Maritime security threats in the Indian Ocean

24 Maio 2018, 10:00 • Shiv Kumar Singh

Maritime security threats in the Indian Ocean range from the traditional through to the non-traditional. The following might be identified from an Australian perspective:

Maritime terrorist attacks are a threat across the IOR due to the presence of extremist groups, including in neighbouring countries to Australia's north. The terrorist attack in Mumbai in November 2008 showed the risks of terrorist attack from the sea if coastal waters are not secure. Attacks on offshore facilities have occurred in the past. Three offshore Iraqi oil terminals were attacked in the Persian Gulf in 2003 by explosive-laden speedboats.

Terrorists contemplating a terrorist attack against Australia would recognise that the offshore oil and gas facilities in the northwest of Australia are a significant national vulnerability that are not protected as well as they should be. Arrangements to protect these facilities, port terminals and pipelines are major considerations for our national security planning. The Australian Defence Force (ADF) and other security forces should be in a position to respond at short notice to a terrorist threat to offshore and coastal infrastructure. However, due to the location of our existing defence bases, the ADF is not in this position at present.

While traditional security risks are evident in the IOR with the tensions and conflict in the Middle East and Indian sub-continent, the region also faces extensive non-traditional security threats. These include climate change and possible rising sea levels, transnational crimes (particularly piracy, drug and arms trafficking, and people smuggling), food shortages, disease and famine, IUU fishing, and maritime natural hazards, such as tsunamis, cyclones and floods. All of these threats have a significant maritime dimension and pose major risks in the northwest of Australia in particular. Through 2009 and 2010, there has been a marked increase in the numbers of asylum seekers trying to enter Australia by sea, mostly across the Timor Sea and the northwest Indian Ocean.
To summarise, the following are some policy initiatives that Australia might take to meet growing maritime security challenges in the Indian Ocean.

These are just some of the initiatives that Australia might take to enhance maritime security and oceans management in the IOR, and to engage constructively in the region. They exploit the common interest of Indian Ocean coastal and island states in the maritime environment, its resources and security. While there is growing concern for the future stability of the region, the maritime domain offers the potential for important ‘building blocks’ for the establishment of the regional cooperation and dialogue that would contribute to maritime security in the region.

Future of Maritime Activity in the Indian Ocean

22 Maio 2018, 10:00 • Shiv Kumar Singh

The Indian Ocean Region is growing in strategic importance. It is facing the risks of growing strategic competition, particularly between China and India. However, the region tends to be neglected by Australia despite extensive interests in the region and the possibility of threats to Australia's security emerging from the region, including the risks of intrastate conflict, terrorism, smuggling in all its forms, and illegal fishing. Climate change, sea-level rise and natural disasters are other non-traditional security threats evident in the region. The northwest of Australia is particularly exposed to these challenges to maritime security and requires more attention in Australia's security planning. More broadly, there is a range of other initiatives that Australia might take to engage more constructively in the region and help to enhance regional maritime security and oceans management.
Geopolitical differences are becoming very evident in the IOR, particularly between the rising powers of India and China. Both India and China feel that they are being strategically contained by the other. India aspires to dominate the region by enlarging its security perimeter. In the expansive views of some Indian strategic thinkers, this extends ‘from the Strait of Malacca to the Strait of Hormuz and from the coast of Africa to the western shores of Australia’. Indian strategists generally have opposed the presence of great powers in the Indian Ocean, which they privately consider ‘India's lake’.
Meanwhile, China is strongly cultivating its regional economic and strategic links in the IOR, including the establishment of a support network for possible naval operations. In Beijing's view, China's strategic situation would be seriously impaired should India achieve the goal of enlarging its security perimeter and achieving a position of dominance in the IOR. At present, the United States dominates the IOR strategically and militarily. Its principal concerns are maintaining the security of its oil supplies from the Middle East and countering terrorism and Muslim extremism. Potentially, the United States has the leverage to act as a broker between India and China should their bilateral relationship deteriorate. Yet the future will almost certainly see a decline in American influence in the region as the United States struggles to maintain its defense presence in the face of a poorly performing economy, as well as its legitimacy among the peoples of the region, many of whom are Muslim. House the plain truth is ‘the gradual loss of the Indian and western Pacific oceans as veritable American military lakes’.
These trends mean that the strategic environment Australia faces in the IOR is increasingly uncertain. Australia will have an opportunity to do something about this through being co-chair with Malaysia of the maritime security experts working group established by the ASEAN Plus Eight Defense Ministers’ meeting (ADMM + 8). This forum might be steered towards consideration of the situation in the Indian Ocean with possible dialogue between the United States, China and India in a politically neutral forum.The need for Australia's defence and foreign policies to give greater attention to the Indian Ocean is accentuated by the developing strategic uncertainties of that ocean, growing trade in with the IOR, the enormous economic and strategic significance of Australia's mining, oil and gas developments along the northwest coast, and the expansion of the vital national infrastructure in that area.It is likely that surveillance and enforcement in the Indian Ocean will require much greater effort from Australia in the future. The likelihood of increased IUU fishing requiring policing on the high seas, more illegal fishing incursions into Australian waters, larger fishing boats, and the possibility of economic refugees, even coming perhaps directly from Africa helped along by favourable weather, are all considerations. Oil and gas rigs will be located further out to sea on the extended continental shelf in the Indian Ocean. Increased shipping traffic and other maritime activity in the IOR may mean a higher number of search and rescue incidents in Australia's large search and rescue region in the Indian Ocean.

India Ocean Trade and Politics: Continuity and Change

17 Maio 2018, 10:00 • Shiv Kumar Singh

Summary of the class--
From 650 CE to 1750 CE, there were many changes and continuities in the commerce of the Indian Ocean region. A major continuity in the commerce of the Indian Ocean was the emergence and use of the same trade routes for both imports and exports of goods such as gold and ivory. One major change was how the commerce of the Indian Ocean prospered economically. The commerce of the Indian Ocean developed rapidly, and the trade incorporated places such as East Africa, the Persian Gulf, Red Sea and India. Another major change was the increased involvement of the Europeans in the Indian Ocean commerce shortly after discovering it.

A major continuity in the commerce of the Indian Ocean was the continued use of the same trade routes and ports in the Indian Ocean for imports and exports. Trading ports in East Africa served as a method of transporting goods from Africa. The goods being traded was continuity. Gold, ivory, and iron were constantly being exported from Africa due to their profitable values. These items could be sold at a profit because they were scarce in Asian countries. Continuity was the tradition in the use of monsoon winds to help travel. The Indian Ocean trade was made easier by the monsoon winds that circulated between Asia and the Eastern coast which reduced travel times, and produced favourable wind currents. However, there were also many changes in the commerce of the Indian Ocean. The commerce of the Indian Ocean changed the eastern coast of Africa significantly. The eastern coast of Africa changed because of cultural integration, starting with the migration of Bantus, followed by the merchants and traders of the Muslim world and India. Furthermore, Arabs and Persians began to participate in the trade due to the profitable trading business, trading gold, ivory, ebony, iron, and sandalwood. As a result, big eastern African ports changed and became Islamic cities and major cultural centres. A new language also developed as a result of the mixture of Arabs and Bantu known as Swahili. The Swahili civilizations reflected the integration between the Arabic and Bantu cultures. Major Swahili city states such as Mogadishu, Barawa, and Mombasa changed as a result of the trade and became cosmopolitan, diverse, and more politically independent. The Swahili city states steadily grew, prospered, and became powerful by the 1400s. However, the Indian Ocean commerce changed when the Portuguese discovered this trading network. Because of the dark ages, the Europeans were far behind and did not discover the Indian Ocean trading until the 15th century. When the Europeans did discover the Indian Ocean commerce however, they became much more involved, and even began to colonize for economic purposes. Vasco da Gamma discovery of the Indian Ocean trade network resulted in Portuguese invasion attempts to capture the port cities which brought about a change in the once economically prosperous Swahili city states, as well as the commerce of the Indian Ocean itself. However, the attempts to control the commerce of the Indian Ocean by the Portuguese ultimately failed. Although the Indian Ocean commerce was subject to many changes, slavery was a continuity that was a profitable business before and also during the Indian Ocean trade network. Slavery was carried on by the Arabs, Persians, and some of the Indians. The slave trade was primarily composed of young girls who were used for domestic work and harems. However, this type of slavery was not generational, so their children did not become slaves and women were usually set free in their life time. 

Indian Ocean: India is set to play a key role

15 Maio 2018, 10:00 • Shiv Kumar Singh

Summary of the class-- For millennia various ruling houses of India has treated the Indian Ocean region in civilization terms.

            The only Ocean named after a country

The Indian Ocean region has long been a key determining factor of India's cultural footprint, with people, religion, goods, and customs across Asia, Africa and the Europe.

India assumed the position as the natural heir to the region after the British departure.

            India as the moral leader for the region: The View from New Delhi

·        Mostly Security Related

·        Taken Objection to any kind of militarization

·        IO as a zone of peace

·        IO as a nuclear weapons free zone

·        Opposition to the US/British base in Diego Garcia
The current thinking:

·        “India is at the crossroads of the Indian Ocean,” -Narendra Modi. Mauritius, 2015.

·        “The Indian Ocean Region is at the top of our policy priorities.”
“Neighbourhood First” initiative designed to buttress India’s strategic position in the Indian Ocean Region.

·        This new maritime policy includes challenging Chinese political narratives and infrastructure projects in the IOR by providing new economic, port and energy-development incentives to enhance regional connectivity.- (Roy-Chaudhary, 2017).
Current Indian Operations in the IO
Quasi-military objectives:

·        Using the blue water navy for global cause

·        Anti-terrorism

·        Anti-piracy

·        Humanitarianism
New Delhi is missing out
Why India lags behind? What ails Indian position?

·        Chabahar / Seychelles / South Asia

·        Incumbent fatigue

·        No deep pocket

·        Democracy vs. authoritarian decision making

Indian Ocean: the role of India in Present time

10 Maio 2018, 10:00 • Shiv Kumar Singh

Summary of the class-- Indian Ocean the New Heartland
The Heartland (Halford J. Mackinder, 1904).

The Rimland

            (Nichoals J. Spykman, 1942). The importance of areas adjoining the heartland.

·        In particular, Rimland consists of Indian Ocean and the littoral countries.

·        The importance of controlling the World Island exapansion
The Reality
Indian Ocean region had become the strategic heartland of the 21st century, dislodging Europe and North East Asia, which adorned this position in the 20th century. - Donald L. Berlin, 2006.

·        Whoever controls the Indian Ocean dominates Asia. This ocean is the key to the seven seas in the twenty-first century; the destiny of the world will be decided in these waters. - Alfred T. Mahan, 1912.
Indian Ocean region would play a key role in evolving the strategic rivalries of the 21st century, because of several interrelated factors.

·        While the growing importance of oil, energy and other vital resources and their effective transportation between two of the regions fastest growing economies i.e. China and India.
Why Indian Ocean?

·        Connectivity / Energy Security / Strategic Hegemony / Global Supremacy

·        The String of Pearls

·        One Belt One Road

·        Building a network of bases and ports across the region - from Vanuatu in the outer edges of the Indian Ocean to Djibouti in the Horn of Africa.

The Indian Position
“With a coastline of 7500 km and 1200 island territories,  India is and always has been a maritime nation.

 Our central location in the IOR (Indian Ocean Region) has connected us with other cultures, shaped our maritime trade routes and influenced India’s strategic thought (Gadkari, Singapore, 2017).”