What or where is Indo-Pacific? How a foreign policy pivot redefined the global map

Open a book of maps and look for the "Indo-Pacific" region - it likely won't be there.

- BY ANDREW LATHAM

Yet is now central to how many countries think about strategy and security. It describes a region spanning two oceans and dozens of countries, encompassing much of the world's trade routes.

The Indo-Pacific did not emerge from the patterns of ancient trade, nor from long-standing cultural or civilizational ties.

Instead, the concept comes from the realms of political science and international relations. The term can be traced back to the work of a favourite of Adolf Hitler in the 1920s. But it only really began to take hold in the think tanks and foreign policy-setting departments of Washington and other Western capitals in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

It coincided with a shift in the global balance of power from over the past decade or so.

'Confluence of the two seas'

For much of the Cold War, the United States treated the Pacific and Indian oceans as separate theaters of operation. Its military forces in the area, known as, focused on East Asia and the western Pacific, while the Indian Ocean figured mainly in energy security discussions, tied to the Middle East and the flow of oil through the, which connects the Persian Gulf to the Arabian Sea.

Strategic maps during that era divided the world into distinct zones of interest. But , and the increasing strategic significance of since the end of the Cold War blurred those old dividing lines.

The Indian Ocean could no longer be treated as a secondary concern. Nor could the Pacific be thought of in isolation from what was happening further west.