This book provides a synoptic view of the Indian Ocean and maritime security in its contested waters. The volume highlights the competition between major Asian powers to control the Indian Ocean periphery; shows that cooperation amongst the major regional powers could abate the threat of the potential of conflict becoming global and inviting external intervention; and discusses India’s Look East policy and the deepening relation between India and ASEAN. It argues for the need for Indian Ocean states and particularly SAARC members of the Indian Ocean Rim Association to look afresh at their political and security issues and common interests. It also suggests measures for evolving a robust mechanism of maintaining the Indian Ocean as a sustainable zone of commerce, energy, security and peace rather than threat.
This book studies recent attempts to restructure maritime security sectors through capacity building. It innovates both theoretically and empirically. It proposes a new framework for understanding maritime capacity building, drawing on work in peacebuilding and security sector reform. The framework is then applied across empirical case studies from the Western Indian Ocean (WIO) region written by scholars from the Global South. The WIO region is a paradigmatic case to study maritime security and capacity building in action. Countries in the region face the full gamut of maritime security challenges, while their indigenous capacities to deal with these are often weak. In consequence, the region functions as an engine of innovation for maritime capacity building more widely. The lessons and best practices from the region have importance consequences for addressing maritime security across the globe.
In the twenty-first century, the Indo-Pacific, which spans from the western Pacific Ocean to the western Indian Ocean along the eastern coast of Africa, has emerged as a crucial geostrategic region for trade, investment, energy supplies, cooperation, and competition. It presents complex maritime security challenges and interlocking economic interests that require the development of an overarching multilateral security framework. This volume develops common approaches by focusing on geopolitical challenges, transnational security concerns, and multilateral institution-building and cooperation. The chapters, written by a cross-section of practitioners, diplomats, policymakers, and scholars from the three major powers discussed (United States, China, India) explain the opportunities and risks in the Indo-Pacific region and identify specific naval measures needed to enhance maritime security in the region. Maritime Security in the Indo-Pacific opens by introducing the Indo-Pacific and outlining the roles of China, India, and the United States in various maritime issues in the region. It then focuses on the security challenges presented by maritime disputes, naval engagement, legal issues, sea lanes of communication, energy transport, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, as well as by nontraditional threats, such as piracy, terrorism, and weapons proliferation. It compares and contrasts the roles and perspectives of the key maritime powers, analyzing the need for multilateral cooperation to overcome the traditional and nontraditional challenges and security dilemma. This shows that, in spite of their different interests, capabilities, and priorities, Washington, Beijing and New Delhi can and do engage in cooperation to deal with transnational security challenges. Lastly, the book describes how to promote maritime cooperation by establishing or strengthening multilateral mechanisms and measures that would reduce the prospects for conflict in the Indo-Pacific region.
Seventy percent of our planet is covered by water, and even in today's world of instant communication the global community is still heavily reliant on sea-based transport. The maritime domain has always been one of NATO's key strengths, but concerns about maritime security have taken on renewed importance in recent years, and NATO has been forced to re-examine some of its fundamental assumptions about the post Cold War security environment. This book shares some of the research, debates and findings from a NATO Advanced Research Workshop (ARW); Building Trust to Enhance Maritime Security, held in Geneva, Switzerland, in November 2014. The chapters in the book deal extensively with lessons learned by NATO from a wide range of policies, operations and situations. This maritime experience has been amassed from the Atlantic and Mediterranean to the Baltic and the Black Sea, and even into the Indian Ocean, as well as from the four decades spent defending NATO allies on the high seas during the Cold War. The single most profound lesson learned over the years has concerned the importance of efficient coordination. Structures and mechanisms have been created, not least in recent counter piracy operations, which enable a vast array of actors to work together in an efficient way, and which could prove invaluable in future efforts to counter terrorism and aggression worldwide. The safety of the maritime domain is essential to the freedom and security of all nations, and this book will be of interest to all those whose work involves maintaining that freedom and security.
The first book by a former Indian naval intelligence officer on Sino-India relations, India’s Maritime Strategy provides a unique insight into the Indian Navy, tracing its post-independence growth and discussing its transformation and future in the 21st century. In the context of the rise of China’s maritime power in the Indian Ocean, this book provides a nuanced view of the extent and scope of India’s maritime reach and the effect of this on Sino-Indian competition. Challenging the view that by developing a favourable environment alone, India could seek to maintain its balance of power with China, it is argued that despite durable bilateral security ties with most regional states, India’s maritime aspirations to be the primary net security provider for the region are unsustainable in the long term. This book presents a comprehensive coverage of India’s bilateral maritime security engagements with all the Indian Ocean regional states, as well as the US, France, UK and Russia. As such, it will be useful to students and scholars of Indian and South Asian politics, international relations and maritime security.
This book provides a comprehensive view of the maritime safety and security challenges in countries of the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA). Various issues such as trans-national crime including piracy, terrorism, drug and arms smuggling; Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HA/DR) and maritime and aeronautical Search and Rescue (SAR); Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) fishing and resource management for sustainable development are viewed from the perspectives of IORA members. It also discusses the role of cooperative organizational structures and the need for capability building and capacity optimization in the light of existing legal frameworks for enhancing maritime safety and security in the Indian Ocean.
This book uniquely employs risk and vulnerability approaches to advocate international policy options for enhancing maritime security cooperation in the Indian Ocean region. Understanding shared risks and common vulnerabilities that impact the achievement of mutual objectives in the oceanic domain present practical bases for progressing collective action. The Indian Ocean sea lanes are the world’s most important thoroughfares for energy resources (oil, gas and coal) and other cargoes. Secure maritime trade routes are vital to global, regional and national economies. Further, security challenges resulting from marine environmental degradation impacted by climate change are rising. Regional and extra-regional actors need to work more closely together to impose law and order at sea, control regional conflicts, respond to humanitarian crises and natural disasters, and conserve the marine environment. This book provides an invaluable resource for political leaders, policy advisers, academic researchers, military professionals, and students of international security and strategic studies.
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Indonesia is the largest archipelago state in the world comprising 17,480 islands, with a maritime territory measuring close to 6 million square kilometres. It is located between the two key shipping routes of the Pacific and Indian Ocean. Indonesia’s cooperation in maritime security initiatives is vitally important because half of the world’s trading goods and oil pass through Indonesian waters, including the Straits of Malacca, the Strait of Sunda and the Strait of Lombok. This book analyses Indonesia’s participation in international maritime security cooperation. Using Indonesia as a case study, the book adopts mixed methods to assess emerging power cooperation and non-cooperation drawing from various International Relations theories and the bureaucratic politics approach. It addresses not only the topic of Indonesia’s cooperation but also engages in debates across the International Relations, political science and policy studies disciplines regarding state cooperation. Based on extensive primary Indonesian language sources and original interviews, the author offers a conceptual discussion on the reasons underlying emerging middle power participation or non-participation in cooperation agreements. The analysis offers a fresh perspective on the growing problems of maritime terrorism and sea robbery and how an emerging power deals with these threats at unilateral, bilateral, regional and multilateral levels. The book fills a significant gap in literature on Indonesian foreign policy making in the post-1998 era. It provides the first in-depth study of Indonesia’s decision making process in the area of maritime security and will thus be of interest to researchers in the field of comparative politics, international relations, security policy, maritime cooperation, port and shipping businesses and Southeast Asian politics and society.
