The Indian Ocean Region (IOR) is of immense strategic significance on the global maritime map – not just on account of its centrality to the current trade and energy flows, but also because of the extreme disparities and inherent volatility of the region. The region faces an array of security challenges, both traditional and non-traditional. These include security of SLOCs, the problem of piracy, the possibility of renewed terrorism at and from the sea and the pervasive smuggling of people, narcotics and arms. The narrative of regional maritime security is also characterized by oscillating economic growth, growing military presence and a rapidly deteriorating ecological balance in the Indian Ocean. A stand-out feature of the IOR is the lack of correspondence between nations on issues concerning ‘security’. While using the high seas for trade, transportation of energy, major powers have tended to neglect the impact of the economic activities on the sea itself. In contrast, smaller regional countries and island states with developing economies have, at best, been able to use only those resources of the sea which are vital to their survival. As the challenges rise, the need to factor in and secure effective management of the Indian Ocean has turned into a compelling imperative. While governments and authorities grapple with complex issues trying to forge a coherent maritime policy, there is a growing recognition that unless solutions are found quickly, lives, livelihoods, and in some cases the very future of local populations could be at risk. This book contains a comprehensive overview of perspectives of some of the stakeholders in the Indian Ocean Region. It seeks to identify the key maritime security issues and explores the potential contribution of the stakeholders in meeting these challenges.

India’s endeavour under Prime Minister Modi is to actively interact and cooperate with the international community and to promote India’s regional and global objectives. India has tried to deepen her engagements with the South Asian neighbours, as also built important strategic partnerships with U.S, Russia, Korea and Japan. There has been an upward trajectory in India’s Act East Policy, and her engagement with the Southeast Asian and East Asian countries has enlarged. In her Look West Policy, India is simultaneously, trying to balance her relationship with the Gulf nations and Israel. Thus, India is slowly expanded its diplomatic footprint and its outreach, to both, existing as well as new partners. This book is a joint effort by United Service Institution of India and Christ University, Bengaluru. It is a collection of views expressed by various scholars and experts on different issues faced by the India’s Emerging Foreign Policy.

While the strategic dynamics in the IOR are complex and involve many powers there is little doubt that the “strategic triangle” involving the US, China and India is one of the key traditional security issues facing the IOR. Given Sri Lanka’s geopolitically significant location in the IOR this strategic triangle is bound to have an impact on its national interests and security. The central questions raised by this volume are the following: What are the prospects of competition and cooperation within the strategic triangle? What structure or pattern will the triangular relations assume? How can stability be maintained in the triangular relationship in the interest of peace in the IOR? and What would be the impact of this strategic triangle on a small country such as Sri Lanka situated in a geopolitically significant location in the IOR? The dynamics of the US-China-India strategic triangle in the IOR will be complicated, containing elements of both competition and cooperation. The research contained in the substantive chapters of this volume present a multiplicity of views on the possible patterns that the strategic triangle can assume. Based on Harry Harding’s typology of the strategic triangle in international affairs, these include: one mediating the conflict between the other two; two-against-one; and all-working-together. The multiplicity of patterns that the strategic triangle could assume indicate that there is likely to be considerable fluctuation in its structure. What is important in maintaining stability is that the competition is not allowed to become unmanageable, and the fostering of cooperation based on common interests. The US-China-India strategic triangle poses Sri Lanka as a country situated in a geopolitically significant location in the IOR with both challenges and opportunities. The most fundamental challenge is posed by the tendency of each of these three major powers to subordinate Sri Lanka to their grand strategic objectives and interaction with each other. The fundamental opportunity presented to Sri Lanka by the strategic triangle is that of using its geopolitical importance to each of these three major powers by virtue of its location in the IOR to its own advantage in a way that best serves its national interests.

The Indian Ocean's strategic importance to China cannot be underestimated, given the oil, African minerals and container traffic that pass through it. Not since Admiral Zheng He sailed his fleet through these waters in the fifteenth century -- exploring and mapping them in a bid to extend the Celestial Empire's trading and tributary system -- has China been present here. Beijing's re-entry into the Indian Ocean after 600 years is part of its Belt and Road megaproject, in which it is investing trillions of dollars in infrastructure projects around the Ocean rim and in Sri Lanka, Maldives, Seychelles and Mauritius, including a military base in Djibouti. This has touched off a new and dangerous confrontation. Ranged against China is an informal alliance of India, the US, France, Australia, and, predictably, Japan, China's arch rival in the Asia-Pacific. China is in the Indian Ocean for the long haul and the entry of big-power politics into this sensitive maritime region will shape its future for decades. Bertil Lintner unearths this dramatic story, profiles the key players, examines the economic and naval balance of power and scrutinizes the intense competition to encourage small island nations to align with either New Delhi or Beijing.

The book comprehensive analysis of the complex maritime environment, security dynamics and strategic complexities of Indian ocean in a very simplified, informative and lucid manner. The book also encompasses the ever-increasing maritime threats & challenges to India, existing power dynamics between the regional & global players and suggests viable policy options for India to meet the emerging challenges. The scholars, students, defence personnels, strategic analysts, policy makers and informed readers will find this book immensely fruitful.

Charts India's uneasy relationship with the PRC since the 1962 War and New Delhi's burgeoning strategic realignment.

In recent years, the descriptive term ‘Indo-Pacific’ has entered the geo-strategic lexicon as a substitute for the more established expression ‘Asia-Pacific’. Defined as an integrated strategic system that best captures the shift in power and influence from the West to the East, the concept has dominated strategic debates and discussions, gaining rapidly in currency and acceptance. Popular though the term has become, its strategic context and underlying logic are still sharply contested. While proponents of the ‘Indo-Pacific’ advance compelling arguments in its favour, the debate over whether it is a valid construct, is not quite settled. Consequently, it is yet to gain full acceptance among regional analysts and policy makers who appear unsure about embracing the idea without any qualifying caveats. Even so, the Indo-Pacific has emerged as a significant strategic space and a theatre of great-power competition. From a maritime security perspective, its importance as a geo-economic hub is accentuated by the growing presence of non-traditional threats. Piracy, terrorism, gun running, illegal fishing, trafficking, global warming and natural disasters represent challenges to maritime security that are inherently transnational in nature – where dynamics in one part of the system influence events in another, necessitating coordinated security operations by maritime forces and strategic relationships between stakeholder states. Papers put together in this book seek to appraise the Indo-Pacific, by examining the concept holistically, deciphering the trends that impact maritime security in the region and identifying its emerging patterns. Apart from examining the inherent logic underpinning the concept, these provide perspectives on security in the Indo-Pacific region, evaluate the strategic implications of competition, conflict and instability in the region, and bring out the operational implications of using a frame of reference that combines two contiguous albeit disparate maritime theatres.