A new Security Nexus Perspective by Dr. Deon Canyon, associate dean of academics and professor at the Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies, examines what happens when states accept infrastructure financing without establishing access conditions—and discover too late that the strategic terrain was shaped without their participation.

The third paper in a series on access, basing, and overflight (ABO) decisions for hedging states, “Shaping Access Terrain: Accepting the Loan, Ceding the Terrain,” introduces “access terrain” as a strategic concept: the legal, institutional, and operational conditions governing who can use strategically significant infrastructure, on what terms, and subject to whose approval. Drawing on the cases of Cambodia, Vanuatu, and Kiribati, the author argues that whoever shapes the terrain first sets the conditions for everyone who follows—and that the moment to act is before the first concrete is poured. The paper offers practical guidance for states to condition infrastructure financing on access terms negotiated in advance, preserving sovereign control before operational facts narrow their options.

Read the full paper on Security Nexus.

 

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