A Geo-Strategic Metaverse? Examining Security Perceptions and Narratives of the AUKUS Strategic Alliance in the Indo-Pacific Rivalry

To what extent do the major trends, perceptions, and narratives in the Indo-Pacific geostrategic discourse influence the great-power rivalry? The multipolar international order is characterized with intense rivalry of great and emerging powers in a technological environment. Ambitious powers seeking domination and control, innovate geostrategic institutional frameworks and alliances. Security perceptions and discourses including; normative strands, operational frames, proximate movements, military maneuvers, technological optimism, and duality of domestic-international strategies continue to shape the strategies of the rival powers especially in the Indo-Pacific Region. AUKUS geostrategic security innovation is embedded in the Indo-Pacific security-threat perceptions and discourses to complicate China’s ambiguous long-wait geo-strategy in the regional and international order rivalry.