Engaging with reality in the Indian Ocean - Executive summary

In US policy, the Indian Ocean is subsumed within a wider Indo-Pacific strategy, where it is The foundations of the decidedly an economy-of-force effort, secondary to the more pressing military competition in the military balance in the first island chain.2 In Australia, analysts consider the Indian Ocean the ‘second sea,’ a lower prior- Indian Ocean are shifting, ity for political-military effort. [...] pose a particular coercive threat to the security India and its partners, Australia and the United of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, which rely States, all seek unhindered use of the Indian on resupply from the Indian mainland. [...] This trend nomic and strategic influence across the region peaked however, in the FY2021-22 budget.33 Since and its growing power in the maritime, cyber, the Ladakh crisis the Defence Ministry changed and space domains, all appeared distant and course: the Army’s share of modernisation has uncertain. [...] More specifically, given of these partners could share more data as they the nature of the challenge in the Indian Ocean, develop greater trust in each other’s strategic the most urgent priority for naval cooperation intentions and in their data handling systems Engaging with reality in the Indian Ocean 8 BRIEF Pilots and crew from the Royal Australian Air Force and the Indian Navy working togethe. [...] Only after the crisis had “Bolstering the Quad: The Case for a Collective extended several months — that is, in the budget Approach to Maritime Security,” United States cycle beginning in 2021 — would the services and Studies Centre at the University of Sydney, June ministry have had the opportunity to reconsider 2023.