Daily Times

The Indian navy has halted the exercise Milan for the year 2020. Milan is one of the multinational naval exercises.

India this year had invited approximately 42 navies to join the exercise at India’s eastern naval command at Vishakhapatnam. Milan has grown to be one of the biggest Multinational exercises and this year it was going to be the first exercise involving U.S and Russian Navies with a lot of other extra regional navies. The most daunting reality is that Pakistan and a few other regional powers, real stake holders of this Indian Ocean remain aloof from the exercise.

India has a vast coastline extending to more than 7, 500 K, with more than 12,00 islands and a large exclusive economic zone of about two million sq. Km.  The anticipated addition of approximately 1.2 million sq. Km of the continental shelf makes India’s Total seabed area almost equal to the land mass.

India’s central position in the IOR, astride the main international shipping Lanes., accords distinct advantages. It places the outer fringes of the IOR and most chokepoints almost equidistant from India, Thereby, facilitating reach, sustenance, and mobility of its maritime forces across the region. India is therefore, well positioned to influence the maritime space and promote and safeguard its National maritime interests. The emerging of Chinese influence alarmed India into the strategy of thwarting Chinese intentions, with India perceiving it as an expansionist and imperialist encircling strategic policy. Now, Indian policymakers are advancing their naval power under the Indian Maritime Doctrine and modernizing into a Bluewater Navy to reach other ports and bases.

The Indian Strategy for the Indian Oceans have turned the tables. As conservative India has been about involving the extra-regional Powers in the Indian Ocean, it is now welcoming almost every other extra-regional power to counter the growing threat of China’s dominance in the sea.

To state the obvious, it is impossible to unilaterally shape the strategy for an enormous sized ocean. The best way is a mini-lateral agreement including the extra-regional actors and the regional stake holders. To remember not to ignore the countries like Japan, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Australia, Thailand. Although the nexus of Pak-China and India-US is a big competition and where coordination between these two nexuses extremely desirable it is also at the same time exceptionally difficult. These stakeholders have a greater say in what comes out of the Indian Ocean. The most difficult consensus to reach Is that regional states are ready to cooperate with other extra regional navies instead of coordinating with each other.

Meanwhile the U.S is responding to China by strengthening its own internal power as well as building regional security and military alliances to contain China. These geostrategic and geopolitical developments in the region will lead contending parties in a greater geopolitical rivalry which may cause direct confrontation. The oceans call for security. The Indian Ocean is becoming Largely militarized. What it needs to focus on is the cooperation between the states which should in its true form shape the geo-politics for the Indian Ocean region.

Milan 2020 is a representation of how the region stands disunited and divided from one another. The interconnected world depends on the functioning of the seas. With the Indo-pacific idea, the influence of the extra-regional powers is rising from time to time. The intervention into seas, can be stated as the emergence of new threats rather than becoming a peaceful zone.