The Indo-Pacific is neither fraying nor ending—it is changing shape, and its centre of gravity is shifting.

This year has stress-tested the popular notion of the Indo-Pacific in unprecedented ways, striking at the heart of the concept’s coherence. Geopolitical developments in the region have tracked Washington’s mood swings, forcing serious reassessments of strategic policy across the region’s major powers. A US-anchored definition of the Indo-Pacific worked for India until it didn’t. As the United States becomes a less consistent presence, India is stepping up to shape the Indo-Pacific to its own ends through a widening web of partnerships, and mini-lateral and bilateral deals. The result is not the collapse of a concept but its bifurcation—one version still centred on Washington, the other increasingly authored in New Delhi.