The ‘Hub-and- & Spokes Plus Model’: A Case Study of AUKUS in the Indo-Pacific

The unprecedented rise in China’s politico-economic prowess, its assertive activities in the South China Sea, and its heightened competition with the United States, has prompted a reassessment of the pre-existing US-led alliance structures in the Indo-Pacific Region (IPR). In addition to bilateralism and multilateralism, a new framework has been added to the region’s security architecture, i.e., the hub-and-spokes plus model (HSPM). The HSPM is an evolved version of the Hub-and-Spokes System (HSS), which acts as a standalone model facilitating bilateral partnerships and spoke-to-spoke connections, with a focus on sharing enhanced capabilities. The HSPM includes a latticework of minilateral arrangements, such as the Quad, AUKUS, the US-Japan-Philippines triad, and the US-Japan-South Korea triad. In this article, we will explain AUKUS as a case study of the HSPM, arguing that this model operates on heterarchy as its guiding principle, whereby power is diffused rather than concentrated. This premise, novel in its right, will add to the already existing studies on AUKUS and the IPR’s security architecture.