The collision of these 3 geographies is creating a new world order.

Byline: Samir Saran

For the past seven decades, the world has been moulded by a strong, transatlantic relationship with the US and EU underwriting the terms of peace, stability and economic prosperity.

The success of this order has created its own existential challenge. Its rising beneficiaries in Asia and elsewhere increasingly challenge the validity of these arrangements and the efficacy of rules that have managed global affairs. While the historian John Ikenberry described the liberal world order as a "hub and spoke" model of governance, with the West at its centre, it is now clear that the peripheries of the system are developing wheels and engines of their own.

Indeed, the rise of Asia as a whole is recasting the physical and mental map of the world. Proliferating transnational relationships and new flows of finance, trade, technology, information, energy and labour have created three new strategic geographies which are already escaping the shadow of transatlantic arrangements. They essentially represent the collision of erstwhile political constructs - and their management requires new ideas, nimble institutions and fluid partnerships.

The Indo-Pacific

The first collision, which is already well underway, is the union of the Indian and Pacific Oceans. Popularly defined as the Indo-Pacific, it is a construct encouraged by the rise of China but defined in equal measure by regional actors responding to Beijing's proposition. Maritime Asia is now larger than the US, ASEAN and China - earlier organized under the Asia-Pacific construct. Its frontier is not limited to the eastern Indian Ocean. From Nantucket to Nairobi, conversations on security, development and trade in this region will now include actors from three continents.

Eurasia

The second is the conflation of Europe and Asia into one coherent strategic system: Eurasia. This is an old idea, steeped in history, but it has a new vocabulary. The interaction of markets and communities from these once separated geographies is creating a new super-continental-sized interdependence.

Yet this interdependence is not without friction: China's shadow looms large over Europe and its promise to underwrite the continent's prosperity has proved too difficult to resist. Moscow, meanwhile, is exhibiting a new zeal to reclaim its place as the archetypical Eurasian player and members of NATO continue to bicker over their future role in the region. As these geopolitical tectonic plates both clash and...