October 14, 2025, 6:04 am
Thomas Wilkins’ book first accounts for the rise of strategic minilateralism as a response to strategic competition in the Indo-Pacific theatre. It then positions the resurgent phenomenon of minilateralism alongside multilateral organisations, military alliances, and strategic partnerships within a three-layer taxonomical model that captures the changing nature of the security architecture in the Indo-Pacific. Following this, it generates a dedicated analytical framework for addressing the focal questions appertaining to "strategic minilaterals", patterned around their design, functionality, and future solvency. The framework is then applied to probe the inner workings of the Quad, AUKUS, and US-Japan Australia Trilateral Strategic Dialogue (TSD) to evaluate their relative strengths and weaknesses as instruments of strategic competition. The book’s distinctive contribution is to codify and conceptually substantiate strategic minilaterals as a significant new form of security alignment and situate them within their multiple external and internal operating contexts.
Content Creator – Australian Institute of International Affairs
