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executive summary: This article examines the state of security cooperation between the U.S., Japan, and Australia through the Trilateral Strategic Dialogue (TSD), and finds that even though the TSD maintains a relatively low profile, this minilateral alignment effectively forms the inner core of regional order building and deterrence within the U.S. hub-and-spoke alliance network. main argument
Since its formal establishment in 2002, the TSD has come to function as the inner core of coordination among allies in the face of strategic competition in the Indo-Pacific. It possesses significant capability to shape the regional security environment, as seen in terms of normative efforts at order building under the "free and open Indo-Pacific" banner, and is underwritten by a combined commitment to regional deterrence. Compared with the Quad and coordination between Australia, the UK, and the U.S. (AUKUS), the TSD is overlooked and underanalyzed as an exemplar of strategically orientated minilateral cooperation. To remedy this oversight, this article details how the TSD is being employed as a tool of strategic competition by capturing its primary functions while evaluating its capabilities, potential, and weaknesses. Because the TSD would likely form the nucleus of any U.S.-led collective response to a regional contingency, it is the most consequential example of "strategic minilateralism" within the Indo-Pacific security architecture. policy implications
• Policymakers are increasingly recognizing the potential of minilateral security configurations as purposeful tools through which to prosecute strategic competition. • Mature minilaterals like the TSD can provide capable and multifaceted forums to achieve combined strategic objectives, such as regional order building and enhanced deterrence. • These tasks are inextricably interlinked, and while TSD partners strive to maintain the regional order, they must increase their efforts to credibly deter conflict and be adequately prepared to respond accordingly should deterrence fail.

Notwithstanding its exit from the European Union itself, the United Kingdom still remains an influential European power with significant interests and equities in the Indo-Pacific region. This article probes the substance of London's engagement with the region through a distillation of relevant policy documents/statements appertaining to the Indo-Pacific. It reconciles this material within a three-tiered analytical framework that encompasses British 'aims'; the 'assets' it holds; and then 'assesses' its performance and prospects. Like the other European actors considered in this Symposium, it reveals the strong confluence of economic, security and normative elements that define its regional strategic outlook. While there are many synergies with the approaches of the other European powers, what makes the United Kingdom case distinctive is a more prolific set of regional partnerships alongside multilateral engagement ('networks and grids'), and a greater accent on hard power capabilities. The latter however are placed in service of the former – Britain has no aspirations to shift the regional balance of power independently.

The South Pacific region is in the international spotlight once more as resident and extra-regional powers jockey for influence and allegiance as part of a broader strategic competition in the Indo-Pacific. This article reveals the geostrategic, geopolitical and geoeconomic issues at stake and provides a capsule analysis of the approach taken by all the key competitors. It also reveals the responses of the Pacific Island countries themselves to the strategic rivalry unfolding on their doorstep.

Abstract
Deeping superpower rivalry between the United States and China has created acute strategic dilemmas for secondary powers in the Indo-Pacific such as Australia and Japan. This predicament is exacerbated by their divergent security and economic interests which cut across the superpower divide; a condition dubbed a 'security/economic disconnect'. These two intimately related dynamics preclude clear-cut implementation of conventional balancing/bandwagoning alignment choices and have led to mixed hedging strategies to cope with this situation. To address these issues, the article presents a refinement of the hedging concept in International Relations (IR) that emphasizes its multi-dimensional nature, within a broader interpretation of alignment itself. It applies this to the case of the Australia and Japan with reference to their Strategic Partnership, which is both emblematic of hedging responses to systemic uncertainty, and an institutional mechanism through which to operationalize joint hedging policies. This provides insights into how middle power strategic partnerships are managing strategic risks across the security, economic, and other, domains.

The complex security dynamics of the pivotal Asia Pacific region, involving disparate and contentious power blocs, clearly have implications far beyond the region itself. Thomas Wilkins sheds new light on those dynamics, providing a rich framework for better understanding the nature of security alignments in Asia Pacific, as well as a reexamination of the dominant forces at play: the US alliance system, ASEAN, and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation