Papers by John F Bradford
RSIS Publications, 2024
The recently signed Reciprocal Access Agreement between Japan and the Philippines reflects the gr... more The recently signed Reciprocal Access Agreement between Japan and the Philippines reflects the growing geo-strategic alignment between the two nations. This will strengthen the self-defence capabilities of these key first island chain states. It is also likely to be a model for future defence cooperation across the Indo-Pacific.
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Melbourne Asia Review, 2024
Over the course of the last two decades, Indo-Pacific sea lanes have become much more secure agai... more Over the course of the last two decades, Indo-Pacific sea lanes have become much more secure against the threats posed by pirates and other criminals. In fact, whereas Southeast Asian waters were not so long ago regarded as being among the world’s most dangerous, the ASEAN member states, their international partners, and the shipping industry have come together to marshal the resources necessary to mend the seams that criminals had been exploiting. However, despite this progress, the criminal threats have not been completely eliminated. Furthermore, problematic trends point to the possibility that the criminal threat could become revitalised.
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The Jakarta Post, 2024
Disruptions to shipping supply chains are being felt globally due to the conflict in Gaza and rel... more Disruptions to shipping supply chains are being felt globally due to the conflict in Gaza and related attacks on ships by Houthi militias, as well as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but they are not the only tension points stressing global sea lanes. Southeast Asian waters, the maritime crossroads of the Indo-Pacific, were not so long ago regarded as being among the world’s most dangerous. Real progress has been made in recent decades, but the criminal threats have not been completely eliminated and could become revitalized.
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RSIS - IDSS Paper, 2024
Island nations around China are increasingly hardening their defences in reaction to Chinese musc... more Island nations around China are increasingly hardening their defences in reaction to Chinese muscle-flexing. Their emerging efforts to counterbalance the PRC will help the rest of Southeast Asia maintain its autonomy.
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Blue Security, 2024
The Blue Security Program engages with and facilitates high quality research on issues of critica... more The Blue Security Program engages with and facilitates high quality research on issues of critical maritime security across the Indo-Pacific. Bringing together leading regional experts in politics, international law and strategic studies, Blue Security focuses on three key pillars of maritime security: order, law and power.
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RSIS - IDSS Paper, 2024
The Australia-India-Japan-United States partnership known as the Quad makes frequent statements r... more The Australia-India-Japan-United States partnership known as the Quad makes frequent statements regarding the East and South China Sea and the partners' shared commitment to bolstering the rules-based maritime order. However, the Australia-United Kingdom-United States trilateral grouping, AUKUS, has been much more active in the dynamics of the South China Sea dispute than the Quad. JOHN BRADFORD and RALF EMMERS discuss how the quiescence of the Quad reflects India's differing worldview regarding the optimum nature of a "rules-based maritime order" and its own emerging position as a global power.
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AMTI CSIS, 2024
It is no secret that the Indo-Pacific suffers from a maritime security shortfall. Natural disaste... more It is no secret that the Indo-Pacific suffers from a maritime security shortfall. Natural disasters, criminal activities, and interstate tensions all endanger seafarers, undermine the well-being of coastal communities, and threaten regional calamity. While the risk of conflict in the South China Sea dominates the news, that is far from the region’s only maritime security challenge. Illustrating the scope of the problem, the Information Fusion Centre in Singapore counted 1,882 individuals as dead or missing on the regional seas during the first half of 2023. These tragedies are left mostly undiscussed because the dangerous character of the region’s seas is simply taken for granted. Yet, it does not have to be so. Establishing an Indo-Pacific Center of Excellence (COE) for Maritime Governance could be a valuable contribution to improving the region’s maritime safety and security.
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Australian Journal of International Affairs, 2024
The Quad has formulated repeated statements confirming their shared interests and common commitme... more The Quad has formulated repeated statements confirming their shared interests and common commitment to maritime issues and highlighting the South China Sea as an area of strategic priority. However, beyond diplomatic declarations, the Quad has taken few actions in the maritime domain and none to influence the dynamics of the South China Sea disputes. Why words have not been translated into action is the central question of this article. Comparative analysis involving three variables-interests, stakes and power projection capacity-shows that the members' primary divergence is related to India's deemphasising the preservation of the status quo rules-based maritime order. India is also the member preventing the Quad from moving into coordinated activities, as can be seen by the regularly coordinated diplomatic stances and naval actions conducted trilaterally among the others in the South China Sea. This will sustain the Quad as a secondary actor in the South China Sea disputes. Furthermore, it suggests that whereas Australia and Japan are responding to the evolving geopolitical structure by finding common cause with the United States-led order, India is behaving as a rising power seeking to manage the challenge posed by China while growing into its own great power status.
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The Diplomat, 2024
Maritime affairs have not been a major campaign issue, but the three candidates’ policies could h... more Maritime affairs have not been a major campaign issue, but the three candidates’ policies could have far-reaching implications on Indonesian security.
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RSIS, 2024
In the last three months, the conflict in and around Yemen has escalated twice, once when the Hou... more In the last three months, the conflict in and around Yemen has escalated twice, once when the Houthis began attacking civilian shipping in earnest and then when the United States and United Kingdom began launching strikes against Houthi targets. JOHN BRADFORD observes that, because there is no sign that either side can deplete the other's capacity by military force, Asia should be prepared for maritime traffic to be disrupted until a long-elusive diplomatic solution can be found.
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AMTI CSIS, 2023
Maritime governance – much like its closely associated term “maritime security” – is increasingly... more Maritime governance – much like its closely associated term “maritime security” – is increasingly becoming an unescapable buzzword, particularly in the Indo-Pacific region. In Southeast Asia, states are engrossed with the day-to-day challenges of identifying and deterring crimes as necessary to enforce laws and regulations in their maritime jurisdictions. As a general definition, “maritime governance” refers to the capacity to enforce the framework of laws, regulations, policies, and institutions generated both within the legal jurisdictions of states and the international community that seek to establish “good order at sea.” This is no easy task in Southeast Asia where the maritime geography is highly complex, threats abound, political competition undermines cooperation, and many states lack the resources needed to meet their governance responsibilities.
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RSIS Commentary, 2023
Most commentary of the recently concluded maritime-based ASEAN Solidarity Exercise has evaluated ... more Most commentary of the recently concluded maritime-based ASEAN Solidarity Exercise has evaluated it as making minor progress towards strengthening security cooperation within ASEAN. A closer look shows that this rare assembly of maritime assets from ASEAN member states could have achieved a higher level of coordination and collaboration for regional good if it had not been for the competitive dynamics of geopolitics.
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NEXT Alliance Conference, 2023
Modern military doctrine highlights the value of unified command and unity of effort as variables... more Modern military doctrine highlights the value of unified command and unity of effort as variables that enhance the efficiency of operations and improves the likelihood of achieving desired outcomes. In contrast to the strength of the US-Japan Alliance in terms of shared commitment to common objectives, Alliance mechanisms focused on the coordination of decision-making and are not optimized for unity of command and have hampered the Alliance's operational efforts. 1 As the allies struggle to find resources necessary to answer the growing military challenges posed by China and North Korea, they are pressed to augment their material force buildup with non-material investments to improve readiness. One of those investments should be in a revised command and
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CSIS Commentaries, 2023
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Pacific Forum, 2023
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The RUSI Journal , 2023
The US policy community has been taking note of the UK’s ‘tilt’ toward the Indo-Pacific since bef... more The US policy community has been taking note of the UK’s ‘tilt’ toward the Indo-Pacific since before their British counterparts referred to it as such. UK contributions to the region were first valued by Americans focused on Pacific naval dynamics, and a broader section of the security community has developed a similar appreciation. However, some Americans continue to doubt the tilt’s sustainability and strategic viability, especially due to the dangers associated with spreading the US-UK alliances too thin with regard to the huge challenges lurking elsewhere. John Bradford provides an analytical history of US perspectives and expectations regarding the UK’s growing Indo-Pacific role.
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Foreign Policy , 2023
In Southeast Asia, the crossroads of the Indo-Pacific rivalry, heavy U.S. footprints are rarely a... more In Southeast Asia, the crossroads of the Indo-Pacific rivalry, heavy U.S. footprints are rarely an option. Washington’s partners are sensitive to the security dilemmas associated with the presence of U.S. hard power and the likelihood of aggravating China. As a result, the United States has increasingly looked to its Coast Guard as an option to assist regional states with their maritime challenges, advance security partnerships, and serve as a potent soft-power tool. As agencies focused primarily on law enforcement and safety, coast guards are perceived as an increasingly useful regional tool because they can assert national interests without being overtly militaristic and escalatory. Through a greater focus on adaptable and responsive deployable teams and ensuring the right person is in the right place at the right time, the Coast Guard can empower regional partners to undertake maritime law enforcement in their own domains and contribute to good order in regional seas.
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Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative, 2023
The maritime space in Southeast Asia contains a broad array of new and enduring security challeng... more The maritime space in Southeast Asia contains a broad array of new and enduring security challenges beyond the sea lanes. As some issues are tackled, they reveal new forms of insecurity. The new focus on areas such as climate change and cyber-insecurity show us that even if the region successfully tackles existing threats, others are likely to emerge. At the same time, many issues are inter- linked, and tackling just one in isolation is not sufficient in addressing maritime security as a whole. There is a greater need to understand the threats so the region can better prioritize and respond to them.
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S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, 2023
Different stakeholders contribute in different ways to Southeast Asian maritime security. Arguing... more Different stakeholders contribute in different ways to Southeast Asian maritime security. Arguing that a better understanding of stakeholder roles and interests is required so that a more coordinated and effective maritime security policy can be developed, Scott Edwards and John Bradford point to some of the ongoing difficulties of aligning different actors towards a common goal.
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German Marshall Fund of the United States, 2022
The global commons—domains beyond the sovereign jurisdiction of any single state but to which all... more The global commons—domains beyond the sovereign jurisdiction of any single state but to which all states have access—are essential to the stability and prosperity of the international order. In addition to the high seas, outer space, the atmosphere, and Antarctica, which are defined as global commons by international law, analysts have also suggested that other domains such as cyberspace may also qualify as potential commons. These domains provide essential public goods such as trade routes, transportation and communication networks, fish stocks, satellite imagery, global positioning, and e-commerce infrastructure that benefit countries around the world. To successfully manage the resources of the global commons and ensure open access to their spaces, effective governance structures must exist to accommodate and integrate the interests and responsibilities of state and non-state actors. Consequently, states have tried to come to agreements in each domain about how to enable broad access, avoid conflict, and enable cooperation. Over time, these discussions have resulted in the creation for each domain of a “regime,” a set of implicit or explicit principles, norms, rules, and decision-making procedures around which actors’ expectations converge (see Box 1). These regimes can take shape in the form of international law, national law, local regulations, private standards, and institutional bodies. They differ dramatically in maturity and complexity: the governance regime of the oceans has developed over the course of centuries, while the rules and norms of cyberspace have only had a few decades to coalesce. However, all these regimes attempt to solve similar dilemmas surrounding shared access and resources.
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Papers by John F Bradford