The Indian Ocean may not be India’s ocean but it is certainly India’s backyard. Even though the majority of Indians – and most of the elites – are land focussed, there is no getting away from the fact that India is a maritime power. While the Army and Air Force have enjoyed prominence in the nation’s defence for decades, the 2020s could see the Indian Navy, which is aiming for a 200-ship fleet, become the most prominent of the three services. With China’s PLA Navy conducting permanent patrols in the Indian Ocean and joint Chinese- Pakistani exercises in the Arabian Sea, the role of the Indian Navy in monitoring these two adversaries becomes paramount.
According to an Indian Navy report titled 'Ensuring Secure Seas: Indian Maritime Security Strategy', in the past decade, three significant developments have impacted India’s maritime security and the role of the Navy.
The first is the sweeping change that the global and regional geo-strategic environment has seen during the period. The shift in worldview from a Euro-Atlantic to an Indo-Pacific focus and the repositioning of global economic and military power towards Asia has resulted in significant political, economic and social changes in the Indian Ocean Region and impacted India’s maritime environment in tangible ways.
The second is a considerable change that India’s security and threat calculus has seen during the period. In addition to persisting threats and challenges of the ‘traditional’ nature, India’s maritime security environment has become even more complex and unpredictable today with the expansion in scale and presence of a variety of ‘non-traditional’ threats. The vast expanse of the sea and hundreds of miles of unmonitored coastlines offer terrorists the perfect cover for intruding into the country.
This story is from the March 2020 edition of Geopolitics.
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This story is from the March 2020 edition of Geopolitics.
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