” shape India’s cautious initiative with respect to its alliance relationships.

Strategic Environment, Strategist, and Strategy

Tulisan ini bertujuan untuk menjelaskan irisan dan keterkaitan erat antara lingkungan strategis, strategist, dan strategi dalam perkembangan isu-isu keamanan internasional. Selain itu, faktor national will setiap negara memberikan pemahaman berbeda tentang perspektif strategis dan perumusan strategi yang dihasilkan. Hasil dari tulisan ini menjelaskan bahwa lingkungan strategis menjadi preferensi strategist atau para pengambil kebijakan dalam merumuskan kebijakan atau strategi, dengan mempertimbangkan national will untuk menghadapi perkembangan lingkungan strategis. Dengan kata lain, identifikasi lingkungan strategis bagi aktor negara menjadi sebuah keharusan untuk menjamin tercapainya kepentingan nasional. Identifikasi tersebut berkonsekuensi pada pemahaman strategist dalam menyusun strategi untuk mencapai kepentingan nasional sebuah negara.Kata-kata kunci: Lingkungan strategis, National Will, Natuna, Indo-Pasifik This paper aims to explain the links between the strategic, strategic, and strategic environments in the development of international security issues. Furthermore, we seek to explain why a countries national will provide a different understanding of the resulting strategic perspective and strategy formulation. The results of this paper explain that the strategic environment becomes the preference of strategists or policymakers in formulating policies or strategies, taking into account the national will, to adapt to the development of the strategic environment. In other words, identifying the strategic environment for state actors is a must to ensure the achievement of national interests. This identification has consequences on strategic understanding in formulating strategies to achieve the national interest of a country.Keywords: Strategic environment, National Will, Natuna, Indo-Pacific

Cost of Reasoning and Strategic Sophistication

I designed an experiment to study the persistence of the prevailing levels of reasoning across games. Instead of directly comparing the k-level(s) of reasoning for each game, I used cognitive load to manipulate the strategic environment by imposing variations on the subject’s cost of reasoning and their first- and second-order beliefs. Subjects have systematic changes in k-level(s) of reasoning across games. That finding suggests that subjects are responsive to changes in the strategic environment. Changes in k-level(s) of reasoning are mostly consistent with the endogenous depth of reasoning model when subjects are more cognitively capable or facing less cognitively capable opponents. Subjects have cognitive bounds, but often choose a lower-type action due to their beliefs about their opponents. Finally, cognitive ability plays a significant role in subjects making strategic adjustments when facing different strategic environments.

STRATEGI KEBIJAKAN PEMBANGUNAN KEMARITIMAN DALAM KERANGKA PENINGKATAN INVESTASI NASIONAL

Maritime development effort can not be separated from the development of strategic environments that include the supporting economic environment both on a regional scale, national, even at the global level. The aim of this study is (1) mapping out the opportunities and threats of the maritime sector in Indonesia based on the dynamics of the domestic and global environment, and (2) to formulate the maritime development policy strategy within the framework of national investment development. The method used is SWOT analysis. The results of the study indicate that opportunities that can be utilized for the benefit of domestic development can be seen from the potential of marine in the territory of Indonesia. The threat of the maritime sector comes from internal and external. The internal factors of inequality and disparity gap of development. The external factors threats are border disputes and lack of law enforcement, defense and security controls in border areas. The recommended policy suggested that government needs to do maritime-oriented development, connectivity through strengthening logistics and marine economy, economic development about prosperity approach and security, controlling related with the nation's authority and maritime, and reorientation of development towards maritime development with the achievement of planting more progressive capital.

The Habsburg Legacy

This chapter discusses the Habsburg grand strategy. The Habsburg Empire had an especially pressing need to engage in the pursuit of grand strategy because of its vulnerable location and the unavailability of effective offensive military instruments with which to subdue the threats around its frontiers. Weakness is provocative, and apathy is rarely rewarded in even the most forgiving of strategic environments. For an impecunious power in the vortex of east-central European geopolitics, these traits, if permitted to coexist for long, would lead to the extinction of the state. This was the signal lesson from the wars of the eighteenth century, which had culminated in a succession struggle that saw a militarily weak Austria dangerously bereft of allies invaded from three directions and almost destroyed. These experiences spurred Habsburg leaders to conceptualize and formalize the matching of means to large ends in anticipation of future threats. The result was a conservative grand strategy that used alliances, buffer states, and a defensive army to manage multifront dynamics, avoid strains beyond Austria’s ability to bear, and preserve an independent European center under Habsburg leadership.