Zenel Garcia is Associate Professor of Security Studies in the Department of National Security and Strategy at the US Army War College. His research focuses on the intersection of international relations theory, security and geopolitics. Specifically, how interpretations of security and the geopolitical environment shape the policy preferences of states in the Indo-Pacific and Eurasia. He is the author of China’s Western Frontier and Eurasia: The Politics of State and Region-Building (Routledge 2021) and China’s Military Modernization, Japan’s Normalization and the South China Sea Territorial Disputes (Palgrave 2019). He has also published several peer-reviewed articles focused on the impacts of Chinese foreign policy.