Besides India’s eastern maritime rejuvenation, the latest step has involved an Indian geostrategic push for the South China Sea, which the Ministry of Defence in India has labelled a region “of vital strategic importance to India.”
outstanding factor of the latest chapter of Indonesian-Indian CORPAT exercises has been the geostrategic optics involved in choosing the venue of Port Blair in the Andaman Sea, once again underscoring the high priority accorded to the maritime area in India’s latest Indian Ocean policies.
India’s eastward maritime attention has been complemented by unprecedented multilateral diplomacy with the ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting Plus (ADMM Plus). Between March 2–8 this year, India hosted on its soil a multinational field training exercise called “Force 18,” comprising the eight dialogue partners of the ADMM Plus. These countries included important countries to India’s east like China, Australia, South Korea and New Zealand. The peacekeeping component of Force 18 focused on regional stability.
The maritime area comprising the Andaman Sea has become strategically crucial for India over the years. This message was made loud and clear when India built its first Tri-service theater command of the Indian Armed Forces, based at Port Blair in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The post has assumed special strategic significance, not only because it allows India to keep a close watch on China’s naval forays in the Indian Ocean, but also because it proves a good launch pad for India’s anticipated net-security-provider role in the region.
Besides India’s aforementioned eastern maritime rejuvenation, the latest step has involved an Indian geostrategic push for the South China Sea, which the Ministry of Defence in India has labelled a region “of vital strategic importance to India.” On May 18, India sent four ships of the Indian Navy’s Eastern Fleet for a two-and-a-half-month operational deployment to the South China Sea and northwestern Pacific. India’s step, coming on the heels of several bilateral steps to increase maritime cooperation with the United States in the Indian Ocean and the Asia-Pacific, has been widely interpreted as pitting India against growing Chinese maritime dominance in the region.
The Andaman Sea, along with the larger Indo-Pacific, has become indispensably critical to the joint India-U.S. regional grand maritime strategy that is in the making. This has been sufficiently established by both the gradual strengthening of the U.S.-India defence partnership through deliverables, and the series of bilateral agreements signed between the two countries, bringing them closer than ever before. India and the United States signed the “U.S.-India Joint Strategic Vision for the Asia-Pacific and Indian Ocean Region” in January 2015. The mention of the South China Sea, together with “freedom of navigation and over flight,” brought out the common interests between the two countries in the Asian maritime theater.
This sentiment was supplemented by the Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA) agreed to, though not signed, during the visit of the United States’ Defence Secretary Ashton Carter to India in April 2016. The LEMOA contains apparent anti-China rhetoric. Ashton Carter’s April visit also underscored the need for a navy-to-navy bilateral discussion between the two countries on the issue of antisubmarine warfare. China’s submarines, which have been spotted more frequently in the Indian Ocean since 2010, have raised hackles both in New Delhi and Washington, causing the countries to come together on the issue. To advance the pledge made in April this year, India and the United States have started discussions on antisubmarine warfare (ASW). ASW is likely to prove a critical maritime deterrent strategy against China’s Indian Ocean adventures. The most likely cooperation in ASW between India and the United States will be in naval aviation, as India’s naval aviation has reached a “threshold of transformation.” The United States’ Boeing P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol/anti-submarine warfare aircraft and the Indian Navy’s P-8I Neptune, an export version of the P-8A, constitute the most modern ASW technologies.
More notable is the maiden maritime security dialogue between India and the United States held recently, where both countries discussed Asia-Pacific maritime challenges, naval cooperation and multilateral engagement, stressing the bilateral maritime agenda. The involvement of officials from the Defence and External Affairs Ministries of India shows that the current establishment is demonstrating renewed policy seriousness toward India’s littorals.
The rhetoric surrounding a regional grand strategy in the Indian Ocean and the Indo-Pacific has been gradually moving from a stage of tacit consent to one that is fast becoming unequivocal. During his most recent visit to New Delhi, the commander of U.S. Pacific Command, Adm. Harry B. Harris, invoked the idea of the now defunct Quadrilateral Initiative, in a clear shot at reviving the idea of cooperation between India, Japan, Australia and the United States. Outlining his choice of the term “IndoAsia-Pacific” versus the term “AsiaPacific,” he voiced Washington’s desire to bring back Australia to the quadrilateral maritime partnership that went awry due to Beijing’s opposition soon after it was proposed in 2007.
Looking West
The part of the Indian Ocean to India’s