Over the past decade, capitals from Canberra to Paris, New Delhi to Tokyo and London have rolled out Indo‑Pacific strategies with the confidence of a shared script: that maritime coalitions stabilize the system, secure sea lanes and quietly contain a rising continental power. White papers, frameworks, “visions” and partnership agreements multiplied — each more expansive and rhetorically ambitious than the last.
But strategy may be proclaimed in glossy documents; it is ultimately tested in choke points and crises. As shipping stalls, missiles range farther than expected, and even the world’s most powerful navy struggles to navigate waterways a day’s sailing from the home base of the U.S. Fifth Fleet, the core promise of the Indo‑Pacific idea — that maritime power can underwrite global order — has run aground.
From the beginning, the “Indo‑Pacific” was less a coherent strategic framework than a conceptual stretch — a branding exercise designed to keep an aging maritime order intellectually afloat. It stitched together two oceans, multiple regions, and incompatible strategic cultures under a single label, not because they naturally formed a system, but because doing so served a particular purpose: to extend the reach of maritime power in an era when that power was beginning to encounter structural limits.
At its core, the concept reflects the strategic instincts of one actor above all others: the United States. The Indo‑Pacific framework is a way of seeing the world as a continuous expanse of sea lanes, choke points, and naval mobility — a space where power is projected, alliances are networked and order is maintained from the water outward. In this sense, the Indo‑Pacific is simply the latest iteration of a long‑standing American strategic habit: to convert geography into a navigable theater for maritime dominance.
For the United States, the Indo‑Pacific made perfect sense. It extended American strategic logic across a vast maritime arc, linking allies and partners into a network that can be accessed, reinforced, and supplied from the sea. It preserved the primacy of naval power as the organizing principle of regional order and allowed the United States to remain an offshore balancer, shaping events without becoming territorially embedded.
But over the last decade Washington also sought to impose that same logic onto actors and regions for whom it makes far less sense — and that mismatch is now revealing itself.
Take India — the supposed anchor of the “Indo” in Indo‑Pacific. The inclusion of India has always been presented as a strategic masterstroke, binding the Indian Ocean to the Pacific and creating a unified balancing coalition against China. But this framing fundamentally misreads India’s strategic reality.
India is not a maritime power in the traditional sense; it is a continental one with maritime interests. Its primary security concerns lie on land: its contested borders with China in the Himalayas, its enduring rivalry with Pakistan, and its internal cohesion across a vast and diverse territory. Its strategic culture is shaped by these realities — by questions of territorial control, border stability, and continental depth.
The Indo‑Pacific construct offers India a role in a maritime coalition, but it provides no meaningful leverage in its primary theaters of competition. It encourages naval cooperation and participation in forums like the Quad, but these are peripheral to the central axis of Indian security. In effect, India has been asked to participate in a system that is not designed around its needs.
As the first decade of Indo‑Pacific strategies unfolds, it has become increasingly clear that the framework rested on fragile foundations. It assumed that maritime dominance remained the decisive factor in shaping regional outcomes — that control of sea lanes, naval superiority, and forward deployment underpinned strategic order. But that assumption is now under stress.
Modern military developments — including anti‑access/area denial (A2/AD) systems, advanced missile technologies, and layered air defenses — are altering the geometry of power. What once allowed maritime forces to approach, strike, and withdraw with relative freedom now faces contested — and often denied — access near continental landmasses. The cost of penetration has risen; the margin for error has narrowed; and the advantage tilts increasingly toward the defender.
These shifts are neither isolated nor temporary. They reflect broader structural changes: advances in long‑range strike, integrated air defenses, and precision missile systems mean that naval platforms operating near contested coastlines are more vulnerable and their freedom of maneuver more constrained. As a result, the assumption that maritime mobility can decisively shape outcomes on land is becoming anachronistic.
Nowhere has this shift been more dramatically illustrated than in the crisis around the Strait of Hormuz — one of the world’s most consequential maritime chokepoints.
The Strait, a narrow passage linking the Persian Gulf to the Arabian Sea, is a critical artery for global energy supplies. Roughly 20 – 25 % of the world’s crude oil transits this waterway.¹⁰⁵ Its geography — narrow lanes, shallow waters and proximity to the Iranian coast — makes it uniquely susceptible to A2/AD strategies. Tehran’s use of coastal missile batteries, drones, fast attack craft, mines, and other asymmetric capabilities gives it significant leverage over access to the strait, even against a materially superior naval opponent.¹⁰⁶
Recent confrontation dynamics suggest the United States and its partners have struggled to ensure unimpeded passage. U.S. carrier strike groups are operating at distances that keep them outside the immediate range of Iranian missile systems and drones — a tacit acknowledgment of the risk posed by modern layered defenses.¹⁴ Despite official statements about freedom of navigation, Iranian forces have exerted meaningful control over the strait’s operational environment, constraining movements and elevating risk for commercial shipping and allied navies alike.¹⁴
This situation has broader geopolitical and economic consequences. Disruptions in Hormuz have led to spikes in energy prices globally, forcing many countries to reassess energy security strategies and seek alternative routes or suppliers.¹⁹ The crisis is not only military but also economic, with ripple effects that reach across continents.
The underlying reality is stark: maritime dominance alone cannot guarantee secure access in narrow chokepoints against well‑prepared asymmetric defenses. The era of uncontested naval supremacy is over.
Across Eurasia, the balance between maritime attack and continental defense has shifted. Continental powers — particularly China and Russia — have invested heavily in the very systems that challenge maritime approaches. China’s A2/AD capabilities, including long‑range missiles and integrated air defenses, are designed precisely to limit the freedom of movement of naval forces in the Western Pacific.³⁹ Its modernization of conventional and missile forces has drawn significant attention in U.S. strategic assessments as a major challenge to regional dominance.¹¹
At the same time, continental powers are reinforcing their position through infrastructure, connectivity, and economic integration. Rail networks, pipelines and overland trade corridors — from Eurasian rail links to initiatives like China’s Belt and Road — reduce dependence on maritime chokepoints and enhance strategic depth. Countries are investing in overland connectivity that bypasses vulnerable sea lanes, diluting the strategic premium once placed on naval mobility.
This continental turn does not render the sea irrelevant — far from it — but it does complicate the assumption that maritime power is the prime determinant of regional order. Instead, power is increasingly exerted along multiple axes: land, sea, air, cyber and space. Maritime strategy remains important, but it is no longer the singular organizing principle.
The implications of these shifts are profound for states most invested in the Indo‑Pacific concept.
In Australia, strategic thinking has centered on maintaining a robust maritime presence and deepening ties with the United States and other partners through initiatives such as AUKUS. Canberra has embarked on ambitious naval modernization, including expanded submarine capabilities and missile systems, to uphold its role in regional security.⁵ Yet gaps remain in capability and readiness, and the evolving strategic environment demands not only advanced platforms but also integrated concepts that bridge land‑sea power and counter A2/AD challenges.
Japan, similarly, has reoriented its defense policy in response to China’s growing assertiveness. Tokyo’s focus on maritime security, combined with increased defense cooperation with other democracies, illustrates a sustained commitment to the Indo‑Pacific framework. But like Canberra, Japan faces the dilemma of aligning maritime strategy with broader geostrategic realities that now encompass continental defense and counter‑strike capabilities.
In Europe, traditional maritime powers are adjusting to a wider role in Indo‑Pacific security — but the structural shift in how power is exercised means Europe must balance expeditionary maritime engagement with new operational risks posed by A2/AD and land‑based long‑range capabilities.
There remains a place for cooperation and shared frameworks in the Indo‑Pacific. For some smaller regional states, elements of the strategy still offer valuable security and economic partnerships. Taiwan, for example, continues to view aspects of the Indo‑Pacific framework as timely for deterring coercion and enhancing multi‑domain resilience in the face of Chinese pressure.¹⁴
But the era of unquestioned confidence in maritime coalitions as guarantors of order is over. The region is entering a period of strategic reckoning, one in which assumptions about power projection, alliance structures, and the primacy of the sea must be re‑evaluated. This is not a retreat from engagement; rather, it is a necessary adaptation to a balance of power that increasingly prizes strategic depth, continental integration, and multi‑domain deterrence.
As the Indo‑Pacific enters its next decade, the central question will not be whether maritime power matters — it clearly does — but how it fits into a broader architecture of security that recognizes the limits of sea power when confronted by advanced defenses, continental forces, and complex economic interdependence. The future of strategic order in Asia and beyond will depend on thoughtful recalibration, not perennial reliance on an ageing script.
