This article was first published in Issue 2 of 2022 of the Australian Naval Review.
Mr Abhijit Singh*
In November 2019, when Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s announced the Indo-Pacific Oceans Initiative (IPOI) at the Bangkok East Asia Summit (EAS), it included a key proposal to promote a rules-based international order in the Indo Pacific Region. [1] The Indian prime minister sought, in concert with Australia and Indonesia – two nations that share India’s vision for a stable, secure and prosperous Indo Pacific — a security pillar that would help create an inclusive and transparent maritime commons.
At the EAS workshop in Chennai a year later, India, Australia and Indonesia (AII) took the first steps towards operationalising the vision.[2] The three countries jointly organised a conference to generate consensus among regional stakeholders for rules-based security in the Indo Pacific region. In a subsequent joint study, researchers from AII made a strong case for effective security cooperation in the littorals, with the three countries as anchor states.[3]
Littoral security, indeed, has emerged as one of the most crucial components of the IPOI construct. Political watchers and military analysts regard security in the shared commons as an imperative in the promotion of transparency and accountability in the Indo-Pacific region. This isn’t merely on account of sovereignty and territorial concerns. There is growing agreement that maritime development – a key pillar of the IPOI — is dependent chiefly on security in shared littoral spaces.[4] Maritime law experts underscore the need for a system where the application of international law, especially the United Nations Convention for the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), is assured to all equally.
For the vast majority of security experts and policymakers, China’s militarization of the South China Sea poses the biggest threat to the international rules-based order.[5] China has sought to coerce Southeast Asian states into surrendering their territorial claims in the South China Sea. Beijing has weaponised trade against countries that have stood in the way of its expansionist ambitions, targeting valuable exports, imposing additional tariffs. China has also threatened to cut the supply of rare-earth minerals to states that challenge its territorial claims.[6] Beijing’s coercive approach has triggered collective pushback from regional states.
Even so, security watchers and policymakers acknowledge a broader reality. There has been a putative shift from traditional to nontraditional security recently.[7] For all the focus on China’s naval modernization and aggressive deployments at sea, the bulk of the demand for maritime security in recent years has come from human security threats, in particular transnational crime in coastal waters.[8] A cursory reading of the maritime security situation in the Indo Pacific would make it clear that piracy, terrorism, trafficking, gun running, and illegal fishing are the principal threats. Not surprisingly, a majority of countries have anchored their cooperation on a consideration of shared human security challenges, in particular disaster relief, food and water security and illegal migration. Many, in fact, begrudge the constant emphasis on the challenge posed by China. Beijing, they contend, remains a development partner.[9]
Grey Zone Operations
If that weren’t complexity enough, the line between traditional and non-traditional challenges in the maritime domain has been fast blurring. [10] The emergence of grey-zone threats has introduced a layer of ambiguity to maritime operations. Aggressive maneuvering by Chinese fishing boats in disputed maritime spaces challenges the old notion of the sea as a battleground for navies, although China tailors its provocations to ensure tensions stay within manageable limits.[11]
The duality of grey-zone activity is markedly manifest in the South China Sea, where Chinese militias have brazenly challenged law enforcement agencies of other claimant states. China’s tactics, however, are less clear in the Indian Ocean Region. The rising instances of Chinese research vessels and intelligence ships foraying through India’s EEZs has troubled Indian observers, but the deployments have rarely displayed adversarial intent. With the Belt and Road Initiative – a venture outwardly ‘developmental’ but aimed seemingly at creating civil-military infrastructure – also, China’s gameplan remains somewhat of a mystery. What’s clear is that the use of unconventional tactics offers Beijing plausible deniability and a flexibility of maneuvere. It ensures Chinese provocations stay below the threshold of conflict, denying its perceived adversaries the rationale or tactical space to mount a military response.[12]
Emphasis on Environment, Climate and Conservation
Meanwhile, policymakers are beginning to recognise the importance of environment conservation and resources management. Rapid climate change has triggered a severe loss of biodiversity, leaving many island nations in a state of undeclared emergency.[13] In particular, governments are devoting more attention to the threat posed by overfishing and environmental conservation. [14] There is an emerging consensus that the problem of illegal fishing isn’t confined to the rampant exploitation of fisheries, as commonly perceived. The problem has also to do with the faulty policies of many regional states that encourage deep water fishing, and a disregard of destructive fishing practices such as bottom trawling and seine net fishing.[15] Environmentalists highlight three specific anomalies: lenient regulations that allow for the misuse of resources; lax implementation of the law by security agencies that turn a blind eye to violations when these are seen as necessitated by livelihood concerns; and most significantly, the deleterious impact of subsidies that states offer to incentivise smaller fishermen to shift to motorized trawling, encouraging destructive fishing practices.[16]
There is also the issue of by-catch where sea species that are not used for the purposes of human consumption –are dried, ground and used as poultry food or manure. This practice is devastating for marine ecology, as it deprives fishing communities of livelihood, and creates a vicious spiral of negative outcomes. Such issues cannot be effectively tackled merely through improved domain awareness. What is needed is sustained patrolling and active policing. But Indo Pacific powers seem unwilling to accept the onerous commitment, and to make the necessary investments.
Maritime pollution is another area of high concern – in particular, the explosive rise in plastic and oil waste in coastal waters. There is today a dead zone in the middle of Bay of Bengal with reduced oxygen levels, where no life thrives.[17]The extensive destruction of corals in the Western IOR has caused alarm bells to ring in many island nations. Consequently, many Indo Pacific powers are considering setting up marine protected areas. Maritime law enforcement agencies have sought to enforce fisheries bans, and prevent encroachments within protected areas.
Towards Operational Maritime Security Cooperation
Ruefully for regional navies and coastguards the template for collective maritime operations remains centered around traditional security. China’s expanding military presence in sensitive spaces; the competition among Arab States for influence in the Red-Sea; Russian plans for a military facility in Sudan – is still what brings nations and navies in the Indo Pacific region together. Many powerful states continue to regard nontraditional security as an adjunct to the traditional challenges. Regional initiatives such as AUKUS, the Quadrilateral and the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, continue to focus on China challenge.
It isn’t as if governments do not feel the need to deliver security in nontraditional settings. They certainly do. The problem is the lack of consensus on how exactly collaboration ought to be operationalised.[18] Two aspects seem particularly complex. The first pertains to the material and strategic costs of military cooperation. Forward presence of foreign navies can be useful when managed and resourced correctly, but often it has been disproportionate to needs.[19] For regional powers, naval collaboration can exact a political price. India, which has long faced pressure from Russia to reduce strategic engagement with the United States (that in turn pushes New Delhi to lessen its military dependence on Moscow), is familiar with the costs of naval cooperation. With a history of balancing between the US and China, Southeast Asia, too, is conscious of the downside effects of maritime collaboration. There is also the question of how in the absence of norms and protocols must region-wide maritime cooperation be made functionally effective. For the military leadership, there exists a worrying lack of clarity on the extent of ‘acceptable’ cooperation. Navies broadly know they must work together, but “to what degree”, “to what specific ends”, and “at what cost”, remains unexplained.[20]
In the absence of clear political guidance about how maritime cooperation is to be operationalised, navies in the Indo Pacific region engage mostly in short-term arm’s length collaboration.[21] Each side appears to have developed its own model of cooperative security, based entirely on the appreciation of national interests. On occasion, the military interactions are robust – such as during constabulary and humanitarian missions — but for the most part, maritime forces avoid working together in formats that risk provoking powerful players and disturbing the strategic balance of power.[22]
The preference for balanced interactions is markedly high in the Indian Ocean Region, where many island states regard non-traditional security as the holy grail of maritime operations. Particularly in South Asia, human security and livelihood challenges are accorded priority over traditional security threats. Despite its record of aggression in the Indo-Pacific region, China is widely regarded as an economic and security partner, and not as a threat to the rules-based order.[23]
Dealing with China
India, of course, is an exception to the consensus on China in South Asia. New Delhi recognizes the China-challenge, in ways that its neighbors do not. From an Indian standpoint, Chinese maritime presence in the Indian Ocean has implications that go beyond military confrontation. The realists in New Delhi believe Chinese dual-use ports under the Belt and Road initiative are meant to establish Chinese power and hegemony in India’s natural sphere of influence, and shift the regional balance of power away from Delhi.
Yet the Chinese threat in India’s backyard is qualitatively different from the challenge in the South China Sea. Unlike in Southeast Asia, where Beijing aspires full-spectrum dominance, China’s strategy in the Indian Ocean is one of incremental stakeholdership.[24] The intent seemingly is to expand Chinese economic and security footprint as a way of emphasizing China’s rights and interests across the Asian littorals. For an Indian point of view, however, using force to counter China in the Indian Ocean could potentially be counterproductive. It would make New Delhi (and not Beijing) seem as the aggressor.
In the Western Pacific, too, the picture is somewhat mixed. Southeast Asian states have resisted Chinese efforts to dominate the South China Sea, and even upped their collaboration to help fight irregular security challenges. But nontraditional security isn’t the low hanging fruit it was once deemed to be. Despite successes in counter piracy and humanitarian relief, law enforcement agencies remain reluctant to jointly tackle armed robbery, illegal fishing and other crimes that occur in coastal spaces. For all their professed zeal for close-quarter operations, navies and coastguards remain unwilling to allow foreign partners access into coastal waters. The norms-based constructivist approach hasn’t worked as effectively in the South China Sea, as in the Western Indian Ocean.[25]
Against this backdrop, minilateral groupings, such as the Australia-UK-US (AUKUS), AII, Quadrilateral and ASEAN have struggled to expand effective collaboration. Despite consistently advocating ‘security and growth for all’ (SAGAR), New Delhi, influenced perhaps by the extent of Chinese aggression and territorial occupation in Ladakh, has turned more confrontational in its political stance towards China.[26] Chinese aggression in Taiwan and Hong Kong has forced ASEAN, also, into hardening its posture on regional security.
Contending Narratives
Consequently, maritime security remains enmeshed in a contest of narratives.[27] Some Indo Pacific players insist the rules-based security order must focus on ‘enforcement’ and ‘redlines’ of acceptable conduct. Others contend that ‘order’ rather than rules animates the policy preferences of regional states.[28] The difficulty in devising suitable security policies for the Indo Pacific, they claim, stems from the inability to balance the needs of hard-security cooperation in the near littorals, with a model of maritime integration aimed at countering nontraditional challenges in the far seas.[29]Indeed, in a post-Covid environment, resources are scarce, and many states don’t want to commit to a long-term plan for integrated operations in distant theatres. Despite significant improvements in interoperability and information sharing, maritime agencies remain unwilling to combine assets. Many governments have desisted from tweaking domestic legislation to align it with international law, and from disengaging non-traditional security policy with military posture. Smaller Indo Pacific states remain wary of contemplating radical moves to enhance collaboration, fearful that costs might be too high.
The reality, however, is that threats in the maritime domain cannot be met by individual states. The imperative to forge issue-based coalitions in a post-Covid world (where resources are scarce and commitments diverse) ought to draw likeminded states into tighter embrace. The habits of cooperation now fostered would hold states in good stead when the threats begin to intensify overtime. Maritime forces must focus on improving interoperability, expanding collaboration in ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ security, and sharing the burden of littoral security. It is only through synergistic operations – the leveraging of partner capabilities and strengths – that Indo-Pacific nations can hope to address threats in the maritime domain. In that context the littoral security cooperation in Asia remains a work in progress.
[1] Prime Minister’s Modi’s Speech at the East Asia Summit, 04 November 2019, Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India, November 4, 2019, https://www.mea.gov.in/SpeechesStatements.htm?dtl/32171/ Prime_Ministers_Speech_at_the _East_Asia_Summit_04_November_2019
[2] The 4th East Asia Summit (EAS) workshop, held at Chennai in February 2020, focused on maritime security, maritime safety and the Blue Economy. See “Indo Pacific Brief,” Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India, https://mea.gov.in/Portal/ForeignRelation/Indo_Feb_07_2020.pdf
[3] Premesha Saha, Natalie Sambhi, Evan A. Laksmana, “India-Australia-Indonesia Maritime Partnership: Shared Challenges, Compelling Opportunities”, Observer Research Foundation, February 4, 2022, https://www.orfonline.org/research/india-australia-indonesia-maritime-partnership/
[4] Jay Benson, “Maritime Security in the Asia Pacific,” The Diplomat, February 13, 2020, https://thediplomat.com/2020/02/maritime-security-in-the-asia-pacific-measuring-challenges-and-progress/
[5] Steven Stashwick. “China’s South China Sea Militarization Has Peaked”, Foreign Policy, August 19, 2019, https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/08/19/chinas-south-china-sea-militarization-has-peaked/
[6] “China’s Dangerous Monopoly on Metals”, Wall Street Journal, April 14, 2019, https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinas-dangerous-monopoly-on-metals-11555269517
[7] Sreeparna Banerjee and Pratnashree Basu. “Strengthening Partnerships to Counter Non-Traditional Security Threats in the Indo-Pacific”, Observer Research Foundation, March 3, 2022, https://www.orfonline.org/research/strengthening-partnerships-to-counter-non-traditional-security-threats-in-the-indo-pacific/
[8] Banerjee and Basu, “Strengthening Partnerships to Counter Non-Traditional Security Threats”
[9] Deep Pal, “China’s Influence in South Asia: Vulnerabilities and Resilience in Four Countries” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, October 13, 2021, https://carnegieendowment.org/2021/10/13/china-s-influence-in-south-asia-vulnerabilities-and-resilience-in-four-countries-pub-85552
[10] Abhijit Singh, “Deciphering grey-zone operations in maritime-Asia”, Special Report, Observer Research Foundation, August 3, 2018, https://www.orfonline.org/research/42978-deciphering-grey-zone-operations-in-maritime-asia/
[11] Singh, “Deciphering grey-zone operations
[12] Singh, “Deciphering grey-zone operations”
[13] “UN Report: Nature’s Dangerous Decline ‘Unprecedented’; Species Extinction Rates ‘Accelerating’”, United Nations, May 6, 2019, https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/blog/2019/05/nature-decline-unprecedented-report/
[14] Ambar Kumar Ghosh, Debosmita Sarkar, Anasua Basu Ray Chaudhury, “Security, Economy, and Ecology: Setting Priorities for Cooperation in the Indo-Pacific, Observer Research Foundation, February 25, 2022https://www.orfonline.org/research/security-economy-and-ecology/
[15] Abhijit Singh, “Blue Economy in the Indo-Pacific: Navigating Between Growth and Conservation”, Issue Brief, Observer Research Foundation, July 28, 2021, https://www.orfonline.org/research/blue-economy-in-the-indo-pacific/
[16] Singh, “Blue Economy in the Indo-Pacific”
[17]. “Amitav Ghosh and Aaron Savio Lobo “Bay of Bengal: depleted fish stocks and huge dead zone signal tipping point< The Guardian, January 31, 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jan/31/bay-bengal-depleted-fish-stocks-pollution-climate-change-migration
[18] Singh, “Of maritime security and a rules-based order”
[19] Admiral James Foggo, USN (Retd), “Forward Naval Presence: A Political, Not Military, Leadership Problem,” US Naval Institute Proceedings, January 2022,https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings /2022/january/forward-naval-presence-political-not-military-leadership-problem
[20] Singh, “Of maritime security and a rules-based order”
[21] Christian Bueger, Timothy Edmunds, and Robert McCabe, “Maritime Security, Capacity Building, and the Western Indian Ocean” in Christian Bueger · Timothy Edmunds, Robert McCabe (eds), Capacity Building for Maritime Security: The Western Indian Ocean Experience (Palgrave McMillan: Cham, Switzerland 2022)
[22] Singh, “Of maritime security and a rules-based order”
[23] Derek Grossman, “What China wants in South Asia,” Observer Research Foundation, June 11, 2020, https://www.orfonline.org/research/what-china-wants-in-south-asia-67665/
[24] Joshua T. White, “China’s Indian Ocean ambitions Investment, influence, and military advantage”, Brookings Report,
June 2020, June 2020, https://www.brookings.edu/research/chinas-indian-ocean-ambitions/
[25] For norms-based constructivism see Christian Bueger et al, “Maritime Security, Capacity Building, and the Western Indian Ocean”
[26] Ashley J Tellis, “Hustling in the Himalayas: The Sino-Indian Border Confrontation”, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, June 4, 2020, https://carnegieendowment.org/2020/06/04/hustling-in-himalayas-sino-indian-border-confrontation-pub-81979
[27] “Competing Visions of International Order in the South China Sea,” Asia Report, Crisis Group, November 29, 2021, https://www.crisisgroup.org/asia/north-east-asia/china/315-competing-visions-international-order-south-china-sea
[28] Jeffrey Ordaniel and John Bradford (eds), “Advancing a Rules-Based Maritime Order in the Indo-Pacific”, Issues and Insights, Pacific Forum, Vol 21, July 2021, https://pacforum.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Issues-and-Insights-Vol-21-SR2-ver-3.pdf
[29] Singh, “Blue Economy in the Indo-Pacific”
*A former naval officer, Abhijit Singh is a Senior Fellow at New Delhi-based Observer Research Foundation, where he heads the Maritime Policy Initiative. A maritime professional with specialist and command experience in front-line Indian naval ships, he has contributed to the writing of India’s maritime strategy (2007). He is a keen commentator on maritime matters and has written extensively on security and governance issues in the Indian Ocean and Pacific littorals. His articles and commentaries have been published in the Asian Bureau for Asian Research (NBR), the Lowy Interpreter, War on the Rocks, the World Politics Review, the ASPI Strategist and CSIS Pacific Forum.
Editor of two books on maritime security – Indian Ocean Challenges: A Quest for Cooperative Solutions (2013) and Geopolitics of the Indo-Pacific (2014), Abhijit has published papers on India’s growing maritime reach, security of sea-lines of communication in the Indo-Pacific region, Indian Ocean governance issues and maritime infrastructure in the Asian littorals. In 2010, he assisted the late Vice Admiral GM Hiranandani (Retd) in the authorship of the third volume of Indian Naval History, Transition to Guardianship.
