The Indo-Pacific A Narrative Of Overture And Reluctance

As an idea, the “Indo-Pacific” promises a lot, but the problem with it is that there is no real consensus among the promoters of the idea over its economic, political and military dimensions, argues AMIT GUPTA.

- Amit Gupta

The United States recently took the symbolic step of renaming its Pacific Command the Indo-Pacific Command, a decision taken both as a nod to India’s growing importance and to reorient American maritime capabilities in the region. The idea of the Indo-Pacific was first floated by Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in 2007 in a speech to the Indian parliament. Abe was signaling that his country, for long self-restrained in the security sector, was willing to become a major player in the Asian region mainly as a counter to a rising China. The Obama Administration took up the idea and Hillary Clinton first broached it as a new US policy. Subsequently, President Barak Obama was to go to the Australian parliament and express a renewed American commitment to Asia. Since then, there has been on again off-again discussion of the Quad—the United States, Japan, India, and Australia as a politico-military grouping in the region—and the Obama Administration began describing India as the lynchpin of American strategy in the Indo-Pacific.

India, as always, promised a lot and delivered little to the other members of the grouping. To understand Indian options, the Indo-Pacific can be discussed in three contexts: military, economic, and political and for India these lead to divergent views from those of other members of the quad.

The Economic Context