Sea Power in the Indo-Pacific: Geopolitics and Maritime Strategic Culture

How has sea power development been driven by geopolitics and maritime strategic culture in the Indo-Pacific? How have the U.S. and its allies developed their sea power in preparation for the rise of China's sea power? What accounts for the differences in sea power development amongst key U.S. allies? This dissertation addresses these questions by linking geopolitics and maritime strategic culture to sea power development. Specifically, it argues that, beyond conventional geopolitical factors, represented by maritime geography and interstate rivalries surrounding the safety of SLOCs, maritime strategic culture, defined as the collective ideas and beliefs about the maritime realm held by politico-military organisations and navalists engaged in maritime affairs, plays a crucial role in shaping sea power development. Without a clearly articulated maritime strategic culture, states may develop the material dimension of sea power, represented by naval assets, but fail to translate it into comprehensive sea power, defined here as the utilisation of material resources to influence other states' behaviour primarily through sea control. This dissertation tests this argument through five case studies: China, the U.S., Japan, Australia, and South Korea. Process tracing, combined with a comparative methodology, is employed to support the analysis. The investigation covers the up to the Cold War, post-Cold War, and contemporary periods (from the 2010s to the 2020s), allowing for a systematic examination of how geopolitics and maritime strategic culture have shaped sea power development in the Indo-Pacific.