Mr Jack Butcher1
1The University of Adelaide, Australia
Biography:
Jack Butcher is a PhD candidate in Political Science and Teaching Lecturer at the University of Adelaide. Jack is currently researching the growth of strategic partnerships in East Asia. His main research interests are the international politics, relations and security of Northeast Asia (especially China, Taiwan, the Korean Peninsula and Japan), Southeast Asia and Australia.
Abstract:
Since 2009, strategic partnerships (SPs) have been playing an increasing role in the United States’s (US) strategic posture towards the Indo-Pacific. Washington has declared SPs with India, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, ASEAN, New Zealand, Vietnam, Mongolia and Taiwan. However, little is known in the international security (IS) literature regarding why this is the case and what SPs mean for US foreign and defence policy towards the Indo-Pacific? Therefore, in this paper, I examine the growth and functions of SPs as a distinct security practice across three US administrations: the Obama, Trump and Biden. Using an analytically eclectic approach that weaves together the IS theories of realism, liberalism and constructivism, I argue that SPs began as a way to help Washington conduct its “Pivot to Asia” that have since evolved into building a “latticework-like architecture” of networked alliances and partnerships designed to “integrate deterrence” by sharing the burden in maintaining a liberal “rules-based” order in the Indo-Pacific, which it perceives is under threat mainly by an “authoritarian” China and diversifying non-traditional security challenges. I aim to fill a theoretical and empirical gap on the US’s strategic posture towards the Indo-Pacific and draw attention to an under-researched phenomenon in US foreign and defence policy.