Thomas S Wilkins
Biographic Data
| ID | 606384 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Thomas S Wilkins |
| GIVEN NAMES | Thomas S |
| FAMILY NAME | Wilkins |
| SIGNATURE | WILKINS T S |
| AFFILIATIONS | The University of Sydney |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-9805-8950 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 33 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 162 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 33 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2006 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
A paradigmatic study of strategic partnerships in international relations
Towards cross-regional alliance integration
The modes and modalities of cross-regional security cooperation
Threat Perception Variation in the Indo-Pacific
The US has declared its intent to strategically compete with the rising power of China on all fronts. However, Washington’s overt extension of US–China rivalry into the ideological realm presents unique challenges to its Indo-Pacific order-building process. The balance of threat theory provides a useful conceptual toolkit to unravel the case of the geostrategic positioning of South Korea, which is a close US ally and already engaged in a delicate…
Minilateralism and pathways to institutional progression
Europe in the Indo-Pacific
The Indo-Pacific has rapidly become the world’s geopolitical and geo-economic epicentre. Consequently, much scholarly attention has been focused on Sino–United States superpower competition and on the policies of the region’s great and middle powers. However, since Europe has engaged late with the Indo-Pacific, its policies remain under-examined. This Special Issue fills a lacuna in our knowledge through a dedicated appraisal of German, British, …
Tilting’ the balance? An evaluation of Britain’s strategic approach to the Indo-Pacific
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 Brit…
The Case for Awkward Powers
Issues in Australian Foreign Policy July to December 2021
The second half of 2021 proved an exacting time for Australian policymakers as they grappled with a range of ongoing and emergent challenges, each severely testing the country's infrastructures, capabilities, and foreign policy horizons. National policy challenges were marked by elements of continuity with the preceding period, juxtaposed with new and unexpected dilemmas. In terms of relative continuity, Australia's battle against the COVID-19 pa…
Japan and the new Indo-Pacific order
This article revisits the conceptualisation of (regional) order in International Relations (IR) theory to illuminate key aspects of Japan’s order-building role in the Indo-Pacific. The framework is based upon a multi-dimensional understanding of regional order-building allowing for an examination of Japan’s vision for a ‘Free and Open Indo-Pacific’ (FOIP) policy ‘vision’, the challenges it faces as a secondary power, and its conduct as an emergin…
A Hub-and-Spokes "Plus" Model of us Alliances in the Indo-Pacific
A reassessment the nature of "alliances" and "alignments" since the end of the Cold War, both practically and conceptually, is long overdue. Treaty alliances have become partially obsolescent as new models of security cooperation, such as the 'strategic partnership', and other "minilateral" configurations, have emerged as preferred instruments of alignment. The evolving nature of alliance and alignment is nowhere better illustrated than in the me…
China’s Challenges and International Order Transition
China’s Challenges and International Order Transition: Beyond the “Thucydides’s Trap” Huiyun Feng and Kai He eds China’s Challenges and International Order Transition: Beyond the “Thucydides’s Trap” Feng Huiyun He Kai eds, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, US$80.00, Hardback, ISBN: 978-0-472-13176-1, 330 pp. 13 charts, 2020 Thomas Wilkins Thomas Wilkins University of Sydney Email: [email protected] Search for other works by …
Middle power hedging in the era of security/economic disconnect
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/bandwa…
Hegemony and the US–Japan Alliance
Hegemony and the US–Japan Alliance Hegemony and the US–Japan Alliance, by Misato Matsuoka. Abingdon: Routledge, 2018, 184 pp., $119.96 (ISBN: 978-1-138-30347-8) Thomas WILKINS Thomas WILKINS University of Sydney Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Social Science Japan Journal, Volume 23, Issue 2, Summer 2020, Pages 334–336, https://doi.org/10.1093/ssjj/jyaa006 Published: 23 June 2020
Total onslaught
Total Onslaught represents a much longed for comprehensive account of the complex inter- and intra-state wars that raged across Southern Africa during the Cold War period. Although there is a wealt
Adoption, accommodation or opposition? - regional powers respond to American-led Indo-Pacific strategy
This article examines the new prominence accorded to the “Indo-Pacific” (IP) concept in the strategic narratives championed by the US and its closest allies, (Japan and Australia), and then juxtaposes this with the responses of other key regional powers. To this purpose, Part I distils a concise conceptual model encompassing three interlocking facets – mental maps, political/ideological drivers, and visions of regional order – designed to structu…
Security in Asia Pacific
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 Organis…
American Grand Strategy in the Indo Pacific
In an era of heightened great power competition, debates about American grand strategy in the Indo-Pacific region have returned to the fore. This review essay looks at three recent volumes that directly address such debates. After introducing the concept of grand strategy, Part I reviews each of the books individually in sequence, outlining their scope, contents, and contributions. Part II then integrates the contributions of each of the volumes …
After a decade of strategic partnership
This article argues that the creation of ‘strategic partnerships’ as an alternative form of alignment represents an effort by Tokyo, and other US-allies, to ‘decenter’ their respective security policies from their erstwhile over-dependence on Washington. By examining the nature, purpose, and dynamics of strategic partnerships more closely, and investigating the empirical case of Australia, we can gain a greater appreciation of their significance …
Australia and middle power approaches to Asia Pacific regionalism
This article presents a liberal-institutionalist conceptual framework drawn from Middle Power theory to analyse Australian foreign policy approaches towards Asia Pacific regionalism. Building on precedents set by the former Keating administration, the Labor government of Rudd/Gillard (2007–13) undertook high-profile efforts not only to engage, but to champion, the regionalism process in the Asia Pacific. This enterprise became fused with a self-p…
Christopher W. Hughes, Japan's Foreign and Security Policy Under the 'Abe Doctrine
Hughes is one of the most prolific scholars working on Japanese foreign and security policy today. He has written repeatedly on the theme of Japan’s ‘remilitarisation’ and its move towards a ‘norma
From Strategic Partnership to Strategic Alliance?
From Strategic Partnership to Strategic Alliance?Australia-Japan Security Ties and the Asia-Pacific Thomas S. Wilkins (bio) keywords australia, japan, alliances, trilateral security dialogue [End Page 81] executive summary This article examines the developing security relationship between Australia and Japan and assesses implications for the U.S. and the region. main argument Based on a series of unprecedented developments, Australia and Japan ha…
The Japan choice
Canberra and Tokyo have forged an ever-closening security alignment, which they now designate as a ‘special strategic partnership’. This development has generated disquietude among some strategic analysts in Australia who have highlighted the risks entailed in pursuing deeper defense cooperation with Japan, especially if it is codified through a formal ‘alliance’ treaty. Anchored in a contending Realist logic, this article reexamines the assumpti…
Japan in Decline
Amidst all the hyperbole surrounding the spectacular rise of China in the last two decades many have begun to overlook Japan, a country whose time in the limelight now seems a distant memory. Comme
Bilateralism, Multilateralism and Asia-Pacific Security
Russo-Chinese Strategic Partnership
Strategic Partnership represents a new mode of state-to-state alignment. Yet our understanding of this phenomenon is obscured by a lack of definitional precision, resulting in a frequent misapplication of the term. This article seeks to rectify this shortcoming and apply some conceptual rigor to the analysis of strategic partnerships in international relations. This is achieved through the employment of a model drawn from the field of organizatio…
Alignment’ , not ‘alliance’ – the shifting paradigm of international security cooperation
This article provides a working taxonomy of the concept of ‘alignment’ in the discipline of International Relations (IR); a heretofore major deficiency in the otherwise abundant literature on alliance/alignment. It further contends that the label ‘alliance’ is commonly employed reflexively and unreflectively, where in fact the term ‘alignment’ would be a superior and more accurate descriptor. This contention is buttressed by empirical development…
Minilateralism and pathways to institutional progression
Australia and middle power approaches to Asia Pacific regionalism
This article presents a liberal-institutionalist conceptual framework drawn from Middle Power theory to analyse Australian foreign policy approaches towards Asia Pacific regionalism. Building on precedents set by the former Keating administration, the Labor government of Rudd/Gillard (2007–13) undertook high-profile efforts not only to engage, but to champion, the regionalism process in the Asia Pacific. This enterprise became fused with a self-p…
Adoption, accommodation or opposition? - regional powers respond to American-led Indo-Pacific strategy
This article examines the new prominence accorded to the “Indo-Pacific” (IP) concept in the strategic narratives championed by the US and its closest allies, (Japan and Australia), and then juxtaposes this with the responses of other key regional powers. To this purpose, Part I distils a concise conceptual model encompassing three interlocking facets – mental maps, political/ideological drivers, and visions of regional order – designed to structu…
Japan and the new Indo-Pacific order
This article revisits the conceptualisation of (regional) order in International Relations (IR) theory to illuminate key aspects of Japan’s order-building role in the Indo-Pacific. The framework is based upon a multi-dimensional understanding of regional order-building allowing for an examination of Japan’s vision for a ‘Free and Open Indo-Pacific’ (FOIP) policy ‘vision’, the challenges it faces as a secondary power, and its conduct as an emergin…
After a decade of strategic partnership
This article argues that the creation of ‘strategic partnerships’ as an alternative form of alignment represents an effort by Tokyo, and other US-allies, to ‘decenter’ their respective security policies from their erstwhile over-dependence on Washington. By examining the nature, purpose, and dynamics of strategic partnerships more closely, and investigating the empirical case of Australia, we can gain a greater appreciation of their significance …
The modes and modalities of cross-regional security cooperation
Europe in the Indo-Pacific
The Indo-Pacific has rapidly become the world’s geopolitical and geo-economic epicentre. Consequently, much scholarly attention has been focused on Sino–United States superpower competition and on the policies of the region’s great and middle powers. However, since Europe has engaged late with the Indo-Pacific, its policies remain under-examined. This Special Issue fills a lacuna in our knowledge through a dedicated appraisal of German, British, …
A Hub-and-Spokes "Plus" Model of us Alliances in the Indo-Pacific
A reassessment the nature of "alliances" and "alignments" since the end of the Cold War, both practically and conceptually, is long overdue. Treaty alliances have become partially obsolescent as new models of security cooperation, such as the 'strategic partnership', and other "minilateral" configurations, have emerged as preferred instruments of alignment. The evolving nature of alliance and alignment is nowhere better illustrated than in the me…
Bilateralism, Multilateralism and Asia-Pacific Security
Japan's alliance diversification
As part of its movement toward 'normal country' status, Japan has begun to engage in a policy of alliance/alignment restructuring and diversification. This is a twin-track policy – the reconfiguration of existing allied relationships and the creation of new cooperative bilateral links. In recent years, Tokyo has deepened its ties with the United States and Australia on the one hand, while cultivating new partners such as India, as well as several…
Analysing coalition warfare from an intra-alliance politics perspective
This article sets forth a framework for analysis designed to enhance our understanding of the political management of coalition warfare. The framework, based upon literature appertaining to ‘intra-alliance politics’ and International Relations (IR) theories, is applied to the case study of the Normandy Campaign of 1944. Utilising this framework we are able to consider many of the thorny issues of coalition politics and determine how these can be …
Tilting’ the balance? An evaluation of Britain’s strategic approach to the Indo-Pacific
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 Brit…
The new ‘Pacific Century’ and the rise of China
The re-emergence of the ‘Pacific Century’, or ‘Asia-Pacific Century’, discourse centred on the rise of Chinese power raises important questions in the discipline of international relations (IR). These questions relate to the conceptualisation of the Pacific Century discourse, its application to the contemporary empirical case, and its relationship and amenability to IR theories. In order to address these questions, the article subjects the concep…
Towards cross-regional alliance integration
Towards a “Trilateral Alliance?” Understanding the Role of Expediency and Values in American–Japanese–Australian Relations
The emerging US–Japan–Australia trilateral alignment is representative of a new archetype of “alliance” calibrated to the changed post-Cold War, post-9/11 security environment. This article considers how we might account for this new alliance formation and how we might conceptualize it. To accomplish this the article formulates an “intra-alliance politics” framework for analysis that juxtaposes competing “Realist” and “Pluralist” images of allied…
Threat Perception Variation in the Indo-Pacific
The US has declared its intent to strategically compete with the rising power of China on all fronts. However, Washington’s overt extension of US–China rivalry into the ideological realm presents unique challenges to its Indo-Pacific order-building process. The balance of threat theory provides a useful conceptual toolkit to unravel the case of the geostrategic positioning of South Korea, which is a close US ally and already engaged in a delicate…
Middle power hedging in the era of security/economic disconnect
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/bandwa…
China’s Challenges and International Order Transition
China’s Challenges and International Order Transition: Beyond the “Thucydides’s Trap” Huiyun Feng and Kai He eds China’s Challenges and International Order Transition: Beyond the “Thucydides’s Trap” Feng Huiyun He Kai eds, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, US$80.00, Hardback, ISBN: 978-0-472-13176-1, 330 pp. 13 charts, 2020 Thomas Wilkins Thomas Wilkins University of Sydney Email: [email protected] Search for other works by …
The Japan choice
Canberra and Tokyo have forged an ever-closening security alignment, which they now designate as a ‘special strategic partnership’. This development has generated disquietude among some strategic analysts in Australia who have highlighted the risks entailed in pursuing deeper defense cooperation with Japan, especially if it is codified through a formal ‘alliance’ treaty. Anchored in a contending Realist logic, this article reexamines the assumpti…
Japan in Decline
Amidst all the hyperbole surrounding the spectacular rise of China in the last two decades many have begun to overlook Japan, a country whose time in the limelight now seems a distant memory. Comme
The International Relations of Sub-Saharan Africa
Analysing coalition warfare from an intra-alliance politics perspective
This article sets forth a framework for analysis designed to enhance our understanding of the political management of coalition warfare. The framework, based upon literature appertaining to ‘intra-alliance politics’ and International Relations (IR) theories, is applied to the case study of the Normandy Campaign of 1944. Utilising this framework we are able to consider many of the thorny issues of coalition politics and determine how these can be …
Towards a “Trilateral Alliance?” Understanding the Role of Expediency and Values in American–Japanese–Australian Relations
The emerging US–Japan–Australia trilateral alignment is representative of a new archetype of “alliance” calibrated to the changed post-Cold War, post-9/11 security environment. This article considers how we might account for this new alliance formation and how we might conceptualize it. To accomplish this the article formulates an “intra-alliance politics” framework for analysis that juxtaposes competing “Realist” and “Pluralist” images of allied…
Russo-Chinese Strategic Partnership
Strategic Partnership represents a new mode of state-to-state alignment. Yet our understanding of this phenomenon is obscured by a lack of definitional precision, resulting in a frequent misapplication of the term. This article seeks to rectify this shortcoming and apply some conceptual rigor to the analysis of strategic partnerships in international relations. This is achieved through the employment of a model drawn from the field of organizatio…
Japan's alliance diversification
As part of its movement toward 'normal country' status, Japan has begun to engage in a policy of alliance/alignment restructuring and diversification. This is a twin-track policy – the reconfiguration of existing allied relationships and the creation of new cooperative bilateral links. In recent years, Tokyo has deepened its ties with the United States and Australia on the one hand, while cultivating new partners such as India, as well as several…
The new ‘Pacific Century’ and the rise of China
The re-emergence of the ‘Pacific Century’, or ‘Asia-Pacific Century’, discourse centred on the rise of Chinese power raises important questions in the discipline of international relations (IR). These questions relate to the conceptualisation of the Pacific Century discourse, its application to the contemporary empirical case, and its relationship and amenability to IR theories. In order to address these questions, the article subjects the concep…
Japan-Australia Security Relations
Japan's security policy has been subject to a series of rapid changes over the last two decades. Major developments on this score, such as the Peace Cooperation Law (1992), Japan Self-Defense Forces (SDF) deployment overseas under the Anti-Terrorism Special Measures Law (2001) (e.g., to the Indian Ocean, 2001–10 and Iraq 2003–06), the Trilateral Strategic Dialogue (TSD) (2006) and the creation of the Ministry of Defense (2007), have demonstrated …
Alignment’ , not ‘alliance’ – the shifting paradigm of international security cooperation
This article provides a working taxonomy of the concept of ‘alignment’ in the discipline of International Relations (IR); a heretofore major deficiency in the otherwise abundant literature on alliance/alignment. It further contends that the label ‘alliance’ is commonly employed reflexively and unreflectively, where in fact the term ‘alignment’ would be a superior and more accurate descriptor. This contention is buttressed by empirical development…
The International Relations of Sub-Saharan Africa
Japan in Decline
Amidst all the hyperbole surrounding the spectacular rise of China in the last two decades many have begun to overlook Japan, a country whose time in the limelight now seems a distant memory. Comme
Bilateralism, Multilateralism and Asia-Pacific Security
From Strategic Partnership to Strategic Alliance?
From Strategic Partnership to Strategic Alliance?Australia-Japan Security Ties and the Asia-Pacific Thomas S. Wilkins (bio) keywords australia, japan, alliances, trilateral security dialogue [End Page 81] executive summary This article examines the developing security relationship between Australia and Japan and assesses implications for the U.S. and the region. main argument Based on a series of unprecedented developments, Australia and Japan ha…
The Japan choice
Canberra and Tokyo have forged an ever-closening security alignment, which they now designate as a ‘special strategic partnership’. This development has generated disquietude among some strategic analysts in Australia who have highlighted the risks entailed in pursuing deeper defense cooperation with Japan, especially if it is codified through a formal ‘alliance’ treaty. Anchored in a contending Realist logic, this article reexamines the assumpti…
Christopher W. Hughes, Japan's Foreign and Security Policy Under the 'Abe Doctrine
Hughes is one of the most prolific scholars working on Japanese foreign and security policy today. He has written repeatedly on the theme of Japan’s ‘remilitarisation’ and its move towards a ‘norma
After a decade of strategic partnership
This article argues that the creation of ‘strategic partnerships’ as an alternative form of alignment represents an effort by Tokyo, and other US-allies, to ‘decenter’ their respective security policies from their erstwhile over-dependence on Washington. By examining the nature, purpose, and dynamics of strategic partnerships more closely, and investigating the empirical case of Australia, we can gain a greater appreciation of their significance …
Australia and middle power approaches to Asia Pacific regionalism
This article presents a liberal-institutionalist conceptual framework drawn from Middle Power theory to analyse Australian foreign policy approaches towards Asia Pacific regionalism. Building on precedents set by the former Keating administration, the Labor government of Rudd/Gillard (2007–13) undertook high-profile efforts not only to engage, but to champion, the regionalism process in the Asia Pacific. This enterprise became fused with a self-p…
Security in Asia Pacific
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 Organis…
American Grand Strategy in the Indo Pacific
In an era of heightened great power competition, debates about American grand strategy in the Indo-Pacific region have returned to the fore. This review essay looks at three recent volumes that directly address such debates. After introducing the concept of grand strategy, Part I reviews each of the books individually in sequence, outlining their scope, contents, and contributions. Part II then integrates the contributions of each of the volumes …
Hegemony and the US–Japan Alliance
Hegemony and the US–Japan Alliance Hegemony and the US–Japan Alliance, by Misato Matsuoka. Abingdon: Routledge, 2018, 184 pp., $119.96 (ISBN: 978-1-138-30347-8) Thomas WILKINS Thomas WILKINS University of Sydney Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Social Science Japan Journal, Volume 23, Issue 2, Summer 2020, Pages 334–336, https://doi.org/10.1093/ssjj/jyaa006 Published: 23 June 2020
Total onslaught
Total Onslaught represents a much longed for comprehensive account of the complex inter- and intra-state wars that raged across Southern Africa during the Cold War period. Although there is a wealt
Adoption, accommodation or opposition? - regional powers respond to American-led Indo-Pacific strategy
This article examines the new prominence accorded to the “Indo-Pacific” (IP) concept in the strategic narratives championed by the US and its closest allies, (Japan and Australia), and then juxtaposes this with the responses of other key regional powers. To this purpose, Part I distils a concise conceptual model encompassing three interlocking facets – mental maps, political/ideological drivers, and visions of regional order – designed to structu…
China’s Challenges and International Order Transition
China’s Challenges and International Order Transition: Beyond the “Thucydides’s Trap” Huiyun Feng and Kai He eds China’s Challenges and International Order Transition: Beyond the “Thucydides’s Trap” Feng Huiyun He Kai eds, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, US$80.00, Hardback, ISBN: 978-0-472-13176-1, 330 pp. 13 charts, 2020 Thomas Wilkins Thomas Wilkins University of Sydney Email: [email protected] Search for other works by …
Middle power hedging in the era of security/economic disconnect
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/bandwa…
The Case for Awkward Powers
Issues in Australian Foreign Policy July to December 2021
The second half of 2021 proved an exacting time for Australian policymakers as they grappled with a range of ongoing and emergent challenges, each severely testing the country's infrastructures, capabilities, and foreign policy horizons. National policy challenges were marked by elements of continuity with the preceding period, juxtaposed with new and unexpected dilemmas. In terms of relative continuity, Australia's battle against the COVID-19 pa…
Japan and the new Indo-Pacific order
This article revisits the conceptualisation of (regional) order in International Relations (IR) theory to illuminate key aspects of Japan’s order-building role in the Indo-Pacific. The framework is based upon a multi-dimensional understanding of regional order-building allowing for an examination of Japan’s vision for a ‘Free and Open Indo-Pacific’ (FOIP) policy ‘vision’, the challenges it faces as a secondary power, and its conduct as an emergin…
Political science (28 works) · International Relations and Foreign Policy (22 works) · Law (21 works) · Law (17 works) · Politics (17 works) · Sociology (16 works) · Alliance (11 works) · Economics (11 works) · International Development and Aid (10 works) · International relations (10 works)