Description
This paper argues that the South Atlantic is undergoing an externally driven transformation catalysed by China’s expanding maritime presence and its interdependence with Indo‑Pacific security dynamics. Bringing Regional Security Complex Theory (RSCT) into dialogue with Maritime Regional Security Orders (MRSOs), it reconceptualises proximity in maritime rather than strictly territorial terms—sea‑lane connectivity, navigational access, and logistical nodes—and introduces the heuristic of a “megaregional security complex” linking multiple supercomplexes without positing their merger.
Empirically, the study traces three mutually reinforcing strands. First, it examines the evolution of the IBSAMAR exercises (2010–2024) as a southern‑led bridge that progressively connects the Indian Ocean and the South Atlantic through increasingly sophisticated cooperation, moving from constabulary functions towards multi‑domain interoperability. Second, it analyses the Djibouti precedent and the emerging basing logic centred on Equatorial Guinea, situating these as dual‑use nodes that institutionalise access while normalising forward presence. Third, it surveys People’s Liberation Army Navy operations, port calls, and hydro‑oceanographic activity across the South Atlantic, highlighting patterns of operational persistence and strategic learning. Taken together, these dynamics amount not to a merger of complexes but to sustained external penetration that expands the South Atlantic’s outer boundary, embeds novel dependencies, and reconfigures the region’s strategic geometry.
Theoretically, the paper specifies mechanisms of “external impact” within RSCT and foregrounds maritime infrastructures and practices as vectors of transformation, thereby challenging the framework’s implicit territorialism and state‑centrism. Substantively, it recasts the South Atlantic as a consequential node in a transregional maritime order linking Africa, the Indo‑Pacific, and the wider Atlantic. The findings carry policy implications for South Atlantic states and extra‑regional powers—regarding choices among cooperation, hedging, and capacity‑building—and invite a broader research agenda on how oceanic space mediates security interdependence across mega‑regions.
