Maritime Defence Diplomacy In The Indian Ocean Region

The Indian Navy has emerged as an indispensable tool of diplomacy in recent years, making it an imperative for Indian policymakers and naval thinkers to consider anew the role of naval forces.

- Geopolitics Bureau

For long, India had only focused on its land borders in the West and in the North, as areas of potential threat to its security and interests. That thought process was borne out of its concerns against Pakistan and China that have had a traditional rivalry with India. But that thought has clearly changed since 2008.

For, two significant events took place that year. One, Mumbai on India's West coast came under a terror attack from 10 terrorists, who had inspiration in Pakistan, leaving over 160 people dead, including nine of the terrorists. That list of victims included many nationalities that it became an international tragedy. Second, India was instrumental in floating an Indian Ocean Naval Symposium, on the lines of the Western Pacific Naval Symposium, which had member-states from South Asia, South East Asia, West Asia and Eastern Africa as members.

Those two events of 2008 signify the importance that Indian Ocean Region has to India's security and national interest. India is in an enviable geographical position, astride the world's third largest water body called the Indian Ocean, through which passes world's most strategically important sea lanes.

More than 80 per cent of the world's seaborne trade in oil transits through Indian Ocean choke points, with 40 per cent passing through the Strait of Hormuz (just 34 kilometres wide), 35 per cent through the Strait of Malacca (just three kilometres wide) and eight per cent through the Bab el-Mandab Strait.