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PALGRAVE STUDIES IN
MARITIME POLITICS AND SECURITY

Great Power
Competition in the
Southern Oceans
From the Indo-Pacific
to the South Atlantic
a r i e l g on z á l e z l e vag gi
Palgrave Studies in Maritime Politics and Security

Series Editor
Geoffrey F. Gresh, Springfield, VA, USA
The world’s oceans cover over 70% of the planet’s surface area. Global
shipping carries at least 80% of the world’s traded goods. Offshore oil and
gas account for more than one-third of world energy production. With
the maritime domain so important and influential to the world’s history,
politics, security, and the global political economy, this series endeavors
to examine this essential and distinct saltwater perspective through an
interdisciplinary lens, with a focus on understanding the ocean histori-
cally, politically, and from a security lens. Through a spectrum of engaging
and unique topics, it will contribute to our understanding of the ocean,
both historically and in a contemporary light, as source, avenue, and
arena: a source of food and energy; an avenue for the flow of goods,
people, and ideas; and an arena for struggle and warfare. The series
will use an interdisciplinary approach—integrating diplomatic, environ-
mental, geographic, and strategic perspectives—to explore the challenges
presented by history and the contemporary maritime issues around the
world.
 Ariel González Levaggi

Great Power
Competition
in the Southern
Oceans
From the Indo-Pacific to the South Atlantic
Ariel González Levaggi
Political Science and International
Relations
Pontifical Catholic University
of Argentina
Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos
Aires
Argentina

ISSN 2730-7972 ISSN 2730-7980 (electronic)

Palgrave Studies in Maritime Politics and Security
ISBN 978-3-031-36475-4 ISBN 978-3-031-36476-1 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36476-1

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer
Nature Switzerland AG 2023

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of
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any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic
adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or
hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc.
in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such
names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for
general use.
The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and informa-
tion in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither
the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with
respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been
made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps
and institutional affiliations.

Cover illustration: Nino Marcutti/Alamy Stock Photo

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature
Switzerland AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
For my beloved family, Estefania and Gregorio,
For my beloved fathers, Graciela and Ruben
 Acknowledgments

The english version of the book is the result of the research project “Com-
parative Analysis of the Maritime Strategies of the People’s Republic of
China, the Russian Federation and the Republic of India and their impact
on the Southern Regional Maritime Security Orders” commissioned by
the Center for Naval Research and Strategic Studies (SDIE/CEEPADE)
of the Argentine Navy between 2019 and 2021. I would like to thank
the support of the Academic Coordinator of the Center, Rear Admiral
(R) Ricardo Alessandrini, the Administrative Coordinator, Rear Admiral
(R) Eduardo Castro Rivas and the Head of the Academic Research Area,
CN (R) Jorge Defensa for their support and accompaniment during the
research task. I would especially like to thank Daiana D’Elia and Pilar
Martínez Otero for their role as research assistant in different stages of
the project. I would like to thank also to several researchers who have
contributed and discuss this volume, particularly Andrés Serbin, Silvana
Elizondo, Jorge Malena, Ryan Berg, Paulo Botta, Marcelo Valença,
Patricio Giusto, Jorge Chediek, Juan Battaleme, Sebastián Vigliero, and
Brendon Cannon, among many others. I would like to thank especially
Aigul Kulnazarova for the encouragement to publish the book for the
English-speaking public. Finally, I am very grateful to the Palgrave
Macmillan team, especially Anca Pusca, and Saranya Siva, who provided
the needed guidance and support to undertake the book.

vii
 Praise for “Great Power Competition
in the Southern Oceans ”

“The profound analysis of book is highly relevant in the context of a

changing global geopolitical situation, in which the challenge to the post-
war hegemonic order imposes new strategic parameters on the great
powers. An essential book for understanding these new realities and
reflecting on possible responses.”
—Jorge Chediek, Director of the United Nations Office for South-South
Cooperation (2015–2021)

“An essential book for understanding the maritime strategies of the great
powers of the 21st century that links the dynamics of the Indo-Pacific and
the South Atlantic in a pioneering analysis of the maritime actions of the
major Eurasian actors.”
—Andrés Serbin, President of the Regional Coordination for Economic
and Social Research (CRIES)

“This book could not be more timely. As the U.S., China, and Russia
settle into an era of broad geopolitical competition, maritime influence
will be a key component to each country’s grand strategy. This book is a
must read for those wanting to know the most important issues at play in
maritime competition, and to understand the strategies of rising powers
such as India.”
—Ryan Berg, Director, Americas Program at the Center for Strategic and
International Studies (CSIS)

ix
x PRAISE FOR “GREAT POWER COMPETITION IN THE …

“This is an essential work for anyone interested in regional security, great

powers foreign policy and naval issues. Aimed at scholars of the subject,
but also accessible to beginners, the book offers a rigorous analytical
approach to central issues for international politics by looking at the
disputes and interests of the great powers in the Indo-Pacific and South
Atlantic regions. Herein lies the distinctiveness of this book: the analysis is
made from a Global Southern perspective, filling an ontological and epis-
temological gap in a field dominated by North-based readings. This makes
the book even more relevant and fundamental for analysts, policymakers
and IR students.”
—Marcelo Valença, Associate Professor at the Naval War College of Brazil
 Contents

1 Introduction 1
References 7
2 Between Threats and Capabilities: Maritime Strategies
in the Era of Great Power Competition 9
2.1 Great Power Competition: The Place of the Seas 11
2.2 From the Grand Strategy… 16
2.3 … To the Maritime Strategy 19
2.4 Threat Perception and Choice of a Maritime Strategy 23
2.5 Distant Maritime Projections: Effects on Regional
Maritime Stability 28
References 30

Part I Maritime Strategies of Great Powers in the 21st

Century
3 United States: Naval Hegemony Faces the Eurasian
Challenge 37
3.1 The City on the Hill: Domestic and International
Bases of U.S. Hegemony 38
3.2 From Liberal Hegemony to a New Grand Strategy
of Dual Containment 42
3.2.1 Facing the Eurasian Axis: A New Grand
Strategy of Dual Containment 47

xi
xii CONTENTS

3.3 The World According to the Pentagon 50

3.3.1 Debate and Trajectory Around the Defense
Strategy 52
3.4 The Challenge of the Century: Maintaining Global
Maritime Supremacy 55
3.4.1 Pillars of Global Maritime Supremacy 55
3.4.2 Naval Primacy in a Renewed Great-Power
Competition 57
References 61
4 People’s Republic of China: The ‘Blue’ Dream
of a Maritime Challenger 65
4.1 ‘Democratic Centralism’: The Chinese Communist
Party in the Age of Globalization 66
4.2 Grand Strategy in the Xi Jinping Era: From Pacific
Development to the Chinese Dream of the Great
Rejuvenation 72
4.2.1 Moving Away from the Defense: A Changing
Orientation 73
4.2.2 Concentric Objectives Around Territorial
Integrity 77
4.2.3 Centralized Decision-Making, Multiple
Instruments Available 78
4.3 The People’s Liberation Army and Active Defense:
Defensive Strategy, Offensive Tactics 79
4.3.1 The Party, the Red Army,
and the Organization of the Military
Factor 80
4.3.2 Armed Forces Faces Regional and Rising
Global Challenges 81
4.4 The ‘Blue’ Dream: Developing Capabilities
for a ‘Distant Water’ Navy 86
References 95
5 Russia’s Maritime Strategy: Between Naval
Modernization and Power Projection 101
5.1 Putin’s Grand Strategy in New Era of Uncertainty 102
5.1.1 From Pragmatism to Offensiveness
as an Organizing Principle 103
 CONTENTS xiii

5.1.2 The Tripod: Global Status, Regional Primacy,

and Deterring NATO 105
5.1.3 Instruments: Diplomacy, Soft Power, and (a Lot
of) Coercion 106
5.2 Military Strategy: Hybrid Conflicts and Regional
Priorities 108
5.3 Russian Navy: Between the Coast and the Global Seas 117
References 126
6 Republic of India: A Democratic Power with Maritime
Aspirations 131
6.1 New Delhi in the World: International Strategy
in a Complex Environment 132
6.1.1 Continentalism and Defensive Orientation 133
6.1.2 India’s Goals: Sovereignty, Stability,
and Development 135
6.1.3 Indian Arrows: Between Attraction
and Nuclear Power 137
6.1.4 The Challenge of a Rising Star: Between
Minimalism and Maximalism 138
6.2 Indian Military Strategy: Rivalry with Pakistan
and the China’s Challenge 141
6.3 India’s Maritime Strategy: Regional Priorities, Global
Issues 143
References 153

Part II Naval Competition in the Oceans of the Global

South
7 Indo-Pacific: Clash of the Titans 159
7.1 A Multipolar Scenario: A Crossroads of Narratives
and Geopolitical Stakes 163
7.1.1 A Complex Chessboard: Geopolitical Ambitions
and Projects 164
7.2 Critical Instability: From Taiwan to the Gulf of Aden 167
7.2.1 Global Level: Towards the Thucydides Trap 168
7.2.2 Regional Level: Regional Rivalries
and Maritime Tensions 169
7.2.3 Transnational Level: Bottlenecks
and the Malacca Dilemma 171
xiv CONTENTS

7.3 New Wine in Old Wineskins: Institutions, Alliances,

and Regional Challenges 173
7.3.1 The Geopolitical Containment Game: Between
QUAD and AUKUS 174
7.3.2 The Geo-economic Dynamics Game: From BRI
to RCEP 177
7.3.3 Convergences and Divergences in Maritime
Cooperation 179
References 181
8 The South Atlantic and the Global Strategic Competition 185
8.1 The Peaceful Ocean? Trends in the South Atlantic
Scenario 186
8.1.1 Extra-Regional Great Powers in the South
Atlantic 190
8.2 Sustained Projection: United States 191
8.3 Increasing Projection: China 196
8.4 Selective Projection: Russian Federation 205
8.5 Limited Projection: India 212
8.6 The South Atlantic vis-à-vis the Eurasian Powers 218
References 219
9 Southern Oceans and Great Power Competition:
A Call for Strategic Autonomy 227
References 234

Bibliography 235
Index 263
 List of Figures

Fig. 2.1 Grand strategy and maritime strategy 20

Map 4.1 China’s first and second island chains (https://en.wikipe

dia.org/wiki/Island_chain_strategy#/media/File:Geogra
phic_Boundaries_of_the_First_and_Second_Island_Chains.
png) 93

xv
 List of Tables

Table 2.1 World hierarchy of great and regional power navies

(adapted from Burilkov 2017: 59) 21
Table 2.2 Grand strategy and maritime strategy selection 27
Table 2.3 Stability/instability balance 30
Table 8.1 High-level visits (only President and PM) of the People’s
Republic of China to Latin America (2000–2020) 199
Table 8.2 High-Level Visits of the Russian Federation to Latin
America (1996–2023) (adapted and updated
from Rouvinski 2020: 6) 209
Table 8.3 High-level visits of the Republic of India to Latin
America (2000–2020) 215

xvii
 CHAPTER 1

Introduction

Two weeks before the start of the Russian Federation’s large-scale military
intervention in Ukraine, a diplomatic incident occurred between Moscow
and Washington over an alleged detection and pursuit of a Virginia-class
nuclear attack submarine in Russian territorial waters of the Kuril Islands
archipelago. The Russian Defense Ministry filed a note of protest with the
U.S. Embassy in Moscow, while the incident was denied by the Pentagon.
Beyond the veracity of the incident, the sea remains a domain in which the
dispute between the great naval powers is expressed. From a geopolitical
point of view, the oceans are a central domain of the great power compe-
tition, as well as a vital point of reference for the strategic projection of
the navies at the international level. The achievement of supremacy in the
seas has traditionally been one of the main indicators of the existence of
regional and global hegemonies.
Geopolitics and geoeconomics are intertwined. The United Nations
Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) estimates that
around 80% of world trade is carried out by sea, while more than half
of it is centered on the Asian continent. The increase in the transit of
goods through the global maritime space in parallel with the shift of the
geo-economic axis from the Atlantic to the Pacific with the epicenter in
the rise of the People’s Republic of China has had a profound effect on
the structure of the international system and can be considered the central

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

Switzerland AG 2023
A. González Levaggi, Great Power Competition in the Southern
Oceans, Palgrave Studies in Maritime Politics and Security,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36476-1_1
2 A. GONZÁLEZ LEVAGGI

geopolitical change of the twenty-first century. In this sense, the interna-

tional maritime order is rapidly transforming to reflect a multipolar world.
This transformation is intimately related to global and regional geopo-
litical and geoeconomic developments in the regional maritime orders
located in East and South Asia.
Fundamental concepts in geopolitics and international security studies
have focused primarily on the land dimension of great power competition.
Classical geopolitics offers telluric concepts such as Halford Mackinder’s
pivot or heartland area and the living space or lebensraum coined by
Friedrich Ratzel and theorized by Karl Haushofer. However, one must
also consider the maritime domain, a dimension of such importance
whose modern theoretical tradition goes back to the classic naval geopo-
litical texts. Maritime concepts such as the naval supremacy of the Alfred
Mahan, the Julian Corbett’s notion of maritime dominance and the naval
projection strategy of the Soviet Admiral Sergey Gorshkov have been
at the center of the naval geopolitical imagination. Despite emphasizing
different spaces, these geopolitical thinkers approached the fundamentals
from a dualistic point of view: they understood the importance of control
of one element by the other, with greater or lesser emphasis. For example,
in naval geopolitical thought there had been a permanent discussion on
the reciprocal relationship between land and sea as key to the control of
the sea.
The Corbettian (or maritime) school emphasizes the limits of the
maritime realm based on the differences between land and sea as a
strategic space in which naval forces must support land forces. In the
words of Corbett (2014), “since men live on the land and not on the sea,
the great issues between warring nations have always been decided, except
in the rarest cases, either by what your army can do against your enemy’s
territory and national life, or else by fear of what the fleet makes it possible
for your army to do.” In that sense, maritime affairs matter but they
depend on the land dynamics where men live. Also the author empha-
sized the multidimensionality of the marine environment, stressing the
weight of both military and non-military factors in achieving dominance
of the sea.
In his seminal work, Mahan (2007) argued that control of the sea by
maritime commerce and naval force leads to a central influence on world
politics, e.g., the United Kingdom throughout the nineteenth century.
The Mahanist (or navalist) school emphasizes the role of naval military
power and calls for the supremacy of the oceans over land, given that
 1 INTRODUCTION 3

control over maritime lines of communication makes it possible to acquire

supremacy at sea and deny projection to the rival state. The twenty-first
century is witnessing the struggle to maintain the naval and maritime
supremacy of the United States over the last 30 years, and also the
rise/return of powers traditionally of continentalist tradition but seeking
to strengthen zones of influence in adjacent seas (and beyond) such as
Russia, China and India.
Faced with situations of naval hegemony, there have been multiple
cases of challenges and confrontations for primacy on the seas. History
presents us with multiple episodes of dispute for naval primacy. The
Kingdom of Spain and the United Kingdom confronted each other in
the sixteenth century until the Armada Invencible was defeated by the
English Navy in 1588. Germany tried unsuccessfully to develop a naval
force that would dethrone British naval hegemony in the years leading up
to World War I. Beginning in the 1960s, the Soviet Union attempted to
break the U.S. geostrategic encirclement of the “land rim” (or rimland)
by building a global navy under the leadership of Admiral Gorshkov
although cost overruns and Soviet implosion thwarted that effort. The
twenty-first century is no exception to the hegemonic challenges to domi-
nance of the seas. Supremacy in maritime spaces, control of sea lines of
communication, projection over strategic enclaves and access to ocean
resources continue to be high on the agendas of the world’s major power
players.
This book addresses the maritime strategies of the major global players
of the twenty-first century and the development of naval dynamics in
two broad maritime spaces of the Global South1 : the Indo-Pacific as the
epicenter of current naval competition and the South Atlantic, a rela-
tively geopolitical stable area with multiple challenges ahead, including
the increasing presence of extra-regional great powers and the discussion
over the future of Antarctica. The great powers selected for this essay are
the United States, the People’s Republic of China, the Russian Federa-
tion, and the Republic of India. This choice may sound arbitrary but two

1 I use the term Global South to refer to countries that self-identify or are identified
as “developing” beyond their specific geographic location in contrast to the developed
countries of the Global North. Even if geographically most of the Indo-Pacific’s countries
are geographically in the Northern Hemisphere, they belong to the developing economies
category and they participate in Global South-related multilateral initiatives such as the
Group of 77 + China.
4 A. GONZÁLEZ LEVAGGI

specific criteria were used to define the great powers of the twenty-first
century: economic power projected in the next three decades and actual
military capabilities, emphasizing nuclear triad capabilities. According to
a PwC report (2017), by mid-century China, India and the United
States would rank among the top three in the global economy while
Russia would occupy the sixth position after Indonesia and Brazil. In this
context, the main European economies would drop several places, such as
Germany (from 5 to 9th), the United Kingdom (9th–10th) and France
(10th–12th). In about three decades, the shift of the economic axis from
the Atlantic to the Pacific will continue the trajectory started early this
century.
In relation to military spending, according to SIPRI figures in constant
(2021) USD, the first four countries with the highest military spending
were the United States (USD 767 billion), the People’s Republic of
China (USD 270 billion), the Republic of India (USD 73 billion) and
the Russian Federation (USD 63 billion). All these countries have exten-
sive military capabilities in the land, air and naval domains, in addition to
the so-called nuclear triad, i.e. the ability to deploy nuclear weapons in
the three classic components of the armed forces: land, air and naval.2
Knowledge about the maritime strategies of the great powers is central
to understand and forecast changing scenarios in regional maritime
spaces, especially in a context in which a greater degree of great power
competition in Eurasia (Gresh 2020) and the Indo-Pacific (Rossiter and
Cannon 2020; Cannon and Hakata 2022), in addition to the growing
involvement of extra-regional powers in the Western Hemisphere (Ellis
2015a, b; Berg and Brands 2021) and the South Atlantic (Gonzalez
Levaggi 2020). This book presents the maritime strategies of the United
States, Russia, China and India to explain the regional dynamics both
at the Indo-Pacific realm and the South Atlantic based on a concep-
tual framework grounded on a neoclassical realism perspective. The
conceptual approach is complemented by strategic studies, neoclassical
geopolitics and grand strategies literature that catch up on the relevance of

2 Given these criteria, countries with an important tradition in the naval area and
presence in the Southern Oceans such as the United Kingdom and France are left out of
the analysis although it is important to underline their membership in collective security
mechanisms led by the USA such as NATO, or the case of AUKUS, a military alliance
recently created between the USA, the United Kingdom and Australia.
 1 INTRODUCTION 5

geographic spaces and natural resources in structuring global and regional

dynamics (Kaplan 2018).
Neoclassical realism incorporates domestic variables to broaden the
range of explanations centered on systematic explanations such as the
distribution of capabilities at the global level or cycles of hegemonic
change (Rose 1998). In addition to global transformations with the rise
of the relative economic and military power of the great powers, the
perception of threats (global, regional and domestic) of the government
or executive node is introduced as an intervening domestic variable in
the context of a given ruling coalition. Both elements are fundamental to
explain the process of change and transformation of national security and
international affairs policies in the case studies (Lobell 2003).
States often react in multiple ways to the perceived threat by plan-
ning, deciding, and implementing a grand strategy (or international
strategy).3 Such a concept refers to the ‘intentional employment of all
available instruments of power’ of a state actor (Gray 2011), and those
sectoral-type strategies linked directly to the maritime and naval domains,
especially in their global projection (Till 2007). Maritime strategies repre-
sent the expression of a much broader design that contains military and
non-military elements, so it is necessary to understand both the broad
context where such a strategy takes place and the various tools at a state’s
disposal. Finally, the type of a selected maritime strategy—especially those
who opt for power projection at the global scale—and the interaction
of great powers in the maritime domain gives a particular character to
regional maritime orders that can take on a confrontational character,
such as the South China Sea, or a more cooperative one, such as the
South Atlantic.
The book explores the competition for maritime supremacy among
major powers in the current international order. It begins by discussing
the end of the unipolar era and the return of great-power competition in
a multipolar world, with a focus on the role of the sea in this competition.
The book adopts a neoclassical realist approach to analyze the maritime
strategies of major powers. It discusses the concept of grand strategy and
its expression in the maritime sphere, including the perception of external
threats, capabilities, and the choice of maritime strategies. The essay then
delves into the naval competition in the oceans of the Global South,

3 These concepts will be used interchangeably.

6 A. GONZÁLEZ LEVAGGI

focusing on four major powers: the United States, China, Russia, and
India. It discusses the grand strategies of these powers, including their
domestic and international bases of hegemony, military strategies, and
maritime aspirations, while also examines the challenges and opportuni-
ties these powers face in maintaining or achieving maritime dominance,
and how their grand strategies are reflected in their maritime strategies at
the Southern Oceans, the Indo-Pacific realm and the South Atlantic.
The book is organized into three sections. The first section presents
an analytical reflection that allows us to evaluate the strategies of the
maritime powers within an international order characterized in recent
years by renewed strategic competition between great powers. The era
of hegemonic stability following the end of the Cold War seems to have
been left behind, while Beijing and Moscow introduce a series of direct
and indirect challenges to the global security architecture built and led
by the global leadership of the United States. In this framework, the
Chapter 2 offers a conceptual framework that assembles great powers’
threat perceptions and the selection of a grand strategy with its maritime
counterpart to explain regional and extra-regional naval deployments.
The second section develops the maritime expression of the interna-
tional strategies of the great powers. Each chapter devoted to the great
powers identifies their main threats to national security and presents the
main features of a strategy to meet the strategic challenges. In their
actions, the rising Eurasian great powers have projected their inter-
ests beyond their surrounding region, tangentially including the South
Atlantic, while the United States retains an extended presence with a
global deployment that includes the entire Western Hemisphere.
Chapter 3 assesses the trajectory of the United States’ post-Cold War
maritime strategy of naval supremacy in the framework of a grand strategy
of primacy, currently in crisis due to the rise of the Eurasian powers.
Chapter 4 analyzes the emergence of the People’s Republic of China
whose global economic presence augurs an extrarregional strategic projec-
tion, although for the time being regional conditions present it with a
series of obstacles that hinder the development of a global blue water
navy. Chapter 5 deals with the case of the Russian Federation in which a
pragmatic and opportunistic approach centered on a continentalist geopo-
litical orientation has given way to an offensive strategy with a presence as
a global actor given its status as the world’s second largest navy. Chapter 6
presents the case of the Republic of India, which presents a mixture of
a desire for a global leading role vis-à-vis the Global South with major
 1 INTRODUCTION 7

concerns with their rivals, Pakistan, and China, given its recent projection
in the Indian Ocean, which end up limiting its maritime aspirations in the
Indo-Pacific.
The third section presents an analysis of the regional dynamics of two
southern maritime scenarios: the Indo-Pacific and the South Atlantic.
In the first case (Chapter 7), the region has become a space of geopo-
litical and geoeconomic confrontation that is expressed in the multiple
narratives on maritime dominance. In relation to the South Atlantic
(Chapter 8), the currently stable strategic scenario matches with the
increasing role of the great powers, especially related to the geoeconomic
projection of the People’s Republic of China, the geopolitical interests
of the Russian Federation and a still timid presence of the Republic of
India. Finally, the conclusion outlines a series of lessons to reflect on the
evolution of maritime competition in the Oceans of the Global South.

References
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the Caribbean in an Era of Strategic Competition. Florida: Jack D. Gordon
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Cannon, Brendon and Hakata, Kei (eds) (2022) Indo-Pacific Strategies: Navi-
gating Geopolitics at the Dawn of a New Age. New York: Routledge.
Corbett, Julien (2014) Principles of Maritime Strategy. New York: Dover
Publications.
Ellis, Evan (2015a) “China-Latin America Military Engagement: Good Will,
Good Business, and Strategic Position,” U.S. Army War College, Strategic
Studies Institute.
Ellis, Evan (2015b) “The Impact of China on the Security Environment of Latin
America and the Caribbean,” in Routledge Handbook of Latin American
Security, eds. Arie Kacowicz and David R. Mares. New York: Routledge.
Gonzalez Levaggi, Ariel (2020) “Eurasia en el Atlántico Sur: evaluando la
proyección marítima de China, Rusia e India,” Revista Defensa Nacional, 5,
pp. 79–115.
Gray, Colin (2011) The Strategy Bridge: Theory for Practice. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Gresh, Geoffrey (2020) To Rule Eurasian Waves: The New Great Power
Competition at Sea. London: Yale University Press.
Kaplan, Robert (2018) The Return of Marco Polo’s World: War, Strategy, and
American Interests in the Twenty-First Century. New York: Random House.
Lobell, Steve (2003) The Challenge of Hegemony: Grand Strategy, Trade, and
Domestic Politics. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
8 A. GONZÁLEZ LEVAGGI

Mahan, Alfred (2007) Influencia del Poder Naval en la Historia. Ministerio de

Defensa del Reino de España.
PwC (2017) “The Long View: How Will the Global Economic Order
Change by 2050?”, https://www.pwc.com/gx/en/world-2050/assets/pwc-
the-world-in-2050-full-report-feb-2017.pdf.
Rose, Gideon (1998) “Neoclassical Realism and Theories of Foreign Policy,”
World Politics, 51 (1), pp. 144–172.
Rossiter, Ash and Brendon Cannon (eds) (2020) Conflict and Cooperation in
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Till, Geoffrey (2007) Poder Marítimo: una guía para el siglo XXI. Buenos Aires:
Instituto de Publicaciones Navales.
 CHAPTER 2

Between Threats and Capabilities: Maritime

Strategies in the Era of Great Power
Competition

The discussion around the nature of international order is one of the

most important topics for the discipline of international relations. Henry
Kissinger (2016) states that an international order is the practical appli-
cation of ideas about nature of just arrangements and the distribution
of power thought to be applicable to a portion of the word. In recent
years, debates around order have generally referred to the return of
global geopolitical competition between great powers and a progressive
detachment of Washington—especially during Donald Trump’s adminis-
tration between 2016 and 2020—from the norms, rules and procedures
that established the so-called ‘international liberal order’. This order that
achieved greater universality after the end of the Cold War was organized
around economic openness, multilateral institutions, security cooperation
and democratic solidarity (Ikenberry 2018: 7). Despite having a primacy
in the Atlantic and Western world, this order was not so liberal in its
beginnings, and only limitedly global until the fall of the Soviet Union
(Ferguson 2018), while the promoter of such an order did not hesitate
to break multilateral principles to promote its agenda as the case of the
invasion of Iraq in 2003 (Walt 2018).
Beyond the criticisms, it is important to temporally segment the evolu-
tion of the international order into two periods. From the end of the
Cold War until the international financial crisis of 2008/2009, the order

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 9

Switzerland AG 2023
A. González Levaggi, Great Power Competition in the Southern
Oceans, Palgrave Studies in Maritime Politics and Security,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36476-1_2
10 A. GONZÁLEZ LEVAGGI

was characterized by a certain stability under US hegemony based on the

strengthening of globalization and widespread economic growth in both
the developed world and the Global South, positively impacting diverse
regions such as Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe or Central America. In the
maritime domain different types of countries strived to increase maritime
security and effective maritime governance to generate better conditions
for stability (Bekkevold and Till 2016: 6).
Despite multilateral efforts in the framework of the G-20, the post-
G-20 crisis period has been characterized as a G-Zero whereby many
countries are strong enough to prevent agreements, but none has the
political and economic power to remake the status quo (Bremmer 2012).
Another interpretation refers that the emerging order is a highly complex,
decentered and interdependent multiplex world that possesses five central
characteristics: absence of a global hegemony, proliferation of state
and non-state actors, broad patterns of interdependence, a multi-level
global governance architecture, and the existence of multiple modernities
(Acharya 2018). However, the recent international trajectory exacerbated
by the COVID-19 crisis presents us with a scenario in which high poli-
tics issues have an increasingly prominent place on the international
agenda, while those of the great powers have increasingly assertive and,
in many cases, unilateral actions. Trump’s ‘America First’, Xi Jinping’s
‘wolf warrior diplomacy’ and the repeated use of Russian military force
in regional conflicts are clear examples. The international order not only
presents itself with a greater number of state actors with power—that is,
multipolar—but also with a greater fragmentation of regional blocs, as
in the case of Brexit or the crisis of Latin American regionalism, and a
progressive erosion of the norms and principles that have regulated the
maintenance of international peace and security. The twenty-first century
has begun.
The military intervention of the Russian Federation in Ukraine is a
revealing symptom of a process of transformation of world politics that
has ended up shattering the very foundations of the stability of the inter-
national order. The international financial crisis of 2008/2009 and the
dynamism of the emerging powers nucleated in the BRICS forum have
facilitated the shift of geo-economic centrality from the Atlantic to the
Pacific, as well as the geopolitical centrality of the Atlantic space towards
Greater Eurasia, with ramifications in the main global mechanisms of
domination and allocation of resources.
 2 BETWEEN THREATS AND CAPABILITIES: MARITIME … 11

In the last two decades, the hegemony of the United States has dimin-
ished globally in the military, economic and technological spheres. At the
same time, China has gaining ground as the great strategic competitor in
the twenty-first century and Russia counters with assertive actions in the
face of NATO enlargement, while trying to strengthen leadership in the
Kremlin’s perceived zone of influence, as witnessed by the repeated use of
force from Georgia to Ukraine. At the same time, the confluence between
Russia and China seeks to establish a ‘new type of relations between world
powers’ that recognizes their status in global politics as non-western great
powers (Russia Presidency 2022). In general terms, both Washington’s
relative weight and its influence and projection in non-Western regions—
especially in the Eurasian space—has been on the decline, as has been the
case in Iraq and Afghanistan, while new challenges to the control of global
common spaces appear, especially in the maritime, space and cyberspace
spheres.
This section presents the place of the maritime spaces in the new
age of great power competition, while presents the main conceptual
notions guiding the essay: grand strategy, threats perceptions, the role of
capabilities and the choice of a maritime strategy with its impact overseas.

2.1 Great Power Competition:

The Place of the Seas
International politics has a cooperative and a conflictive side. States do
not always find themselves in situations of extreme tension, while the
phenomenon of inter-state warfare is increasingly rare. At the same time,
globalization and networks of economic interdependence have shaped an
increasingly integrated world. In recent years, however, the liberal illu-
sion of a more collaborative and peaceful world seems to be dimming as
a new period of tensions between the great powers is taking hold, while
the use of military power is once again being revalued. Russia’s actions
in Georgia, Ukraine and Syria, Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China
Sea and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s revisionism in the Greater Middle East
are some examples of this.
One of the concepts that have captured this moment and made it the
central element of a narrative that permeates the corridors of power in
the world’s major capitals is that of great-power competition. DiCicco
and Onea (2023) defined it as a practice which remains as “a perma-
nent, compulsory, comprehensive, and exclusive contest for supremacy in
12 A. GONZÁLEZ LEVAGGI

a region or domain among those states considered to be the major players

in the international system” that “varies in intensity over time and space
but remains a persistent aspect of the international system of sovereign
states”. This term is very dear to the realist tradition since it indicates
an expected dynamic in a system where there is a series of powers with
great military capabilities that compete against each other. In a situation
of relative parity of power, competition not only becomes more acute but
also the system becomes more unstable. In line with Mearsheimer (2001:
33), states recognize that the “more powerful they are relative to their
rivals, the better their chances of survival”. Indeed, the best guarantee for
survival is to become the most powerful state in the entire international
system.
Hal Brands (2017) identifies six propositions of the new international
environment. First, this type of great power competition is more the norm
than the exception in the history of international affairs. Second, frictions
between great powers never completely disappeared. Third, competition
has returned in a fuller and sharper form because of systemic conditions.
Fourth, competition and revisionism are more acute today than at any
time since the end of the Cold War. Fifth, competition among the great
powers will certainly lead to a more dangerous and disorderly interna-
tional environment, but it will not necessarily lead to a major breakdown
of the existing international system. Finally, as phenomena such as U.S.
nationalism, populism and strategic retrenchment strengthen, it will be
more difficult for the United States and its allies to meet the challenge of
intensified great power competition. In this context, the world of great
power competition has clear implications for maritime dominance. The
current dilemma is that the United States finds itself with a frayed hege-
mony, while the progressive rapprochement between Russia and China in
the Eurasian space further complicates its strategic outlook.
The use of the great power competition in public discussion is relatively
recent. The then candidate Barack Obama in 2006 and Richard Haass in
2008—President of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR)—referred
to great-power competition as part of the past in the face of advancing
globalization and new transnational threats, while US academic Robert
Kagan refuted this optimistic view as a moment of transition (Friedman
2019). The notion of great-power competition will only position itself
as the main vector of global strategic discussions in Washington in the
mid-2010s as a response to the Ukrainian crisis and strategic competition
among emerging powers in Asia.
 2 BETWEEN THREATS AND CAPABILITIES: MARITIME … 13

In a presentation to the think tank Center for a New American Secu-

rity (CNAS), then Deputy Secretary of Defense in the Obama and Trump
administrations, Robert Work (2015) stated “unipolar world is starting to
fade and we enter a more multipolar world, in which U.S. global leader-
ship is likely to be increasingly challenged. So among the most significant
challenges in this 25 years, and one in my view that promises to be the
most stressing one, is the reemergence of great power competition.”
The United States’ own recognition of the global transformations
towards a multipolar world clearly had a correlate in Washington’s
strategic vision of the world. The development of the concept will go
in line with modifications in U.S. defense and security policy. In 2017,
the National Security Strategy was reformulated taking global competi-
tion as the analytical framework for the development of the American
country’s domestic and international actions, something that will be repli-
cated in the 2018 National Defense Strategy (DoD 2018). Specifically,
the National Security Strategy notes that the “United States will respond
to the growing political, economic, and military competitions we face
around the world. China and Russia challenge American power, influence,
and interests, attempting to erode American security and prosperity”
while clarifying that competition “competition does not always mean
hostility, nor does it inevitably lead to conflict” (White House 2017: 2–
3). It further identifies other actors that undermine Washington’s global
interests such as Iran, North Korea, in addition to terrorist organiza-
tions. With the arrival of the Biden Administration the diplomatic tone
moderated, although the “Interim National Security Strategic Guidance”
published in March 2021 continues to identify China and Russia as rivals,
although in the case of Beijing it is seen as the main strategic competitor
in the long term.
This perspective prevailing in Washington also has its correlate in
Moscow and Beijing. In the case of Russia, in diplomatic discourse and
practice there is a permanent emphasis on its role as a great power and
the existence of a post-hegemonic and multipolar world that the rest
of the countries should recognize as such. In the 2016 Foreign Policy
Concept of the Russian Federation document, it is recognized on the
one hand that there is an increase in tensions due to “disparities in global
development, the widening prosperity gap between States and growing
competition for resources, access to markets and control over transport
arteries. This competition involves not only human, research and tech-
nological capabilities, but has been increasingly gaining a civilizational
14 A. GONZÁLEZ LEVAGGI

dimension in the form of dueling values” while warning of systemic prob-

lems due to the “geopolitical expansion pursued by the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization (NATO) and the European Union (EU)” (Russian
Presidency 2016).
In the same vein, according to India’s National Security Strategy
(2019), the global strategic scenario is characterized by a growing polar-
ization between the major powers, China, Russia and the United States
which is changing dramatically the post-WW2 structure of international
relations. Finally, in the case of Beijing, the 2019 ‘China’s National
Defense in a New Era’ document acknowledges the existence of a more
balanced and multipolar world while “international strategic competi-
tion is on the rise” due to the actions of the major global powers. It
specifically notes that: “The US has adjusted its national security and
defense strategies, and adopted unilateral policies. It has provoked and
intensified competition among major countries, significantly increased
its defense expenditure, pushed for additional capacity in nuclear, outer
space, cyber and missile defense, and undermined global strategic stability.
NATO has continued its enlargement, stepped up military deployment
in Central and Eastern Europe, and conducted frequent military exer-
cises. Russia is strengthening its nuclear and non-nuclear capabilities for
strategic containment, and striving to safeguard its strategic security space
and interests. The European Union (EU) is accelerating its security and
defense integration to be more independent in its own security” (State
Council 2019). In summary, the main actors of the international order
recognize a situation of strategic tension, although in the case of the
United States it is proposed as an alternative narrative that allows modi-
fying the axes of the grand strategy in a direction that has some similarity
with the previous period of strategic competition, the Cold War.
The node of great power competition lies between the vast Eurasian
space and the Indo-Pacific region where the great powers of the present
and future contest for allies, spheres of influence and presence in the
maritime space. Just as international order reflects a certain type of
resource distribution and the type of rules shared among great powers,
international maritime order is presented as a consequence of “how states
and the international community make use of the oceans both as a means
of strategic dominance and maneuver, as a reserve resource and a means
of transportation in an orderly, legal and sustainable manner” (Bekkevold
and Till 2016: 307). As in world politics, the maritime dimension is
 2 BETWEEN THREATS AND CAPABILITIES: MARITIME … 15

shaped by the changing distribution of power and the rule-based gover-

nance. While the first dimension is characterized by named competition
among great powers, the second has a wide range of arrangements which
main expression is the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea
(UNCLOS) adopted in 1982. The agreement offers a comprehensive set
of norms and rules regarding the oceans and maritime zones governance
which was ratified almost unanimously by 168 parties. Even if the United
States did not ratify the treaty and extends the use of freedom of naviga-
tion with military warships, the bulk of the UNCLOS norms have been
implemented from small to great powers. The global oceans are both an
arena for global cooperation and development, but also for geopolitical
and geoeconomic competition.
Given that the naval factor is fundamental, three elements are key in
addressing maritime competition: maritime geoeconomics, great power
status and the security of vital sea lanes of communication. Geoeco-
nomics—or the use of economic tools to achieve economic or political
objectives—involves different dimensions such as trade policy, investment
policy, and energy and natural resource policies (Gresh 2020: 10). To this
end, it is essential to avoid obstacles to trade, financial and military flows,
while at the same time it is critical to develop a system that secures the
sea lines of communication, especially at choke points such as the Straits
of Hormuz, Malacca or the Bosphorus. In terms of resources, transport
or dominance, the maritime space has two key dimensions in which the
international order is challenged. First, from a systemic view, the overall
scenario is affected by structural changes in the distribution of global
power, changes in threat perception, naval modernization, and changes
in naval capabilities, along with changes in the interpretation and appli-
cation of the difficult regulation of maritime rights laws. Second, there
is a challenge from below through non-traditional threats such as drug
trafficking, piracy, terrorism and indiscriminate illegal fishing (Bekkevold
and Till 2016: 7–8).
The more resources a country possesses, the more it needs to protect
its assets. This becomes more pressing when countries aspire to (or have)
great power status as the possession of a modern and sophisticated navy is
taken for granted. The economic and commercial expansion of China and
India are examples of the implications for the development of a fleet with
progressive overseas capabilities, while the modernization of the Russian
fleet has paralleled the military assertiveness that has had the Navy as a key
16 A. GONZÁLEZ LEVAGGI

player, especially in the Syrian theater of operations. Finally, the protec-

tion of vital sea lanes of communication requires the development of blue
water naval capabilities, together with a policy of access and/or installa-
tion of bases that logistically allows to achieve the stated objectives. In
the case of the United States this is evident given the network of bases
and naval facilities globally.
However, as Gresh (2020: 21) states “China, Russia, and India have
begun to expand their maritime presence beyond their traditional regional
seas, exhibiting intensifying blue-water naval capabilities. If the compe-
tition for superior resources and control over Eurasia’s sea lanes of
communication continues, geoeconomic competition could morph into
intensifying military and security friction. And if such trends prevail, this
coming period may mark the beginning of a new Eurasian maritime
century with the United States looking unprepared.” This is the new
chessboard of naval competition.

2.2 From the Grand Strategy…

The concept of strategy has traditionally been linked to the phenomenon
of war. One of the leading thinkers on war and strategy, Clausewitz
(2007) understood strategy as the use of combat for the goals of war.
However, in recent times the application has expanded into non-military
areas, from political marketing to business development. The interpre-
tation of ‘grand strategy’ has slowly become divorced from the military
dimension. Leading strategists on the subject such as Collin Gray, John
Gaddis or Paul Kennedy, together with authors of the realist school such
as Barry Posen or Jeffrey Taliaferro have characterized grand strategy as
a kind of common thread that articulates the relationship between means
and ends so that the state can achieve its objectives, intimately linked to
the national interest (Van Hooft 2017). According to Kennedy (1991:
5), a deep understanding of grand strategy must focus on politics under-
stood as the conjugation of military and non-military elements for the
preservation and projection of long-term interests.
From a naval perspective, Corbett posited a distinction between major
and minor strategy, in that the former deals with ulterior objectives such
as the goals of an armed conflagration, while the latter focuses on primary
objectives (Speller 2018: 38). Decades later, Liddell Hart will make a
distinction between pure and grand strategy, whereby the former—also
called tactics—represents the application of strategy at a low level, while
 2 BETWEEN THREATS AND CAPABILITIES: MARITIME … 17

grand strategy coordinates and directs all of the nation’s resources toward
the achievement of the political object of war (Strachan 2006: 40).
In any case, throughout the conceptual discussions on the Grand
Strategy, multiple interpretations have been generated on the defini-
tion, scope and contents of a comprehensive approach in relation to the
objectives of the State. A sector of realist authors, despite incorporating
the non-military dimension of grand strategy, has emphasized military
threats, coercive power and a part of the conceptual representations of
grand strategy such as military doctrine (Kitcher 2010: 320–121).
Gray (2011) defines grand strategy as the “The direction and use made
of any or all among the total assets of a security community in support
of its policy goals as decided by policy.” While Posen (1984: 13) under-
stands it as a kind of “political-military, means-ends chain, a state’s theory
about how it can best “cause” security for itself.” Another more flex-
ible approach has proposed a much more balanced view between military
and non-military factors. Gaddis (2009) understands it as “the process by
which a state relates long-term strategic ends to means under the rubric
of an overarching and enduring vision to advance the national interest.”
From neoclassical realism, its main referents interpret it in a similar vein
as the “organizing principle or conceptual blueprint that animates all of a
state’s relations with the outside world” to secure and maximize its inter-
ests” (Lobell et al. 2016: 15). Based on the latter definition, we highlight
three elements of grand strategy: its organizing principle, objectives and
dimensions.
The first point refers to the set of assumptions that guide action in a
logical and coordinated manner. To date, multiple typologies have been
proposed, differentiating expansionist or status-quo oriented strategies
(Luttwak 2001), expansive or declining (Kennedy 1992), coercive, deter-
rent and accommodative (Kupchan 1994), or, similarly, offensive, defen-
sive or accommodative strategies (Johnson 1995: 112–113). According
to Kitchen (2010: 138), adjustments in grand strategy have two levels,
first or second order. In primary changes there is a modification of the
organizing principle of the grand strategy due to the identification of a
new threat, the alteration in the classification of threats or the change of
a governing coalition that resignifies such threats. Second-order changes
represent adjustments of the grand strategy within the same organizing
principle.
In line with Johnson’s (1995) typology, a defensive grand strategy
prioritizes the achievement of internal border security by emphasizing
18 A. GONZÁLEZ LEVAGGI

internal over external balancing efforts, while promoting deterrence

actions through area denial and selective intervention policies. At the
same time, it tends to emphasize the use of non-coercive tools such
as diplomacy, economic and commercial incentives as well as balancing
and bandwagoning practices to achieve political objectives. In contrast,
an offensive strategy relies on the potential use of force and places its
focus on security beyond its borders, and therefore has a maximalist aspi-
ration to defeat or neutralize the enemy, although this does not mean that
such a grand strategy is necessarily imperialist. The third option represents
an intermediate point and can be labeled as pragmatic or accommoda-
tionist since, although it has a general defensive posture, it can carry out
aggressive actions from the tactical point of view.
The ulterior objectives of a grand strategy are intimately linked to the
very ends projected by a state, linked both to the very survival of the
state entity or the extension of its influence in terms of its power, wealth,
and/or prestige. Generally, these ends prefigure the type of organizing
principle whose breadth incorporates the totality of the instruments and
dimensions rooted in the state, including its maritime facet.
In the face of certain tensions and crossed paths, Strachan (2006: 37)
wonders why there is, on the one hand, a strategy and, on the other,
sectoral strategies such as the naval one. While the definition of objec-
tives may be modified in relation to the definition of vital interests and
perceived threats at the global or regional level, the grand strategy articu-
lates the totality of both military and non-military instruments, as well as
shaping sectoral strategies in the different spaces that states occupy imme-
diately: air, land and sea. In recent years, dimensions such as space and
cybernetics have been added.
Finally, the instrumental dimensions or tools of a grand strategy can be
divided into four components—military doctrine, diplomacy, economic
policy—which possess a high degree of interdependence, and an impor-
tant degree of internal consistency on the basis of organizing principles.
Military doctrine represents the set of general concepts and principles
guiding the action of the Armed Forces, the arrangement of which is
closely related to the type of guiding principle of the grand strategy.
Diplomacy, both reserved and public, brings together the main tools of
a state’s non-coercive projection, from the deployment of embassies to the
provision of humanitarian aid. Finally, economic policy reflects a certain
distribution of material resources in relation to a specific economic model
 2 BETWEEN THREATS AND CAPABILITIES: MARITIME … 19

whose variation may range from a centralized economy to the Anglo-

Saxon version of capitalism. Furthermore, it is important to consider soft
power as a complementary element that includes those instruments that
attract and persuade a third actor with generally innocuous elements such
as culture, language and development cooperation, among others.

2.3 … To the Maritime Strategy

The maritime strategy is that portion of the grand strategy that applies a
series of principles to ensure the survival and project the interests of a state
in the maritime space, understanding this from a multidimensional point
of view that incorporates economic, commercial, political, military, envi-
ronmental, scientific and technological facets. The same could be applied
to the terrestrial or aerial sphere, although emphasizing that defense and
national security issues are part of the scheme of a grand strategy (see
Fig. 2.1).
The sea is a three-dimensional space, so that interaction with other
strategies is essential for the development of maritime power. Following
Corbett’s perspective, maritime strategy goes beyond a naval strategy as
the former must serve the political interests of the state, while the latter
cannot be seen as dissociated from the terrestrial realm as they are inter-
dependent (Till 2007: 76–77). Hattendorf (2013: 10) agrees with this
perspective, presenting it as the comprehensive management of all aspects
of national power aimed at achieving specific political objectives in a
specific situation by exercising a certain degree of control at sea. Due
to this dual dimension of maritime strategy, navies play an important
but not decisive role given their limited role in certain maritime activi-
ties such as the exploitation of economic resources or the development of
transportation, among others.
The three-dimensionality of the maritime environment includes the
surface of the sea, in addition to that which lies below and above it. In this
sense, the maritime domain includes the oceans, seas, bays, bays, estuaries,
islands, coastal areas, and the airspace above these, including the littorals
(Speller 2018: 15). Throughout history, different maritime strategies have
been intimately linked to the aspirations, capabilities, and institutional
trajectory of states. In relation to aspirations, the organizing principle of
grand strategy usually gives us a fairly clear guide to its strategic projec-
tion horizon, while a country’s place within the global naval hierarchy
that can initially be distinguished between blue, green and brown water
20 A. GONZÁLEZ LEVAGGI

Grand Strategy

Defense and Security Economic Development

Strategy Strategy

Naval Strategy Civil Assets Resources

Air Strategy Transportation

Terrestrial Strategy
Trade

Maritime Power

Joint Operations

Fig. 2.1 Grand strategy and maritime strategy

navies according to the areas in which they operate. Blue waters refer to
open oceans, green to coastal waters and ports, while brown to navigable
rivers and estuaries (Speller 2018: 16).
Burilkov (2017: 56) distinguishes four types of blue water navies
to which he assigns defining capabilities and major naval instruments:
regional projection, multi-regional projection, limited global reach, and
global projection (Table 2.1). After a series of decades of economic and
military growth, emerging naval powers such as India and Brazil are in the
category of multi-regional projection with the capacity to project power
in regions beyond their exclusive economic zone, in addition to fulfilling
their task of defending their territorial integrity, while Russia and China
have navies with power projection in extra-regional theaters. Finally, the
institutional trajectory is linked to the degree of strength of the state
 2 BETWEEN THREATS AND CAPABILITIES: MARITIME … 21

in terms of its continuity and bureaucratic improvement in the maritime

field.
Just as grand strategies differ in their organizing principle, so do
maritime strategies. Based on the previously adopted distinction to grand
strategies, there are four types of maritime strategies extensively studied by
the maritime and naval literature: coastal defense, sea denial, sea control
and power projection. The first two reflect a defensive principle, the
third a more pragmatic perspective, while the fourth clearly expresses
an offensive orientation. In any case, it should be borne in mind that
these strategies are not mutually exclusive, but that the most ambitious
maritime strategies presuppose the incorporation of those of lesser scope.
In other words, it is impossible to think of a naval projection strategy
without having achieved the objectives of coastal defense.
In the case of this strategy, the main missions of this type of strategy are
the defense of the territorial integrity of the state against traditional state-
type threats and the development of military operations linked to public
security, typical of navies with limited scope or with functions extended

Table 2.1 World hierarchy of great and regional power navies (adapted from
Burilkov 2017: 59)

Type Inventory Capabilities Examples

Power All types of vessels in large Multiple, regular and United States
projection with quantities sustained global power
global reach projection missions, in
addition to national
defense
Power Aircraft carrier or related At least one global China and
projection with vessel, surface fleet, power projection Russia
limited global nuclear submarine, logistic operation, in addition to
reach vessels national defense
Multi-regional Aircraft carriers or Power projection India, United
power helicopter carriers, missions in regions Kingdom and
projection submarines, surface fleet beyond its EEZ, in France
and logistic vessels addition to national
defense
Regional power Destroyers, frigates, No air fleet support Brazil, Japan,
projection submarines and logistic other than helicopters. Australia and
vessels Limited power Turkey
projection area of action
22 A. GONZÁLEZ LEVAGGI

to that area. The New Soviet School, faced with the weakness of the post-
revolutionary navy in the 1920s and 1930s, proposed the defense of the
Soviet Union’s coasts through the development of an integrated system of
mines, coastal artillery, torpedo boats and submarines with a high degree
of coordination and inter-force communication. Another complementary
approach was proposed by the French Jeune École Française in the late
nineteenth century with the idea of developing a small and fast navy
supported by coastal defense lines (Speller 2018: 67).
Second, for the sea denial strategy the objective is not to use the sea for
its own purposes, but to prevent the enemy from doing so in two ways:
as an alternative to sea control or as a complement or contribution to sea
control albeit with a defensive approach (Till 2007: 205–206). Unlike
the coastal defense strategy, “sea denial is tactically offensive, but strategi-
cally defensive, whose fundamental objective is to create a forbidden sea
zone where the opponent does not dare or cannot advance” (Burilkov
2017: 66). Therefore, artillery and submarines alone are not enough, but
rather an improvement in capabilities with the addition of intermediate
range surface-to-air missiles, state-of-the-art detection technology, and
the development of a naval air force is necessary. Among the contem-
porary approaches to sea denial, highlighted by the US Navy vis-à-vis
China and Russia, is the notion of Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2/AD)
which involves the set of naval, land and air assets that can come to
attack maritime forces hundreds of miles offshore, thus hindering access
to maritime space and the application of the principle of freedom of the
seas (Speller 2018: 99).
The third strategy, sea control, is today the main enabler for most
maritime operations and has replaced the notion of ‘command of the
seas’ as the guiding axis of maritime projection. This strategy works in
two ways. For those with an offensive orientation it offers the possibility
of having a capability to operate with a high degree of freedom in order
to gain ‘command of the sea’ as Corbett proposed. For those with a
more defensive stance it underlines the need to defend sovereign spaces
with varying levels of success. Given that in maritime space control is a
relative term, it is important to stress that there are different degrees of
control from sea dominance to absolute enemy control (Till 2007: 203).
This is currently the strategy followed by most navies with global and
multi-regional projection.
One of the fundamental instruments for the development of this
strategy is the possession of a carrier battle group, which is usually a
 2 BETWEEN THREATS AND CAPABILITIES: MARITIME … 23

complex and costly system to maintain, since it involves not only the
aircraft carrier but also a protection scheme composed of destroyers,
frigates and submarines, as well as state-of-the-art technology for the
detection and interception of enemy fleets.
Finally, the power projection strategy has a clearly offensive design and
can take two forms from the operational point of view: (a) amphibious
operations, (b) sea or shore-based naval air strikes by fighters, and (c)
cruise/ballistic missiles launched from surface ships or submarines. This
approach has been used extensively by the United States in the framework
of punitive operations, recently the Russian Federation has opted to carry
out such actions in the framework of the Syrian Civil War and China is
building up a blue-waters navy which involves the development of carrier
battlegroups. Within this scheme, it is fundamental the existence of an
important naval aviation composed by a ‘Carrier Strike Group’ (CSG) or
in its absence with a helicopter carrier in addition to an important capacity
in terms of ballistic missiles, submarines with missile launching capability
(SSB/SSBN), whether nuclear or conventional, and special naval forces
with their respective means to carry out amphibious operations.
In short, maritime strategy cannot be dissociated from grand strategy.
On the contrary, understanding the maritime strategies of the Eurasian
powers in the new multipolar scenario requires an understanding of their
general approaches to world politics. In this line, the evaluation of their
maritime strategies requires the analysis and evolution of the organizing
principle of the grand strategy, the articulation between the different
dimensions of the complex of national interests, in addition to paying
attention to the further aspirations that are usually expressed, explicitly or
implicitly, in the main official documents linked to the field of defense,
national security and foreign policy.

2.4 Threat Perception

and Choice of a Maritime Strategy
In foreign policy and national security studies, systemic or domestic
explanations have taken precedence over grand strategy analysis, gener-
ally reflecting approaches from both structural neorealism (Mastanduno
1997; Waltz 2000; Mearsheimer 2001) and Innenpolitik (Kupchan 1994;
Johnson 1995; Katzenstein 1996; Finnemore 2004). While the systemic
approach argues that the evolution of the relative weight in the distri-
bution of global capabilities has a direct impact on the type of external
24 A. GONZÁLEZ LEVAGGI

behavior of states, the opposite option explains grand strategy mainly on

the basis of the internal characteristics of states, from the personality of
leaders to economic policy models. However, within the realist research
tradition, an alternative approach to understanding the foreign policy of
nations, neoclassical realism, has been put forward.
This approach does not deny the importance of external stimuli but
argues that states “respond primarily to the constraints and opportunities
of the international system when they pursue foreign and security policies,
but those responses are conditioned by factors at the individual level of
analysis, such as state-society relations, the nature of domestic political
regimes, strategic culture, and leaders’ perceptions” (Ripsman 2011).
For neoclassical realism, it is not only the relative position of states
that matters, but also the type of domestic environment in which foreign
policy decisions are made. Domestic factors such as leader images, the
state-society relationship, strategic culture and domestic institutions act as
intervening variables in the interaction between systemic stimuli and state
behavior (Ripsman et al. 2016). In this sense, the analysis on a given
grand strategy refers both to the evaluation of external stimuli and the
mobilization of elements of national power to achieve its objectives in the
international arena (Kitchen 2010: 121). The executive node of foreign
policy—that is, the one institutionally in charge of carrying out the state’s
relations with the rest of the world, such as the Presidency in Presidential
Systems or the Prime Minister in Parliamentary Systems—is identified as
the reference point in the process of establishing a grand strategy.
Within a state, the executive will define national interests and conduct
foreign policy based on an assessment of the relative power, threats and
intentions of other states, in addition to domestic constraints, both insti-
tutional (other branches of government) and informal, such as pressure
groups, for example, business, lobbyists or the press (Lobell et al. 2009;
Kitchen 2010).
The process of establishing a grand strategy goes through three stages
that usually have a certain degree of differentiation: assessment, formula-
tion, and implementation. In the first phase, the main security threats and
national objectives are defined based on a series of external stimuli such
as the global and regional geopolitical structure, the type of projection of
extra-regional powers on the regional orders where the state in question is
located, and the existence of both traditional and non-traditional threats.
The second stage involves the definition of the organizing principle of the
grand strategy together with the objectives and the determination of the
 2 BETWEEN THREATS AND CAPABILITIES: MARITIME … 25

appropriate means to deal with the threats, either using coercive and/or
cooperative tools. Far from being automatic, this step is usually crossed by
multiple and crossed interests within the executive node, fundamentally
in relation to the type of governing coalition. Finally, the grand strategy is
implemented both at the practical level with a series of concrete decisions
to face the international scenario, and at the conceptual level through the
discussion, development and publication of official documents related to
the projection of the country’s foreign and security policy.
These three steps are represented in the neoclassical realism model of
foreign policy whereby there is a mediation between systemic inputs and
state response by the leader’s perception, the decision-making process and
subsequent policy implementation, all influenced by domestic factors. In
relation to the external factor, the international scenario does not present
a clear and imminent threat, so states have a fairly wide range to choose
their grand strategy (Lobell 2003). In line with this approach, there is a
fundamental factor: the threat(s) perceived by the executive node of the
foreign policy agreed upon within the framework of the ruling domestic
coalition.
For neoclassical realism, threats generally have an external origin. The
key mediator between the international arena and domestic interests is the
executive node of foreign policy who acts as the recipient and evaluator
of threats. Threats are defined by the size, geographic proximity, offen-
sive capabilities, and offensive intentions of another state (Walt 1987).
Their origin can be located in the great powers of the international
order, in regional spheres whose dynamics are semi-autonomous but not
independent of the global system, or even at the domestic level with
non-traditional threats that can even threaten the territorial integrity of
the state (Burilkov 2017: 82–85). The relevance of this point lies in the
fact that, in the face of an imminent threat, its existence would not only
aggravate the security dilemma in a regional order but—in the case of
great powers—could generate mirror responses in regions under the influ-
ence of their competitor, as in the case of relations between the Russian
Federation and the United States in Latin America and the post-Soviet
space.
The cohesion of domestic coalitions in relation to threats is a key
element in formulating and implementing a grand strategy. The literature
has generally stressed the distinction between nationalist and internation-
alist coalitions which possess differentiated domestic support (Solingen
1998; Gonzalez Levaggi 2020). The former aspires to a more autarkic
26 A. GONZÁLEZ LEVAGGI

economy and a more nationalist vision, while the latter promote a more
open-minded and internationalist agenda. The link between the type of
coalitions and the selection of a grand strategy is critical to this approach.
Davidson (2006) articulates this by asserting that the fundamental orien-
tation of a state as a defender of the status quo or as a revisionist actor
is determined both by its systemic position and by the degree of influ-
ence that nationalists and the military have within the domestic political
coalition.
In all cases—despite changes or shifts in the more nationalist or inter-
nationalist governing coalitions—the degree of political consensus on the
determination of threat consensus is the key intervening variable in the
conceptual scheme. For example, the consensus of the Russian elite on
NATO expansion in Eastern Europe and the post-Soviet space since the
mid-1990s, Washington’s perception of the risks of Chinese technolog-
ical expansion, the Indian leadership’s view of Pakistan’s nuclear threat
or Mainland China’s call for national reunification over Taiwan are clear
examples of consensus.
In this sense, there are two elements to highlight that will operate
as assumptions for the analysis of the great powers’ maritime strate-
gies. First, their leadership has clearly defined the main threats, although
the emphasis on them has mutated in relation to the external context
and their own capabilities. For example, Obama administration pushed
for a pivot policy towards Asia, while Trump declared a trade war
against China. Secondly, the ruling coalitions of the Eurasian powers have
progressively shifted towards a nationalist/statist line that can be clearly
identified expressed in the leaderships of Vladimir Putin in Russia (since
2000), Narendra Modi in India (2014 onwards) and Xi Jinping in China
(since 2012). In short, the United States, China, Russia and India have
a high degree of domestic consensus regarding their regional and global
threats, while at the same time their ruling coalition has been mutating
from internationalism (like Russia in the 1990s and China and India until
the 2000s) towards more nationalistic forms, with the late exception of
the United States with the election of the leader of the Democratic Party,
Joe Biden.
Based on the above arguments, it is postulated that in the face of an
immediate threat perception by the executive leadership with a signif-
icant degree of political consensus, a power will develop a maritime
strategy with a significant degree of rationality in dealing with that threat.
 2 BETWEEN THREATS AND CAPABILITIES: MARITIME … 27

Conversely, without sufficient direct threat perception or internal cohe-

sion, it will tend toward a less linear maritime strategy. In the case of
the great naval powers, maritime strategies will have a high degree of
predictability, given the existence of direct threats and a high degree of
internal cohesion.
What defines a particular maritime strategy within a grand strategy?
Two variables are critical: the extent of the threat and the nation’s
capabilities. In relation to the first, its geographical extent—regional or
global—of the threat and the impact on the maritime level are funda-
mental. Securing maritime lines of communication in the face of a possible
restriction by a commercial power represents an invitation to develop
ocean waters policies. A territorial threat without maritime expression
limits these incentives. Regarding the second variable, the economic and
military capabilities of that power are critical. In the case of China, Russia
and India, their emergence in international politics was not only linked
to a will, but to increasing resources invested in multiple dimensions,
especially in the naval dimension (Table 2.2).
Neither grand strategies nor their maritime component is static. In
relation to the factors that influence their alterations, we should consider
the external stimuli—changes in the distribution of power at the global
and regional level—and modifications in the threat perceptions of the
executive node in which internal consensus plays a primary role. Maritime
strategies require operationalization and measurement standards. In rela-
tion to the former we identify three dimensions: substance, orientation,
and scope (Shively 2016). The first element is similar to the notion of the
ordering principle explained above, orientation involves the articulation
of the dimensions or means of a state, defined in terms of the level of
forces and specific security strategies, while scope refers to the geographic
extent, in addition to the identification of allies and adversaries.

Table 2.2 Grand strategy and maritime strategy selection

Threat/capabilities Great power Regional

Extensive Power projection Coastal defense

Sea denial Sea denial
Sea control
Restricted Sea denial Coastal defense
Sea control
28 A. GONZÁLEZ LEVAGGI

From a methodological point of view, the measurement of a grand

strategy and its maritime expression has always been an issue of complex
resolution. However, following Friedman Lissner (2018), three indicators
have some methodological relevance to define an international strategy
with its maritime expression: the principles enunciated by the executive
node such as Xi Jinping’s ‘Chinese Dream’ or the notion of the Russian
Navy’s ‘second world navy’; the publication of strategic plans in the
format of official documents such as the US National Security Strategy
or India’s Maritime Strategy; and finally, the major strategic and naval
actions of the powers expressed both in the use of coercive power and
soft power or soft power.

2.5 Distant Maritime Projections:

Effects on Regional Maritime Stability
Great extra-regional power’s distant engagements are a central channel of
external transformation of regional maritime orders. Neoclassical realism
presents a series of conceptual tools that help us understand the dynamics
of change and continuity in the selection of a great strategy.
The interaction between great powers and regions has been explored
over the last three decades with two main approaches differentiated in
relation to the membership of an extra-regional power in a given regional
security order. In a first perspective, assessing the Cold War experience,
Buzan and Wæver (2003) argue that there can be either overlapping or
penetration between a global power and a region based on the degree
of security involvement: “overlay is when great power interests transcend
mere penetration, and come to dominate a region so heavily that the
local pattern of security relations virtually ceases to operate” (2003: 61).
Along these lines, great powers are assumed to be part of regional power
hierarchies (Lemke 2002; Lake 2009).
A second perspective presents the extra-regional power as an external
actor that penetrates the region with differential effects in relation to the
type of actions developed, ranging from development cooperation to mili-
tary intervention. However, it rejects the idea that this power can be a
member of a regional order as such (Lake and Morgan 1997). Miller
(2007: 62–63) presents four types of great power involvement in regional
orders: competition, cooperation, domination and withdrawal. The first
refers to balance of power games whereby one power tries to displace the
other, while in the second the great powers agree on common goals in
 2 BETWEEN THREATS AND CAPABILITIES: MARITIME … 29

the region. With respect to domination, it reflects a hegemonic structure

with a dominant involvement of an extra-regional power in the region.
Finally, withdrawal expresses an abandonment of diplomatic, economic
and military commitments in a given region. In line with the second
approach to regional security orders, it is important to determine which
elements determine the type of strategic involvement of a great power in
the periphery, that is, beyond its immediate zone of influence.
In his analysis of coercive interventions, Taliaferro (2004: 7–18)
presents three options: the exchange of favours theory in which the
degree of ‘capitalist’ or ‘militarist’ cartelization of foreign policy favours
interventionism; the offensive realist theory in which the relative capabil-
ities and opportunities of the international arena promote such decisions;
and, finally, the risk-balance theory which emphasizes the importance of
both relative power and the ruling elite’s calculations of losses and gains.
Beyond their analytical usefulness, these approaches are incomplete in two
ways. On the one hand, while the definition of great power intervention
is multidimensional, it focuses primarily on the question of the risks of
military intervention to the neglect of the rest. On the other hand, it
neglects threat perceptions and responses at the global and regional levels.
While threats often have an expression in their geographical proximity,
their response, expressed in terms of a grand strategy with a particular
maritime expression, does not necessarily.
In this context, a stability/instability balance is central to understand
how the selection of a type of maritime strategy by a great power affects
a particular maritime regional space. Regional balance is the result of the
interaction between the regional and global levels, in which there is a
correlation between the existence of conflicts within a regional order and
the international role of the great powers. In concrete terms, the balance
will lean towards greater instability if a conflict is militarized and the
great powers project themselves assertively on the regional order, while
stability would be strengthened in the regional environment if conflicts
are demilitarized together with a low level of strategic activism on the
part of the great extra-regional powers. The interaction between the exis-
tence of conflicts and the degree of intervention by a great extra-regional
power allows us to establish a categorization of the different ‘balances’
(Table 2.3).
External inputs neither determine the evolution of states’ foreign poli-
cies nor alone prescribe the dynamics of regional orders. Nevertheless,
they influence important aspects of their trajectory, especially if part of
these systemic alterations involves a declining hegemon, power transi-
tions, the rise of new powers to the zenith of world politics, or crises
30 A. GONZÁLEZ LEVAGGI

Table 2.3 Stability/instability balance

Regional demilitarized conflicts Regional

militarized conflicts

Limited external intervention Robust stability Restricted

instability
Extended external Fragile stability Critical instability
intervention

in the norms of international order, as is the case in the contemporary

international arena. In this case, the Eurasian naval projection reflects this
situation. However, to understand the changes in the regional dynamics,
it is necessary not only to visualise changes in the international order, but
also to analyse how these emerging powers develop their grand strate-
gies in the face of a changing international order. Given their ascendant
structural position, they present a disruptive potential in the face of
a generally status-quo oriented position on the part of the established
powers, especially those with important strategic and military capabilities
such as Russia, India or China.
In this sense, the perceptions of threat by the executive node—in a
context of internal cohesion—act as intervening variables between the
great power competition and the regional maritime stability, for which
the following two central arguments are proposed. First, the implemen-
tation of a power projection maritime strategy generates incentives for
a potential negative impact on the regional maritime stability/instability
balance. Second, the implementation of a non-power projection maritime
strategy by an emerging power provides incentives for a potential positive
impact on the stability/instability beyond its proximate zone of influence.
Based on these two arguments, the following chapters presents maritime
strategy’s choices of the United States, China, Russia, India and then turn
to the maritime regional orders of the Indo-Pacific realm and the South
Atlantic.

References
Acharya, Amitav (2018) The End of American World Order. Cambridge: Polity.
Bekkevold, Jo and Geoffrey Till (eds) (2016) International Order at Sea: How
It Is Challenged. HOW It Is Maintained. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
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