Drawing on his training in geography and scholarship on the Indian Ocean, Dennis Hardy’s recent book, War or Peace? The Indo-Pacific on the Cusp, approaches regional politics through the interplay of sea power, borders, islands, and shifting power relations. This interdisciplinary anchoring allows him to complement the predominantly strategic approach to the Indo-Pacific and analyse the range of factors shaping the region.
The book’s most noteworthy contribution is its geographical lens. Hardy connects the changing balance of global power, the rise of China, India’s growing strategic importance, and the shifting role of the United States to specific geographical realities such as maritime routes, islands, and territorial boundaries. Building on this geographical approach, Hardy presents the US–China rivalry as the central power struggle shaping the Indo-Pacific, where China’s rise has ended uncontested American primacy in a multidimensional rivalry. He also highlights uncertainty over the future of US regional engagement, arguing that any American retrenchment could create space for China to expand its influence and reshape the regional balance of power.
On the role of India, Hardy examines it as a “Nascent Superpower?” to determine if India can translate its large demographic and geographical advantages into sustained regional influence, despite constraints from Pakistan, China, and its maritime environment. He further explains that regional influence is not confined to major powers, as island states can leverage their strategic location and diplomatic choices to exercise influence despite limited material power.
Similarly, Hardy’s attempt to move beyond conventional military-security analysis is worth mentioning, as he adds climate change, migration, resources, infrastructure, demography, and religion to our understanding of regional instability. This approach becomes even more important in current discussions, as traditional security issues are increasingly linked to non-traditional ones.
However, at the same time, the comprehensiveness of the book is also a major weakness, since Hardy takes into account multiple factors, namely geography, demography, climate, religion, and others, without establishing a clear hierarchy among them or their causal relationships among them. Similarly, while the US–China rivalry captures a major shift in the regional order, an overemphasis on it can overshadow the autonomous role of ASEAN and other middle powers. Likewise, Hardy’s concept of Islamia, envisioning Islam as a transnational geopolitical bloc across the Indian Ocean, risks oversimplifying Islam, given the diversity of Muslim societies.
Overall, War or Peace? is a timely and provocative contribution rather than a definitive theory of Indo-Pacific security. Its greatest value lies in showing how overlapping geographical, historical, strategic, and social “fault lines,” alongside great-power rivalry, the role of smaller states, and emerging security challenges, shape the complexity of the region. Ultimately, the book is most useful as a geographical framework for critically examining how these interconnected problems can be managed before they become conflicts.
