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"This book explores buffer states' agency beyond being highly interactive spaces for the competing strategic and security interests of larger powers. Analysing twenty-one political events the author offers a new conceptual framework for the buffer state, which emphasizes strategic utility and agency of the buffer state. Applying this to the case study of Nepal as a buffer state between India and China, he offers a systematic analysis of Sino-Indian interests in the wider region, and Nepal's interactions with and reactions to them, and argues that the buffer state in contemporary International Relations is characterized by intense competitive overtures from its contending neighboring states. However, it is not just a spectator but an active participant that consistently assesses and reassesses its geopolitical position in between much larger competing powers. This reading offers a new understanding of the buffer state as a highly dynamic political space wherein the levels of influence and strategies of bigger powers can be examined. Aimed at a multidisciplinary audience, this book will be of particular interest to scholars, practitioners and students of international relations, security studies, strategic studies, and Asian Studies"--

The article analyzes the security dynamics of competing regional powers that have the added characteristic of geographic contiguity. It argues that geographic contiguity further exacerbates rivalry between two rising regional powers. As geographically contiguous regional powers attempt to build regional security frameworks as a step toward possible hegemony, they are bound to encounter conflicting interests. Due to the overwhelming decline of violent conquest and the extensive cost of undertaking war with another rising regional power, competing powers resort to soft balancing approaches in trying to constrain the rival's strategic space. The Sino‐Indian relationship is used as a case study given their geographic contiguity, status as rising powers, and rivalrous bilateral relationship.

In recent years, securitisation discourses related to regional constructs in Asia have galvanised a shift from the Asia-Pacific to the Indo-Pacific. China's rise, particularly the perceived asser-tiveness and counter-normative nature of its foreign policy, have promoted a growing discourse of enmity, unease and fear, thus facilitating its securitisation by key global and regional actors. Through their promotion of securitisation discourses, political and military leaders in the United States, Japan, India and Australia are demonstrating two interrelated dynamics that reveal the political process of region-making: (1) how securitisation discourse not only exposes the threat perception of individual states, but also the role they see for themselves and others in the manage-ment of these threats; and (2) how these securitisation discourses galvanise regional formation and transformation based on shared threat perceptions and modes of threat management. Con-sequently, the meta-geographical transformation of the Asia-Pacific into the Indo-Pacific is predicated on a political process underpinned by securitisation discourses centred on China. This process has significant implications for regional order as well as security dynamics, particularly because the construction of the Indo-Pacific region by these pivotal actors results in the remaking of the region that situates China and the South China Sea at its centre, thus framing it as the target of containment. Furthermore, the concept of the Indo-Pacific merges the separate strategic spaces of the Pacific and Indian Oceans as a cohesive strategic space, wherein India and smaller Southeast Asian states are also included in securitisation discourses related to China.

In recent years, securitisation discourses related to regional constructs in Asia have galvanised a shift from the Asia-Pacific to the Indo-Pacific. China's rise, particularly the perceived asser-tiveness and counter-normative nature of its foreign policy, have promoted a growing discourse of enmity, unease and fear, thus facilitating its securitisation by key global and regional actors. Through their promotion of securitisation discourses, political and military leaders in the United States, Japan, India and Australia are demonstrating two interrelated dynamics that reveal the political process of region-making: (1) how securitisation discourse not only exposes the threat perception of individual states, but also the role they see for themselves and others in the manage-ment of these threats; and (2) how these securitisation discourses galvanise regional formation and transformation based on shared threat perceptions and modes of threat management. Con-sequently, the meta-geographical transformation of the Asia-Pacific into the Indo-Pacific is predicated on a political process underpinned by securitisation discourses centred on China. This process has significant implications for regional order as well as security dynamics, particularly because the construction of the Indo-Pacific region by these pivotal actors results in the remaking of the region that situates China and the South China Sea at its centre, thus framing it as the target of containment. Furthermore, the concept of the Indo-Pacific merges the separate strategic spaces of the Pacific and Indian Oceans as a cohesive strategic space, wherein India and smaller Southeast Asian states are also included in securitisation discourses related to China.

This edited volume analyzes the increasingly important political interactions between Europeprimarily the EUand Asia within the context of two recent global trends: the rise of China and the withdrawal of the U.S. from multilateral commitments. In an age of receding American leadership and reduced commitments to its European allies, the EU and its member states have become more open to seeking and considering new partnerships, while the rising economic prowess of Asia has made it of particular interest for Europe. This book highlights these dynamics within European-Asian international relations in eleven comprehensive chapters. Bibek Chand is Assistant Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at the University of North Georgia, USA. Lukas K. Danner is Fulbright-NSF Arctic Research Scholar at the University of Iceland, and Research Associate at Florida International University, USA.