Journal of the Indian Ocean Region

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Neglected no longer: the Indian Ocean at

the forefront of world geopolitics and global
geostrategy

Christian Bouchard & William Crumplin

To cite this article: Christian Bouchard & William Crumplin (2010) Neglected no longer: the Indian
Ocean at the forefront of world geopolitics and global geostrategy, Journal of the Indian Ocean
Region, 6:1, 26-51, DOI: 10.1080/19480881.2010.489668

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/19480881.2010.489668

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Journal of the Indian Ocean Region
Vol. 6, No. 1, June 2010, 26
51

Neglected no longer: the Indian Ocean at the forefront of world

geopolitics and global geostrategy
Christian Bouchard* and William Crumplin

Department of Geography, Laurentian University, Sudbury, Ontario, Canada

(Received 26 January 2010)

Since the end of the 1960s and the 1970s, the Indian Ocean and its bordering
states have been of growing significance in world geopolitics and global
geostrategy. It is a region of great diversity and contrasts in terms of politics,
population, economy and environment, as well as being a complex geopolitical
framework where foreign powers and local states’ interests deeply intermingle.
Since the end of the Cold War, the region has been in a period of great instability
and regional rearrangement that is still ongoing today. Taking into account the
significance of its strategic energy resources, the importance of its strategic
shipping lanes, the ‘rise of India’ as a dominant regional player, the turbulences of
the Islamic world, the deep and broad involvement of the United States (and its
allies) in the region, as well as China’s recent entry on the regional chessboard,
there is no doubt that the Indian Ocean will remain on the forefront of world
geopolitics in the coming decades and most probably for the entire twenty-first
century.
Keywords: Indian Ocean; Indian Ocean Region; geopolitics; geostrategy;
conflicts; oil; sea lanes of communication; choke points; Islam; India; United
States; China

1. Introduction
From a geopolitical perspective, the Indian Ocean, the third largest ocean in the
world (after the Pacific and the Atlantic), can be defined as the body of water
between Africa, Asia, Australia and the 608 south latitude; the latter being the
northern limit of the area covered by the original Antarctic Treaty (1959).
Conceptualised as a large-scale ocean basin-centric region, the Indian Ocean Region
consists of the Indian Ocean itself, with all of its tributary water bodies (such as the
Persian Gulf, the Red Sea, the Andaman Sea and the Malacca Strait), 38 coastal
states, as well as 13 land-locked states for which the transit to and from the sea is
mostly oriented towards the Indian Ocean. Altogether, this region covers an area
close to 102,000,000 sq km (2/3 of sea and 1/3 of land), thereby representing 20% of
the entire globe’s surface, is inhabited by 2.65 billion people, representing 39.1% of
the world’s population in 2009, and has a gross domestic product in purchasing
power parity (GDP-PPP) of $10,813 (US) billion, representing 15.4% of the world’s
GDP-PPP in 2008 (Appendix 1). It is an area of great diversity and contrasts in terms
of politics, population, culture, economy and environment, as well as a complex

*Corresponding author. Email: cbouchard@laurentian.ca

ISSN 1948-0881 print/1948-108X online
# 2010 Indian Ocean Research Group
DOI: 10.1080/19480881.2010.489668
http://www.informaworld.com
 Journal of the Indian Ocean Region 27

geopolitical framework where foreign powers and local states’ interests deeply
intermingle.
Despite its significant area and its important population, the place of the Indian
Ocean in world geopolitics and global geostrategy has long been neglected. For most
of the twentieth century its role and importance have been undermined by what was
going on elsewhere in the world, often considered as more significant and influential,
whatever it was in the fields of politics, economy or culture. However, this situation has
dramatically changed since the end of the 1960s. Today, the Indian Ocean Region has
definitively reached the forefront of world geopolitics and is considered as an area of
crucial geostrategic importance, and will remain so at least for many decades to
come, and most probably for the entire twenty-first century. This is mainly due to the
growing significance in world affairs of Persian Gulf oil and the Indian Ocean’s sea
lanes of communication (SLOCS) and choke points, as well as the volatile regional
socio-political environment (militarisation, political conflicts, social and economic
challenges), American’s heavy military interventionism, China’s arrival on the
regional chessboard and the rise of India as a real Indian Ocean great power.
While the Indian Ocean Region is now of prime interest for so many far-off states
in the world (such as the USA, the European industrial states, Japan and China), it is
also an area where regional states and non-state actors have a growing say and thus
have to be taken into account. Overall, the region is not only strategically important,
but it also represents the most troubled and dangerous area of the world. In 2009, a
total of 170 political conflicts were recorded in the Indian Ocean Region,
representing 46.6% of the 365 conflicts worldwide, with 50% of all the crises and
severe crises in the world, 19 of the 31 high-intensity conflicts (61.3%), as well as all
of the seven wars. For many observers of the region, this unstable situation is fuelled
by foreign military interventionism and interference in local politics; but it is also
related to various local factors engendering social and political tensions such as
cultural intolerance, radicalism and terrorism, poverty, environmental degradation
and conflicts over resources, lack of democracy and weak state capacity.
To better understand this region’s geopolitical and geostrategic context as well as
its growing significance, we first review how, from the 1960s and 1970s, the region
shifted from being an area of little consequence to one of crucial geostrategic
importance. Secondly, we introduce the Indian Ocean, highlight its different
contributions to the region and discuss its geostrategic context. Thirdly, we propose
a definition for the Indian Ocean Region and discuss its main geographical and
geopolitical characteristics. Fourthly, we consider the situation in terms of peace and
security, arguing that the volatility of the region is going to remain a great challenge
in the next few decades for both the foreign powers with great interests in the Indian
Ocean and the regional states. Finally, we examine the complex regional geopolitical
framework in which these actors interact, where the geopolitical equilibriums
are constructed at different and overlapping system scales, and where a tripartite
strategic rivalry is developing (USA-India-China) and emerging as the shaping force
of twenty-first century Indian Ocean geopolitics.

2. Neglected no longer
Since Vasco de Gama rounded the Cape of Good Hope and sailed to India in 1497,
the Indian Ocean entered a geopolitical era in which outside great powers of the
28 C. Bouchard and W. Crumplin

moment pursued domination and control over the sea, the islands and the bordering
lands of Africa, Asia and Australia. This led to the emergence of the colonial order
that culminated in the second half of the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth
centuries. At the time, and subsequent to the Napoleonic Wars (1803
1815), the
Indian Ocean was known as a ‘British lake’ although other European states also
controlled some territories in the region (especially France, but also the Netherlands,
Portugal, Italy and Germany). Nevertheless, in this period, the Indian Ocean and the
Indian Ocean Region remained of secondary importance in terms of global
geostrategic significance as world affairs were then dominated by actors (great
powers) and events (political and economic) from outside of the area.
Following the end of the Second World War in 1945, the colonial order vanished
quite rapidly as every littoral state gained its independence and then the Cold War
extended its very dominant influence over the entire region. While the political
importance of the European colonial powers was declining in the region, the Indian
Ocean began to attract the attention of the two superpowers (the USA and the
USSR) for strategic purposes. This was first evident when the Americans showed
their firm intention to secure access to Persian Gulf oil by negotiating and signing
the Anglo-American Petroleum Agreement with the British in 1944. While this
agreement never came into effect, it clearly illustrates the American and British
longstanding interest in the region and its oil. This interest was underscored in a 1945
internal memo of the US State Department describing Saudi Arabia’s oil resources as
‘a stupendous source of strategic power, and one of the greatest material prizes in
world history’, and the region was already recognised by the Americans as the ‘most
strategically important area of the world’ (Chomsky 2002; Chomsky 2005, p. 31).
The same year, the meeting between US President Roosevelt and Saudi King Abdul
Aziz ibn Saud resulted in a mutual agreement of US security for Saudi oil (Ottaway
2009), a first step toward American military interventionism in the region. Never-
theless, in the two decades following the Second World War, and in the context of the
emergence of the Cold War, world geopolitics was dominated by what was happening
in the North Atlantic and the Northwest Pacific, in Europe and in Northeast Asia.
As a result, the strategic importance of the Indian Ocean was largely neglected in the
academic literature on geopolitics, international relations and geostrategy, as well as
in the public news arena.
However, the situation changed quite drastically at the end of the 1960s and the
early 1970s. As the British were withdrawing their military forces to the east of Suez
(announcement in 1968, completion in 1971), the United States and the USSR were
expanding their rivalry over the entire region, deploying navy ships, submarines and
nuclear weaponry in the Indian Ocean, searching for permanent military bases and
facilities, interfering in internal and regional politics, securing economic ties within
their blocs (West versus East), and delivering a huge quantity of arms to their allies.
It was also the time of the second closure of the Suez Canal (1967
1975), the Nixon
Doctrine (1969), the third Indo-Pakistani war (1971), the United Nations Declara-
tion of the Indian Ocean as a Zone of Peace (1971), the fourth Israeli-Palestinian war
(1973), the first oil crisis (1973
1974), and the first Indian nuclear test (1974). In the
wake of these developments, the Indian Ocean was more than ever on the maps of
the superpower geostrategists and international security analysts. A few years later,
in the context of the Islamic revolution in Iran (1979), the Soviet occupation of
Afghanistan (1979
1989), the second oil crisis (1979), the Carter Doctrine (1980),
 Journal of the Indian Ocean Region 29

and the Iran-Iraq war (1980
1988), the Indian Ocean Region had definitively moved
from an area of little consequence to one of crucial geostrategic importance (Kumar
1984, p. 238).
Finally, with the collapse of the communist bloc (1989
1991) and the dissolution
of the USSR (1991), the end of the Cold War again deeply modified the Indian Ocean
geopolitical context. Following the rapid withdrawal of the Soviets from the region,
both at sea and from Afghanistan, there began a period of great instability and
regional rearrangement that perpetuates today. In 1990, the Iraq invasion of Kuwait
and the American-led international military operation to expel Iraqi forces from
Kuwait (1991) augmented the turmoil felt in the region. This period of great
turbulence continues today in the wake of the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks
and the American-led military interventions in Afghanistan (since 2001) and in Iraq
(since 2003). Even though the war in Sri Lanka (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam
(LTTE) vs. government) recently came to an end (1983
2009), wars are still ongoing in
Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen, as well as continuing American military
operations in Iraq, while the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has yet to be settled and
continues to have a profound impact on the Middle East and Indian Ocean geopolitics.
The ongoing post-Cold War period is especially marked by very intense and often
brutal American interventionism, an increase in both number and severity of local
conflicts, the rise of non-traditional security issues (such as terrorism, trafficking
of all kinds, maritime piracy, environmental issues, and poverty), the proliferation of
military nuclear technologies and missile capacities, the socio-political turbulence of
the Islamic world, the emergence of India as an authentic Indian Ocean great power,
and the growing presence of China on the regional chessboard. Adding to this is the
intrinsic and crucial strategic value of both the oil reserves of the Persian Gulf and
the Indian Ocean as the world’s most important energy and international trade
maritime route, as well as an indispensable theatre of naval operation for those who
want to secure their vital interest in the region.
In consequence, the strategic rivalry in the Indian Ocean can no longer be
neglected, nor can Indian Ocean geopolitics. Donald L. Berlin has argued that in
the twenty-first century ‘no region is likely to play a crucial role as the Indian Ocean
due to its combination of oil, Islam, and the likely rivalry between India and China’
(Berlin 2002, p. 31). Recently, Robert D. Kaplan expressed the same idea and
affirmed that ‘the Indian Ocean
the world’s third-largest body of water
already
forms center-stage for the challenges of the twenty-first century’ (Kaplan 2009,
p. 17). Whether the Indian Ocean is already or will soon be the focal region in world
affairs can be debated, but not the fact that the Indian Ocean and the Indian Ocean
Region are now of crucial strategic importance and that they will remain so for many
decades to comes, if not for the entire twenty-first century.

3. The Indian Ocean

The Indian Ocean has traditionally been considered as the body of water between
Africa, Asia and Australia, but the issue of its southern limit continues to be debated.
Since the third edition of the Limits of Oceans and Seas (IHO 1953), its conventional
definition includes the southern waters to the Antarctic Continent. However, the
Antarctic Convergence (or Polar Front), lying worldwide between the 48th and 61st
parallels south latitude is now recognised as separating individual and very different
30 C. Bouchard and W. Crumplin

hydrological and biological regions (north and south). This caused the International
Hydrographic Organization (IHO) to recognise in the spring of 2000 the existence
of the Southern Ocean, which conventionally should extend from the coast of
Antarctica north to 608 south latitude.1 This latitude also represents the northern
limit of the area covered by the original Antarctic Treaty (1959), which has deep
geopolitical implications in terms of sovereignty (territoriality) and military activities
(peaceful use).
Thus, in terms of geopolitics, the Indian Ocean can be now defined as the
maritime area delimited:

“ to the west, by continental Africa and the 208 east meridian running south
from Cape Agulhas,
“ to the north, by continental Asia, from the Isthmus of Suez to the Malay
Peninsula,
“ to the east, by Singapore and the Indonesian Archipelago, Australia, Tasmania
and the 1478 east meridian running south of the South East Cape, and
“ to the south, by the 608 south latitude which coincides with the limit of the
Antarctic Treaty (1959).

Within these boundaries,2 the Indian Ocean covers 68,556,000 sq km (26,463,000 sq

miles), which is less than half of the Pacific Ocean (155,557,000 sq km) and some
10.7% smaller than the Atlantic Ocean (76,762,000 sq km).3 Generally speaking, the
Indian Ocean can be seen altogether as a rich and diverse physical environment, a
great medium for transportation, an important theatre of military activities, a vast
area of leisure, as well as an area under limited legislation and even less policing.
(1) As a physical environment, it provides many resources, living and non-living,
on the littoral, at the surface or in the water column, on the bottom of the sea or
beneath it; it is subject to numerous physicochemical processes such as the
thermohaline circulation, corrosion, dissolution and precipitation; it is susceptible
to pollution (from land and sea activities), degradation and destruction of its
ecosystems and biodiversity; it is coupled to the atmosphere in the weather and
climate patterns, which also influence the mean sea level;
(2) As a medium for transportation, it provides a unique opportunity to move
goods (and people) with a minimum of constraints within the region, to the outside
world or even through the region. General navigation conditions are easy when
compared to the other oceans, with the exception of the roaring forties and the
furious fifties of the Southern Indian Ocean;
(3) As a theatre of military operations, it provides great possibilities for the
deployment of navy ships and submarines to show the flag, as well as for mining and
demining activities, intelligence operations, naval blockades, rescue operations,
humanitarian operations, ship inspections, ship escorts, naval patrol and surveil-
lance, anti-terrorism and anti-piracy operations, naval warfare and projection of
power from sea to land;
(4) As an area of leisure, it provides very diverse opportunities for coastal
tourism, water sports, sailing and cruising, as well as recreational fishing, all of which
often provide significant external revenue to coastal communities; and,
(5) Finally, as an area under limited legislation and even less policing, at least
beyond the territorial sea (extending to a maximum distance of 12 nm from the
 Journal of the Indian Ocean Region 31

coastal state’s baseline), the Indian Ocean can also be considered as a kind of a
‘maritime frontier’ where many enjoy not only the freedom of the sea but also
unsecured state control enabling the conduct of a large array of illegal or grey zone
activities (smuggling, poaching, piracy, and so on). This is certainly not specific to
the Indian Ocean, but it seems to be a problem of greater and growing importance in
this particular ocean where low socio-economic conditions on land and poor policing
capability by the coastal states coincide.
In terms of the geostrategic context, and in comparison with the Atlantic and
Pacific Oceans, the Indian Ocean is unique in the sense that it is closed to the north
by the Eurasian continent and that maritime communication to the outside world is
mostly restricted to a small number of choke points. All marine traffic is funnelled
through these very narrow passages as they present time and cost savings over other
routes.
Since the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, the main door to the Atlantic
Ocean, Europe and Northern Africa is through the Gulf of Aden, the Bab-el-
Mandeb, the Red Sea, the Gulf of Suez and the Suez Canal to the Mediterranean
Sea. In 2008, a total of 21,415 vessels passed through the canal, including 8156
container ships, 4048 bulk carriers, 3795 tankers, 2069 general cargo vessels, 1497 car
carriers and 247 warships (SCA 2009). The alternative route is to travel around Cape
Agulhas at the southern tip of Africa and to follow the Cape of Good Hope route,

Figure 1.
32 C. Bouchard and W. Crumplin

which is not desirable for most of the traffic that concentrates in the northern part of
the ocean (because of the extra distance, which translates into extra energy
requirements, more pollution, and increased time and cost). Nevertheless, the
Cape of Good Hope route is the only possible way for the largest super tankers and
bulk carriers (Capesize ships4). It is also the only back-up solution in the case of
another closure of the Suez Canal (1956
1957, 1967
1975) or if navigation becomes
too insecure in another section of the journey from the Gulf of Aden to the Suez
Canal.
The other main door to and from the Indian Ocean is through the Straits of
Malacca and Singapore which lead to the South China Sea, Pacific Ocean and
Northeast Asia. A total of 70,718 vessels reported to Klang VTS in 2007, including
23,736 container ships, 14,931 tankers (3,753 very large crude carriers [VLCC]/
Deep draft carriers), 9684 bulk carriers and 8467 cargo vessels (Thapa et al. 2007,
p. 163), making it one of the most important shipping highways in the world. The oil
flow through the strait was estimated at 15 million bbl/d in 2006 (EIA 2008), which
does not include the very important and fast growing flow of liquefied petroleum gas
(LPG) and liquefied natural gas (LNG). During 2007, the Strait of Malacca traffic
between Klang and Singapore was estimated at 56,000 transits, 35,000 arrivals and
35,000 departures, for a grand total of 126,000 vessel movements (SimPlus Pte. Ltd
2009, p. 6). On average, this represents about 345 movements per day every day. This
main route to the Northern Pacific Ocean is augmented by two alternate routes: via
the Sunda and Karimata Straits (limited by the shallow and dangerous waters of the
Sunda Strait) and via the Lombok and Makassar Straits. The latter route in
particular is used by the larger ships that cannot cross the Malacca Strait because of
its shallow waters (Malacca max, 25m or 82 feet). In the case of a complete closure of
the Southeast Asian straits, an alternative route would require travelling around New
Guinea Island by the Torres Strait or even around Australia, neither of which are
desirable for the maritime traffic heading to East Asian ports because of the huge
extra distance.
The long-discussed canal through the Kra Isthmus (Kra-Canal or Thai Canal
Project) would save around 960km on the journey from the Indian Ocean to the
Pacific Ocean. Other options to reduce the volume of traffic in the Strait of Malacca
include the Land Bridge Project in the South Thai Isthmus and the Trans-Peninsula
Pipeline in Northern Malaysia (Thapa et al. 2007, p. 165). But for now, none of these
projects are underway even though China has recently shown a great interest in the
construction of a canal.5 Nevertheless, a recent simulation model has shown that, if
proper traffic management measures are taken and some technological advances are
applied, it should be possible to double the traffic in the Straits of Malacca and
Singapore (SimPlus Pte. Ltd 2009). However, heavy traffic, with its pressure on the
environment, and security of navigation remain a great preoccupation for both
coastal states and external user states.
Because of the geographical arrangement of the Indian Ocean and the
importance of the oil exported by tankers from the Persian Gulf, the Strait of
Hormuz is also a major choke point. According to the US Energy Information
Administration (EIA 2008), ‘Hormuz is the world’s most important oil chokepoint
due to its daily oil flow of 16.5
17 million barrels (first half 2008E), which is roughly
40% of all seaborne traded oil (or 20% of oil traded worldwide)’. The main problem
here is that there is no alternate shipping route and that the pipelines to the Red Sea
 Journal of the Indian Ocean Region 33

or the Mediterranean Sea cannot compensate for the closure of the strait. Navigation
in the strait is not technically difficult as it is relatively wide and deep enough to
accommodate most ships; however, ships moving through the strait follow a traffic
separation scheme made of two 3km-wide channels, one for inbound traffic and the
other for outbound traffic. Nevertheless, it is located in a very sensitive geopolitical
area and remains under permanent surveillance by the USA and its allies, fearing
that Iran could seal off or impede traffic in the strait if the situation deteriorates.
Finally, another area of concern may be that of the Mozambique Channel,
were insecurity ashore is already exported at sea. Nevertheless, it is easy to travel to
the east of Madagascar even if it makes the travel to the Cape of Good Hope a little
longer. Apart from the tremendous extra distance added to the journey from North
America and Europe to the Persian Gulf and Northeast Pacific (3,400 nautical miles
for a ship travelling from Europe to China), the main difficulty with the Cape route is
the rough sea conditions off the southern tip of Africa. This area is renowned in the
maritime community for the strong winds of the roaring forties, its strong and mixing
ocean currents (Antarctic Circumpolar Current and Agulhas Current), as well as its
furious winter storms and mammoth rogue waves (which can range up to 30m high).
To add to the very strategic importance of the Indian Ocean choke points, we
also have to remember that it is mainly via these passages that foreign navies enter
and exit the Indian Ocean. These navies are also very much present in the choke
point areas where they monitor the traffic and are ready to intervene if necessary.
This is particularly the case for the American navy and its allies operating on a
permanent basis in the Strait of Malacca area, the Persian Gulf and Strait of
Hormuz area, and the Gulf of Aden to the Suez Canal area, securing vital shipping
routes against diverse threats such as terrorism, piracy, robbery and hijacking.
However, others are becoming more present in the area, such as the Indian and the
Chinese navies, while France continues to maintain a permanent naval presence in
the Indian Ocean under its naval forces for the Indian Ocean (Alindien) and the
French Armed Forces for the South of the Indian Ocean (FAZSOI).

4. The Indian Ocean Region

There is no unique understanding of what should be considered as the region of the
Indian Ocean and its extent. Our proposition for the Indian Ocean Region derives
from the fact that the ocean itself is the core element of the region, to which it gives
its name and its coherence, representing its geographical centre and being the
physical link with the countries of the region. In this context, and considering states
as the relevant units of the regional geopolitical system, a broad definition of the
Indian Ocean Region would include the Indian Ocean, with all its tributary water
bodies (Persian Gulf, Red Sea, Malacca Strait, and so on), each of its coastal states,
as well as the land-locked states for which the transit to and from the sea is mostly
oriented towards the Indian Ocean6 (Bouchard 2003, 2004). Together with the
United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) concepts of coastal
states and land-locked states (United Nations 1982), this definition is fully coherent
with that proposed in 1979 for the Indian Ocean as a Zone of Peace (United Nations
1979, Article 14).7 However, Markus Vink reminds us that large-scale ocean
basin-centric regional analysis, or the ‘new thalassology’ as he refers to it, can be
34 C. Bouchard and W. Crumplin

Figure 2.

conceptualised as both dynamic and interconnected, and that maritime regions have
both fuzzy and fluctuating boundaries (Vink 2007, pp. 52
53).8
Within these limits, the Indian Ocean Region includes a total of 38 coastal and
13 land-locked states (Figure 1, Table 1, Appendix 1), of which 23 are African and
25 are Asian, and include Australia, France (for Crozet, Kerguelen, Mayotte,
Réunion, St. Paul & Amsterdam, and the Scattered Islands) and the United
Kingdom (for the British Indian Ocean Territory). Taking into account the
geographical relations among the 51 regional states and the Indian Ocean itself,
we propose a simple typology that differentiates 28 Indian Ocean Rim States,9 10
other coastal states of the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf and 13 Indian Ocean land-
locked states (Table 1). Out of these 51 states, France and the United Kingdom
represent exceptional cases as they are European. However, as it stands now, these
two states extend and effectively implement their sovereignty over some island
territories in the Indian Ocean, even though many of these small islands are claimed
by other regional states (Madagascar, Mauritius and Comoros), such as the
Scattered Islands10 and the Chagos Archipelago11 (Bouchard 2007). As such, they
enjoy the rights and have the obligations granted to any coastal states in the
International Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). Hence, they qualify as Indian Ocean
coastal states even if this is only on behalf of their island territories. Based on this
logic, France and the United Kingdom are also considered to be Indian Ocean Rim
 Journal of the Indian Ocean Region 35

Table 1. The 51 states of the Indian Ocean Region.

Other coastal states of

the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean
Indian Ocean Rim states Persian Gulf land-locked states

Australia Mozambique Bahrain Afghanistan

Bangladesh Oman Egypt Bhutan
Burma (Myanmar) Pakistan Eritrea Botswana
Comoros Seychelles Iraq Burundi
Djibouti Singapore Israel Ethiopia
France* Somalia Jordan Lesotho
Kenya South Africa Kuwait Malawi
India Sri Lanka Qatar Nepal
Indonesia Tanzania Saudi Arabia Rwanda
Iran Thailand Sudan Swaziland
Madagascar Timor-Leste Uganda
Malaysia United Arab Emirates Zambia
Maldives United Kingdom* Zimbabwe
Mauritius Yemen
Note: *For France and United Kingdom: because of their island territories.

states, even if in the region this concept is very often exclusive to any foreign states,
as it is the case in the context of the Indian Ocean Rim Association for Regional
Cooperation (IOR-ARC).
Altogether, and according to our definition, the Indian Ocean Region includes
68,556,000 sq km of sea and some 33,335,859 sq km of state territories, for a grand
total of about 102,000,000 sq km, respectively representing 20.4% of the world’s
oceans, 19.1% of the world’s emerged lands, and 20.0% of the entire globe area.
Even if this represents quite a large area, its main significance in world geography
derives from its population that amounted to 2.65 billion people in 2009, which
represents 39.1% of the world population. In terms of economy, its global
importance is much less with a gross domestic product in purchasing power parity
(GDP-PPP) of US$10,813 billion in 2008 (15.4% of the world GDP-PPP) and a
total international trade of US$4,544 billion (14.2% of world international trade)
(CIA 2009). However, its importance to the world economy is significant as it is
one of the busiest sea routes and represents the world’s most important energy
provider.
The main feature of the region is its great diversity in terms of geographical
setting. Political, population, economic and environmental patterns vary greatly
from one country to another, making each of them unique with their specific
geographical profile. In addition, political boundaries usually do not match with the
distribution of other significant factors such as ethnicity and religion, and the types
of natural resources vary dramatically and are unequally distributed from one place
to another. This great diversity makes it difficult to give a simple portrait of the
region. However, in terms of geopolitical and geostrategic significance, other than
the partition into 51 different states, we can identify the following important
characteristics of the region:
36 C. Bouchard and W. Crumplin

(1) The specific geographical configuration of the region, organised around an

ocean basin (the Indian Ocean) which, unlike the Atlantic and the Pacific
(which are considered ‘open’ oceans), is closed to the north by the Eurasian
landmass. In consequence, and as emphasised earlier, ships can only access or
exit it through a small number of choke points. Another important
geographical feature is the Indian Peninsula that separates the northern
Indian Ocean in two different basins (the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal)
and projects India towards the centre of the ocean, giving India a vast littoral
presence of some 7600km and an exceptional position inside the Indian
Ocean;12
(2) The very complex ethno-cultural mosaic that embraces thousands of ethnic
groups, tribes and clans, as well as a great diversity of languages and religions.
These ethno-cultural divisions have fuelled many conflicts and they often
represent a fundamental element of national political life. At the moment, the
most significant large-scale cultural feature is certainly the fact that the
Islamic world covers a great part of the region, from the coasts of East Africa
to Northeast Africa, the entire Middle East and major areas of South
and Southeast Asia (including Pakistan and Bangladesh, Malaysia and
Indonesia, while there are some 150 million Muslims in India);
(3) The importance of strategic natural resources, which are concentrated in only
some parts of the region. While mineral resources are diverse and abundant,
especially in Southern Africa, India, Indonesia and Australia, it is more the
energy resources that attract attention. According to the World Energy
Outlook 2009 (EIA 2009, pp. 31, 4613), 55% of the world’s proved oil reserves
and 40% of the world’s natural gas reserves are found in the Persian Gulf,
with Indonesia and Malaysia also appearing in the world’s top 20 reserves for
natural gas. Australia, India and Southern Africa also possess large reserves
of coal (4th, 5th and 6th of the world recoverable coal reserves; EIA 2009,
p. 59) while Australia and South Africa respectively possess the world’s first
and fourth largest affordable uranium reserves14 (ENS 2010); and
(4) The diverse level and wide range of socio-economic development among
regional states, as well as widespread poverty and underemployment. In terms
of socio-economic conditions, the contrast is huge between the richest and the
poorest countries. For instance, in 2007, the human development index (HDI)
value of Australia was of 0.970 (2nd worldwide) while that of Afghanistan was
only 0.352 (181st out of 182). Overall, the HDI value for the Indian Ocean
Region was only 0.621 (0.753 for the world), with 25 states15 showing an HDI
value lower than 0.600 (0.612 for India, 134th worldwide) and only six states
showing a very high human development index value of 0.900 and above
(UNDP 2009, pp. 172
174). In consequence, development issues are and will
long remain of critical importance in the region.
(5) Finally, it is also important to point out the greater relative importance of
some states in the Indian Ocean Region. There is no formal way for
measuring such a concept but we can approach the problem by taking into
account some basic geographical and economic factors such as each state’s
area, population, and gross domestic product, plus its international trade, as
this is one of the most significant and readily available indicators to measure
the degree of openness and the importance of a national economy to the
 Journal of the Indian Ocean Region 37

Table 2. The 12 states with the highest Geo-Socio-Economic Index (GSEI).

Area (%) Population (%) GDP-PPP (%) Int’l Trade (%) GSEI Index

India 9.86 43.95 30.56 11.07 23.86

Australia 23.22 0.80 7.43 8.45 9.98
Indonesia 5.71 9.06 8.48 5.62 7.22
Saudi Arabia 6.45 1.08 5.34 9.28 5.54
Iran 4.94 2.50 7.80 3.65 4.72
Singapore 0.00 0.18 2.20 14.36 4.18
Thailand 1.54 2.48 5.07 7.32 4.10
Pakistan 2.29 6.64 3.99 1.30 3.58
South Africa 3.66 1.85 4.55 3.89 3.49
Malaysia 0.99 0.97 3.56 7.78 3.32
Egypt 3.00 3.13 4.11 1.90 3.04
U.A.E. 0.25 0.18 1.91 9.14 2.87
Total 62.02 72.82 85.01 83.30 75.90
Source: Figures calculated by the authors, using raw data from CIA (2009).

world economy. From these data, it is possible to compute an index that

roughly represents the relative geo-socio-economic importance, which we
refer to as the GSEI (the Geo-Socio-Economic Index).16 This allows us to
compute the GSEI for each state and further enables states to be compared to
each other and to the region as a whole (Table 2). After calculating the GSEI
for all 51 states, we identified a group of 12 states that together account for
62% of the region’s area, 73% of its population, 85% of its GDP-PPP and 83%
of its international trade. Out of these 12, and with a GSEI of 23.86, India is
by far the most important state of the region, followed by Australia (9.98) and
Indonesia (7.22), and then Saudi Arabia (5.54) and Iran (4.72). Singapore,
Thailand, Pakistan, South Africa, Malaysia, Egypt and the United Arab
Emirates, in relative order, complete this group of 12 countries. Thus, in the
Indian Ocean Region, a quarter of the states (12 out of 51, or 23.5%) are
responsible for three-quarters (75.9%) of the GSEI of the entire region.

Nevertheless, this simple index is not sufficient to give a complete portrait of the
geopolitical significance of the states as this also largely depends on other factors
such as their military power (size of armed forces, types of weaponry
conventional
or nuclear, and so on), ongoing conflicts (internal and otherwise) and their relations
to these conflicts, their geostrategic value (due to specific resources and location), as
well as their capacity to influence regional/world affairs. For example, Israel has a
much greater geopolitical weight than its GSEI of 1.22 suggests. The same can be
said for Iraq (GSEI of 1.34) and for Afghanistan (GSEI of 0.84), which are not
strong military powers but are places where ongoing wars and geostrategic
considerations have also to be taken into account.

5. Peace and security in the Indian Ocean

In the 1960s, peace and security were the first issues to spark an Indian Ocean-wide
regional cooperation initiative, predating by many years concerns about maritime
38 C. Bouchard and W. Crumplin

affairs and economic matters, which were responsible for eventually establishing the
Indian Ocean Marine Affairs Cooperation (IOMAC) in 1985
1987 and the IOR-
ARC in 1997. The peace and security concerns of the 1960s, however, culminated in
the Declaration of the Indian Ocean as a Zone of Peace (IOZP) by the United
Nations General Assembly as Resolution 2832 (XXVI) of 16 December 1971.
This resolution called for all states to consider and respect the Indian Ocean as a
zone of peace, but it was truly aimed at the great foreign powers and especially the
two superpowers (USA and USSR). It was, at the time, an important piece of the
South’s global policy aimed at containing the two superpowers, their nuclear
weaponry and more widely, their military capacities in the North. The IOZP
contained four significant requirements aimed at stopping the expanding military
presence of the great powers and the intensification of their rivalry in the Indian
Ocean:

“ the elimination of all of their nuclear weapons and weapons of mass

destruction in the area;
“ the elimination of all of their bases, military installations and logistical supply
facilities in the region;
“ the elimination of all manifestations of great power military presence in the
Indian Ocean conceived in the context of great power rivalry; and,
“ the ban of warships and military aircraft using the Indian Ocean for any threat
or use of force against the sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence of
any littoral or hinterland state of the Indian Ocean in contravention of the
purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations.

In 1972, the General Assembly established the Ad Hoc Committee on the Indian
Ocean with a mandate to study the implications of the Declaration of the IOZP, and,
in July 1979, the Meeting of the Littoral and Hinterland States adopted principles of
agreement for the implementation of the IOZP (United Nations 1979). This brought
the UN General Assembly to adopt Resolution 34/80B of 11 December 1979, which
convened a conference on the Indian Ocean to be held in Colombo, Sri Lanka in
1981 (Article 3). However, the conference could not be organised because of the
political opposition of the Western great powers (which joined the Ad Hoc
Committee in the wake of Resolution 34/80B) and for procedural reasons (the
stipulation that the Ad Hoc Committee had to make decisions by consensus).
Finally, the work of the Ad Hoc Committee was seriously undermined by the
withdrawal in 1989 of the United States, France and Great Britain.17 As a result, and
in this context, the long-expected UN Conference on the Indian Ocean never
materialised.
Despite the lack of tangible results since the Declaration of the IOZP (1971),
peace and security matters still remain on the United Nations agenda through
the continuing informal consultations of the chairman of the Ad Hoc Committee on
the Indian Ocean (United Nations 2009a), Ambassador H.M.G.S. Palihakkara
(Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka to the United Nations), who now calls for
‘the revision of the Declaration in a pragmatic manner that corresponds to the
current challenges and realities in the region’ (United Nations 2009b). Nevertheless,
as long as the United States, France and the United Kingdom chose to stay out of
this process, no significant progress is expected with this particular initiative.
 Journal of the Indian Ocean Region 39

Due to the militarisation that has occurred on its shores in the last four decades,
the proliferation in the region of weapons of mass destruction and missile capacities,
as well as the increasing significance of the non-traditional threats, and taking into
account the fundamental role of the ocean itself in the power projection of the
foreign militaries in the Indian Ocean Region, there is no doubt that plenty of room
still exists for innovative discussions and eventual regional cooperation on peace and
security matters. However, in the absence of such discussions and cooperation,
instead of becoming a more peaceful and secure zone, the Indian Ocean Region can
now be considered the most troubled and dangerous area of the world.
The insecurity and volatility of the region are underscored by simply comparing
the number of conflicts in the region to the number that are occurring globally.
According to the Conflict Barometer 2009 prepared by the Heidelberg Institute for
International Conflict Research (HIIK 2009), a total of 170 conflicts18 were recorded
in the Indian Ocean Region in 2009, representing 46.6% of the 365 conflicts recorded
worldwide that year (Table 3). These conflicts are classified into five categories that
range from latent conflict to manifest conflict, crisis, severe crisis and war,19 with the
latter three considered violent conflicts and the latter two considered high-intensity
violent conflicts. Overall, the Indian Ocean region accounted in 2009 for 50% of all
the crises and severe crises in the world, 19 of the 31 high-intensity violent conflicts
(61.3%), as well as all of the seven wars (Table 4 and Appendix 2).
Except for Australia and also the Southern Islands (which are very remote and
uninhabited), every other sub-region is the site of numerous ongoing conflicts: 52 in
South Asia (including Afghanistan), 34 in Western Asia, 32 in South-East Asia, and

Table 3. Conflicts in the Indian Ocean Region in 2009.

States Latent Manifest Severe

(number) conflicts conflicts Crisis crisis Wars Total

Africa (RIM) 12 6 4 6 0 1 17
Africa (LLS) 10 5 9 8 2 0 24
Africa 3 3 1 5 2 0 11
(Red Sea)
Western Asia 11 10 8 10 4 2 34
South Asia 5 15 10 17 2 3 47
(RIM)
South Asia 3 0 1 3 0 1 5
(LLS)
South-East 6 9 14 7 2 0 32
Asia
Australia 1 0* 0 0 0 0 0
Southern [3] 0 0 0 0 0 0
Islands
Indian Oc. Region 51 48 47 56 12 7 170
World 198 108 114 112 24 7 365
IOR/World 25.8 44.4 41.2 50.0 50.0 100 46.6
(%)
Notes: RIM: Indian Ocean Rim States; LLS: Land-Locked States. *Listing the latent conflict between
Timor-Leste and Australia (resources) under South-East Asia.
Source: HIIK (2009, pp. 1, 23
25, 52
55, 72
73).
40 C. Bouchard and W. Crumplin

52 in the African Indian Ocean States. Three-quarters of these 170 conflicts occurred
in 17 states affected by at least one high-intensity violent conflict (severe crisis or
war) or by six or more different conflicts (Table 4). India, with a total of 22 conflicts
out of which 12 were violent is, therefore, weakened as a whole even if there was no
ongoing war and only one severe crisis. With a total of nine conflicts, Pakistan was
certainly the most volatile states in 2009 with two ongoing wars and one severe crisis.
Both Sudan and Iraq were affected by two severe crises while wars were raging in
Afghanistan, Israel, Sri Lanka, Somalia and Yemen.
The reasons for this very volatile regional context are numerous. For many
observers from the region, the foreign great powers’ military interventionism,
interference in local politics, military aid and arm supplies are the main factors. As
were the past colonial powers in their time, and especially the British, the United
States is accused of playing the same game of exploiting local ethno-cultural
differences and fuelling local disputes in the pursuit of its own national interests and
objectives in the region. This has certainly been the case in many instances, but
several regional states have also been very effective at influencing or interfering with
neighbours’ internal affairs whether directly or indirectly, and examples of this can
be found in each of the Indian Ocean sub-regions (South Africa, Iran, Pakistan,
India, etc.).
Another set of factors is the lack of democracy in many states of the region, the
weak capacities of several states and the aspiration of a huge number of individuals
to have better living standards and improved social justice. In the region, violent

Table 4. Indian Ocean States with high-intensity violent conflicts and/or with six or more
conflicts (2009).

Latent conflicts Manifest conflicts Crisis Severe crisis Wars Total

Afghanistan 0 0 0 0 1 1
Bangladesh 1 4 1 0 0 6
Burma [Myanmar] 1 9 1 1 0 12
Ethiopia 0 4 2 1 0 7
India 5 5 11 1 0 22
Indonesia 2 2 4 0 0 8
Iran 3 2 2 1 0 8
Iraq 4 2 0 2 0 8
Israel 2 4 3 0 1 10
Pakistan 0 1 5 1 2 9
Saudi Arabia 1 0 2 1 0 4
Sri Lanka 9 0 1 0 1 11
Somalia 3 1 2 0 1 7
Sudan 2 0 3 2 0 7
Thailand 2 0 2 1 0 5
Uganda 2 2 1 1 0 6
Yemen 0 0 2 0 1 3
Total 33* 34* 41* 12 7 127*
Note: *Without the double counts for the international conflicts between Sudan and Uganda (latent
conflict), Bangladesh and India (latent conflict), Bangladesh and Burma (manifest conflict), Burma and
Thailand (latent conflict), India and Pakistan (crisis), Iran and Israel (manifest conflict), Iran and Iraq
(latent conflict).
Source: HIIK (2009, pp. 1, 23
25, 52
55, 72
73).
 Journal of the Indian Ocean Region 41

conflicts over the political system, national power or regional predominance are
very common in dictatorial regimes and failed states. Additionally, state failure to
properly administer its territory, resources and population contributes to the
vulnerability of large number of citizens. As well, this can result
indirectly, or in
cases of very corrupt administrations, directly
in the proliferation of illegal
criminal activities and the development of other non-traditional security issues. In
addition, poverty, unemployment and the lack of education constitute very fertile
grounds for criminal gangs and violent radical group recruitment. For example,
recent fieldwork conducted in Southeast Asia highlighted the link between adverse
social conditions and the rise of Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism (Bond and
Simons 2009).
Finally, a word has to be said about the Islamic world and its numerous
turbulences. Generally speaking, this civilisation has entered into a period of
instability in reaction to the modernisation of its societies, which is largely a process
emanating from the Occident and is promoting occidental values (such as democracy
and human rights) and way of life. It is also destabilised by the growing use of
violence by different groups as a means of political action. There are several conflicts
within the Islamic world on issues relating to modernisation and religion (progressive
Muslims, conservatives, fundamentalists, moderates or radicals), while religious
denominational groups (such as Shiites and Sunnites in the Persian Gulf) and ethnic
or tribal divisions (such as in Afghanistan) are manipulated and fuelled for political
purposes. Conflicts with non-Muslims on the margin of the Islamic world (in
particular in the Indian Ocean Region in Sudan, Kenya, Israel, Kashmir, Assam,
South Thailand, Indonesia) are also fuelled by radical groups networking worldwide
and providing training, finance, arms and other materials as well as militants in some
cases. On top of these internal and peripheral conflicts is the new international
jihadist movement that promotes the holy war as a means to liberate the Islamic
world from foreign influence and its submission to the infidels, and which especially
confronts the United States and its close allies: Occidental states and also Muslim
regimes that allied with the United States.
Overall, the greatest challenge for peace and security in the Indian Ocean Region
comes from the fact that these factors largely overlap and intermingle under different
patterns, creating very complex local situations. As these factors are going to remain
strongly operational in the short-term (10
20 years), and most probably in the mid-
term (20
40 years), the volatility of the region is going to remain a great challenge,
both for foreign powers with interests in the Indian Ocean and for regional states, for
a long time. Against the backdrop of the fact that the proliferation of weapons
of mass destruction (WMD), missile capacities and other advanced military
technologies have considerably enhanced the destructive capacity of many Indian
Ocean states, and that their strategic space (so far confined to land) is now widening
to sea, air and even outer space, regional conflicts might become even more
dangerous and further complicate the manoeuvres of foreign militaries in the region
(Bouchard 2004, p. 92; Chaturvedi 2009, p. 347).

6. A complex and evolving geopolitical framework

In terms of geopolitics and from the perspective of geostrategic planning, the Indian
Ocean Region has to be considered as a complex puzzle of actors, each with their
42 C. Bouchard and W. Crumplin

own vested interests or stakes, interacting in a multilayered time and space

framework. The result is a fuzzy and very open geopolitical system where the most
significant stakes are largely related to foreign great powers’ interests, while, at the
same time, regional conditions and states are also of great significance. Overall, the
geopolitical equilibrium is not actually constructed at the broad scale of the Indian
Ocean Region, but instead at the more coherent sub-regional system level (Persian
Gulf, South-Asia, South-East Asia, East Africa, Horn of Africa, Southern Africa,
South-West Indian Ocean Islands) and in the context of other peripheral regional
systems (Greater Middle East, African Union, Asia-Pacific), the latter overlapping
and integrating the former (Figure 3). These systems are in fact the levels of the most
effective regional cooperation and economic integration, with the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the South Asian Association for Regional
Cooperation (SAARC), Southern African Development Community (SADC), the
Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and the Indian Ocean Commission (in French:
Commission de l’Océan Indien, COI) at the sub-system level, and the African Union,
Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and the ASEAN Regional Forum
(ARF) as the peripheral regional systems partly overlapping and thus linked to the
Indian Ocean Region. Consequently, the Indian Ocean Region does not yet appear a
clear and coherent geopolitical system even if some region-wide cooperation is slowly
developing, as, for instance, on economic matters with the IOR-ARC,20 on maritime

Figure 3.
 Journal of the Indian Ocean Region 43

matters with the IOMAC, and on peace and security matters with the Ad Hoc
Committee on the Indian Ocean.
It is in this volatile and complex geopolitical framework that an intensifying
strategic rivalry is developing in the Indian Ocean between the United States, India
and China, with all three wanting to secure access to the Persian Gulf oil as well as
strategic sea lanes. As China is building up naval forces and setting up military
facilities in the Indian Ocean Region (Scott 2008; Kumar 2009), India is also
expanding its naval capacities to secure its own national interests and regional power
status as well as reacting to China’s ‘string of pearls’ strategy and containment
(Chaudhury 2007). As the dominant player in the region since the end of the Cold
War, the United States has now to adapt to the growing significance of India and
China in the Indian Ocean (Kaplan 2009). No doubt, the great power ‘great game’
between India and China is of growing significance in the Indian Ocean (Berlin 2002;
Scott 2008), and, taking into account the United States great involvement and
interest in the region, a ‘strategic triangle’ is emerging in the region (Holmes and
Yoshihara 2008). Thus, USA-India-China relations will largely shape the future of
Indian Ocean geopolitics in the coming decades, and most probably for the rest of
the twenty-first century. Even though this ‘great game’ and ‘strategic triangle’ have a
strong naval dimension, the rivalry between these three powers also extends to
economic and diplomatic relations as well as to intelligence and broad military
cooperation with the other countries of the region.
In addition to this emerging interplay of relations among the three main actors,
many other states are of some significance to the ongoing geopolitical rearrangement
in the Indian Ocean. Many are foreign states, which are greatly concerned about
energy and maritime security and which pursue their own national economic and
political interests: France, the United Kingdom, Germany, the other major
European powers and Japan. On a lesser level, at least for now, there is also Russia,
a player of a different kind as it does not need Persian Gulf oil, being itself very rich
in energy. However, Russia can be expected to remain involved in the region to
protect its interests not only in the Middle East but also in Central Asia, as well as to
secure its great power status. For instance, and in relation with the Indian Ocean
Region, Russia remains a main player in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and in the
Iranian nuclear question, as well as a major player on the world’s energy and
armaments markets. Russia also maintains a very important, broad and long-lasting
cooperation with India (the Indo-Russian Strategic Partnership), especially
significant on military and nuclear matters,21 as well as it advocacy of a closer
Russia-India-China relationship (RIC) and an influential Brazil-Russia-India-China
(BRIC) dialogue (Mohanty 2009).
Other influential states are from within the region, in particular Saudi Arabia,
Iran, South Africa, Egypt, Australia, Israel and Pakistan, even though this influence
is mainly found in their sub-regions and in their relations with neighbours. However,
as the guardian of the two most sacred Islamic sites (the Kaaba in Mecca and the
Masjid al-Nabawi in Medina), Saudi Arabia’s influence expands to the entire Islamic
world, an influence that is also largely related to its financial aid to poorer Islamic
communities (especially funding mosques and schools) and the diffusion of
Wahhabism. Still from the region, many other states find some significance in the
great interest they attract, whether it is for their resources (mainly those that have oil
and gas), their geostrategic location (on a choke point or because of their
44 C. Bouchard and W. Crumplin

neighbourhood) or for security reasons (conflicts, terrorism, maritime piracy, and so

on).
Finally, all of these states (external and regional, great powers and smaller states)
are currently facing a changing security landscape impaired by the growing
significance of non-state players, including terrorist groups, transnational subversive
elements and organised criminal groups, as well as other non-traditional security
issues such as environmental security, food security and natural disasters. In the
Indian Ocean Region, the emergence of these factors represents additional threats to
peace and security within and between states, as well as challenges to the survival and
well-being of large numbers of people. Even though regional states are on the
frontline of non-traditional security issues in the Indian Ocean, vested foreign
powers are also greatly affected, having to cope directly with some of these threats
(such as Islamic terrorism and maritime piracy) as well as helping regional states face
these challenges.

7. Conclusion
With global geopolitical and economic developments since the end of the Second
World War and, in particular, since the end of the 1960s and the 1970s, the Indian
Ocean has moved from being largely ignored to becoming an area of crucial
geostrategic importance. On the one hand, it is a region where tremendously
important natural resources are found, especially Persian Gulf oil, which will be of
growing importance in the coming decades and is already of particular significance
for the oil-dependent large economic powers of Europe as well as for China, India,
Japan and the United States.22 On the other hand, its sea lanes of communication
which funnel into a small number of choke points are vital to global commerce, and
especially for the very significant trade between Europe and Asia, as well as for the
energy security of the states that rely significantly on Persian Gulf oil.
There is no reason to suspect that this importance will diminish in coming
decades; on the contrary, and as Robert Kaplan has phrased it, the Indian Ocean now
forms the centre stage for the challenges of the twenty-first century. In addition to the
two more traditional issues of oil and maritime trade, two other main regional factors
contribute to the growing significance of the Indian Ocean Region, which is inhabited
today by nearly 40% of the world’s population. The first of these is the ‘rise of India’
as a real Indian Ocean-wide regional power and an emerging great power on the
global scene, a major and growing economy which presently ranks fourth in the world
in terms of gross domestic product (at purchasing power parity; only after the United
States, China and Japan), as well as a country of close to 1.2 billion people today, most
probably over 1.6 billion in 2050 and predicted to surpass China’s population by 2028
(United Nations 2009c, pp. 2, 38). A second factor is the turbulence faced presently by
the Islamic world as a whole in relation to modernisation, religious and local socio-
economic issues and political contexts, as well as the spread of radical movements and
the use of violence as a tool of political action, which has culminated in international
jihad and Islamic terrorism. However, the Islamic world is far from having a
monopoly on instability and insecurity in the region.
In fact, the Indian Ocean Region can now be considered as the most troubled and
dangerous area of the world. With a total of 170 conflicts and 19 high-intensity
violent conflicts recorded in the region in 2009, respectively accounting for 46.6% of
 Journal of the Indian Ocean Region 45

all the conflicts recorded worldwide and 63.1% of the high-intensity violent conflicts,
it is a very volatile region. These conflicts are related to numerous and interrelated
root factors such ethnicity, religion, resources, political clashes, foreign great power
military interventionism and interference in local politics (including military aid and
arm supplies), regional state interference in their neighbours’ affairs, the lack of
democracy, weak state capacities as well as poverty and low socio-economic
development. However, insecurity in the region also emanates from a wide range
of additional non-traditional security issues such as organised crime, environmental
degradation, resource depletion and natural disasters.
It is in this volatile geopolitical environment that both foreign powers involved in
the region and Indian Ocean states have to manoeuvre and secure their own national
interests. Among all of these states and in addition to India, which we highlighted as
a main regional factor, two other great powers are of particular significance to the
unstable and reshaping Indian Ocean geopolitical context, namely the United States
and China. In the case of the United States, its involvement in the region has been
constantly increasing since the Second World War as it has resolved to secure its
access to and control of a large share of Persian Gulf oil. As this fundamental
objective remains in a context of growing competition for this strategic resource, new
and very important geostrategic issues such as maritime security, nuclear prolifera-
tion and Islamic terrorism have forced the Americans to engage in the Indian Ocean
Region more deeply and broadly than ever before. As for China, the other ‘rising
Asian great power’, its involvement in the Indian Ocean is just beginning; but its
entry and fast growing significance on the regional chessboard has led to the
emergence of a strategic triangle with the United States and India; a triangle that
could well represent the shaping forces of the Indian Ocean Region geopolitics in the
twenty-first century.
In sum, the Indian Ocean is now at the forefront of world geopolitics and global
geostrategy, a situation that should continue for some time, taking into account the
significance of its strategic energy resources, the importance of its strategic shipping
lanes, the ‘rise of India’ as a dominant regional player, the turbulence of the Islamic
world, the deep and broad involvement of the United States (and its Western allies) in
the region, and China’s entry onto the regional chessboard. In this context and
considering that the region is already very volatile, peace and security will remain a
great challenge in the next few decades for both the foreign powers with great interests
in the region and the regional states. There is no doubt that the Indian Ocean has now
entered a period of rough seas, and what is happening there cannot be neglected.

Notes
1. Despite a reservation lodged by Australia on the issue of the Southern Ocean, its formal
recognition and a revised conventional definition of the Indian Ocean should be adopted
and eventually published in the long-awaited fourth edition of Limits of Oceans and Seas
(Kerr 2002; Darby 2003).
2. Included in these limits of the Indian Ocean are the Andaman Sea, Arabian Sea, Bay of
Bengal, Flores Sea, Great Australian Bight, Gulf of Aden, Gulf of Aqaba, Gulf of
Mannar, Gulf of Oman, Gulf of Suez, Java Sea, Mozambique Channel, Laccadive Sea
(Lakshadweep Sea), Palk Strait and Palk Bay, Persian Gulf, Red Sea, Savu Sea, Straits of
Malacca and Singapore, Timor Sea, and other tributary water bodies. (adapted from
Chaturvedi 2009; CIA 2009).
46 C. Bouchard and W. Crumplin

3. The areas of the other two oceans are 20,327,000 sq km for the Southern Ocean and
14,056,000 sq km for the Arctic Ocean. Source of all ocean area data: CIA (2009).
4. Capesize ships are cargo ships originally too large to transit the Suez Canal (i.e., larger
than both panamax and suezmax vessels). These vessels are typically above 150,000 long
tons deadweight (DWT), and ships in this class include VLCC and ULCC supertankers
and bulk carriers transporting coal, ore, and other commodity raw materials. The term
‘capesize’ is most commonly used to describe bulk carriers rather than tankers. However,
the Suez Canal will be able to take in about 99% of all methods used in world maritime
transport after reaching a depth of 72 feet, as well as taking about 99% of the DWT for
the bulk vessels, 82% of the petroleum tanks and 100% of all the remaining types of ships
used in maritime transport; specially container vessels with all its future generations; in
addition to empty vessels reaching up to 560 thousand tons (Suez Canal Authority 2010).
5. According to a report prepared for US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in 2005,
‘China is considering funding construction of a $20 billion canal across the Kra Isthmus
that would allow ships to bypass the Strait of Malacca. The canal project would give
China port facilities, warehouses and other infrastructure in Thailand aimed at enhancing
Chinese influence in the region’ (The Washington Times 2005).
6. Relying more on historical, cultural and economic criteria, the terms Great Indian Ocean
and Indian Ocean World usually refer to larger areas than the one we propose for the
Indian Ocean Region.
7. ‘In the context of the Declaration contained in General Assembly resolution 2832 (XXVI)
of 16 December 1971, the Indian Ocean as a zone of peace should cover the Indian Ocean
itself, its natural extensions, the islands thereon, the ocean floor subjacent thereto, the
littoral and hinterland States and the air space above’ (United Nations 1979, Article 14).
8. On the idea of ‘fuzzy and fluctuating boundaries’, Vink refers to Wigen (2006).
9. The term ‘Indian Ocean Rim’ usually refers to the rim of states bordering the main basin
of the Indian Ocean, including its island states. Thus, the Indian Ocean Rim states are
those that possess a coast on the main body of the Indian Ocean, including the Arabian
Sea, the Bay of Bengal, the Gulf of Aden, the Andaman Sea and the Straits of Malacca
and Singapore, but excluding the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf.
10. Administered by France as Îles Éparses de l’océan Indien, the Scattered Islands (or
Scattered Islands in the Indian Ocean) include Bassas da India, Europa Island, Glorioso
Islands, Juan de Nova Island and Tromelin Island. In February 2007, these fives very
small island entities were integrated with the French Southern and Antarctic Lands
(Terres australes et antarctiques françaises) as its fifth district. Madagascar, Comoros and
Mauritius have each made claims over some of these islands. Comoros also claims
Mayotte.
11. Since 1965, the Chagos Archipelago is administered by the United Kingdom as the British
Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT). It is claimed by Mauritius.
12. Geostrategically speaking, this grants a great positional advantage to India in the Indian
Ocean. ‘The Indian subcontinent is akin to a massive triangle reaching into the heart of
the Indian Ocean, beneficing any from there who seeks to control the Indian Ocean’
(Zhang Ming, cited by Holmes and Yoshihara 2008, p. 51).
13. Referring to the Oil & Gas Journal, Vol. 106, no. 48, 22 December 2008.
14. With mining costs up to US$130 per kilogram (ENS 2010).
15. Including Somalia and Zimbabwe; the UNDP could not calculate their HDI value in
2007.
16. The first step in calculation the GSEI is to grant equal importance to each state’s land
area, population, GDP in purchasing power parity and international trade; that is, state
values for each of these four parameters are summed and divided by four. Each value is
simply the percentage of the land area, population, GDP-PPP, and international trade of
the region found in each state.
17. ‘Arguing that superpower rivalry in the Indian Ocean had diminished with the end of the
Cold War, rendering a Zone of Peace purposeless’ (Berlin 2002, p. 26).
18. Defined as ‘the clashing of interests (positional differences) over national values of some
duration and magnitude between at least two parties (organized groups, states, groups of
 Journal of the Indian Ocean Region 47

states, organizations) that are determined to pursue their interests and achieve their goals’
(HIIK 2009, p. 84).
19. ‘Latent conflict: A positional difference over definable values of national meaning is
considered to be a latent conflict if demands are articulated by one of the parties and
perceived by the other as such. Manifest conflict: A manifest conflict includes the use of
measures that are located in the stage preliminary to violent force. This includes for
example verbal pressure, threatening explicitly with violence, or the imposition of
economic sanctions. Crisis: A crisis is a tense situation in which at least one of the
parties uses violent force in sporadic incidents. Severe crisis: A conflict is considered to be
a severe crisis if violent force is used repeatedly in an organized way. War: A war is a
violent conflict in which violent force is used with a certain continuity in an organized and
systematic way. The conflict parties exercise extensive measures, depending on the
situation. The extent of destruction is massive and of long duration’ (HIIK 2009, p. 84).
20. However, there is yet no economic integration at the Indian Ocean-wide scale. Long and
still subordinated to external powers, regional economies are very disconnected as only
one-fifth of the total trade is conducted among the countries of the Indian Ocean
themselves (Chaturvedi 2009, p. 344).
21. Another key area in which the cooperation is likely to get impetus is that of hydrocarbons.
This is highlighted by the recent Indian investments in the Russian energy sector (oil and
gas) and by Moscow’s willingness to play a substantial role in ensuring India energy
security (Mohanty 2009).
22. In 2008, the Persian Gulf accounted for 18.35% of the total US imports of crude oil and
petroleum products (US Energy Information Administration 2009).

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 Journal of the Indian Ocean Region 49

Appendix 1. Basic data for the 51 states of the Indian Ocean Region.

Population GDP-PPP Exports Imports

Area 2009 HDI 2008 2008 2008
(sq km) (million) 2007 (billion $) (billion $) (billion $)

Afghanistan 652 230 28.396 0.352 22.320 0.327 4.850

Australia 7 741 220 21.263 0.970 802.900 189.900 194.200
Bahrain 741 0.728 0.895 26.890 17.490 14.250
Bangladesh 143 998 156.051 0.543 226.400 15.440 21.510
Bhutan 38 394 0.691 0.619 3.533 0.350 0.320
Botswana 581 730 1.991 0.694 27.110 4.707 4.486
Burma (Myanmar) 676 578 48.138 0.586 55.270 6.677 3.388
Burundi 27 830 8.988 0.394 3.109 0.079 0.350
Comoros 2 235 0.752 0.576 0.742 0.032 0.143
Djibouti 23 200 0.516 0.520 1.891 0.340 1.555
Egypt 1 001 450 83.083 0.703 444.800 29.850 56.620
Eritrea 117 600 5.647 0.472 3.954 0.013 0.601
Ethiopia 1 104 300 85.237 0.414 70.230 1.555 7.206
France — — — — — —

Crozet 352 — — — — —

Kerguelen 7 215 — — — — —

Mayotte 374 0.224 — 0.954 0.007 0.341

Réunion 2 512 0.808 — 5.819 0.246 4.045

St. Paul & Ams. 62 — — — — —

Scattered Is 39 — — — — —
India 3 287 263 1 166.079 0.612 3 304.000 187.900 315.100
Indonesia 1 904 569 240.272 0.734 916.700 139.300 116.000
Iran 1 648 195 66.429 0.782 843.700 98.420 67.250
Iraq 438 317 28.946 — 90.230 58.810 37.220
Israel 22 072 7.234 0.935 203.400 57.160 64.400
Jordan 89 342 6.343 0.770 31.680 7.782 14.990
Kenya 580 367 39.003 0.541 61.650 5.040 10.690
Kuwait 17 818 2.691 0.916 149.500 86.940 22.940
Lesotho 30 355 2.131 0.514 3.301 0.956 1.880
Madagascar 587 041 20.654 0.543 20.180 1.254 2.419
Malawi 118 484 14.269 0.493 11.950 0.830 1.587
Malaysia 329 847 25.716 0.829 385.200 198.700 154.700
Maldives 298 0.396 0.771 1.723 0.113 1.276
Mauritius 2 040 1.284 0.804 15.430 2.400 4.399
Mozambique 799 380 21.669 0.402 19.110 2.653 3.458
Nepal 147 181 28.563 0.553 31.390 0.868 3.229
Oman 309 500 3.418 0.846 66.870 37.720 20.710
Pakistan 796 095 176.243 0.572 431.200 21.090 38.190
Qatar 11 586 0.833 0.910 91.550 55.730 25.110
Rwanda 26 338 10.473 0.460 9.729 0.210 0.834
Saudi Arabia 2 149 690 28.687 0.843 577.900 313.400 108.300
Seychelles 455 0.087 0.845 1.821 0.495 1.018
Singapore 697 4.658 0.944 237.900 342.700 309.600
Somalia 637 657 9.832 — 5.524 0.300 0.798
South Africa 1 219 090 49.052 0.683 492.200 86.120 90.570
50 C. Bouchard and W. Crumplin
Appendix 1 (Continued )

Population GDP-PPP Exports Imports

Area 2009 HDI 2008 2008 2008
(sq km) (million) 2007 (billion $) (billion $) (billion $)
Sri Lanka 65 610 21.325 0.759 92.090 8.137 12.610
Sudan 2 505 813 41.088 0.531 88.370 11.670 8.229
Swaziland 17 364 1.124 0.572 5.826 1.756 1.855
Tanzania 947 300 41.049 0.530 54.380 2.413 7.080
Thailand 513 120 65.905 0.783 548.700 175.300 157.300
Timor-Leste 14 874 1.132 0.489 2.526 0.010 0.202
Uganda 241 038 32.370 0.514 40.080 2.688 3.980
U.A. Emirates 83 600 4.798 0.903 206.300 239.200 176.300
United Kingdom — — — — — —

B.I.O.T. 60 — — — — —
Yemen 527 968 23.823 0.575 55.410 8.977 8.829
Zambia 752 618 11.863 0.481 17.540 4.818 4.694
Zimbabwe 390 757 11.393 — 1.925 1.396 1.915
Ind. Oc. Region 33 335 859 2 653.343 0.621 10 812.906 2 430.269 2 113.527
B.I.O.T.: British Indian Ocean Territory; HDI: Human Development Index; GDP-PPP: gross domestic
product at purchasing power parity. GDPP-PPP, exports and imports in US$.
Sources: CIA, World Factbook 2009 (area, population, GDP-PPP, exports, imports); UNDP, Human
Development Report 2009 (HDI).
 Journal of the Indian Ocean Region 51

Appendix 2. High-Intensity violent conflicts in the Indian Ocean Region (2009).

Wars Conflict parties Conflict items Start /  / 

Afghanistan (Taliban) Taliban vs. government System/ideology, 1994 

national power
Israel Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Secession, 1988 
(Hamas/Palestine) PRC vs. Israeli gvt system/ideology
Pakistan Various Islamist System/ideology, 2001 
(Islam/militants) militants vs. government national power
Pakistan Taliban vs. various tribes System/ideology, 2001 
(Taliban/tribes) regional
predominance
Somalia Hizbul-Islam, System/ideology, 2006 
(Islamist groups) Al-Shabaab vs. national power
Transitional Fed. Gvt
Sri Lanka (LTTE) LTTE vs. government Secession 1976 
Yemen al-Houthi rebels System/ideology, 2004 
(al-Houthi rebels) vs. government regional
predominance
Severe crisis
Burma [Myanmar] KNU, KNLA vs. gvt, Secession 1948 
(Karen, Kayah) UWSA, DKBA
Ethiopia ONLF vs. government Secession, resources 1984 
(ONLF/Ogaden)
India (Naxalites) CPI-M vs. government System/ideology 1997 
Iran PJAK vs. government Autonomy 1979 
(PJAK/Kurdish areas)
Iraq (AQI) AQI vs. government System/ideology, 2003 
national power
Iraq (insurgents) insurgents vs. government System/ideology, 2004 
national power
Pakistan Shiite groups vs. Sunni System/ideology, 1998 
(Sunnites - Shiites) groups regional
predominance
Saudi Arabia al-Houthi rebels System/ideology, 2009 
(al-Houthi rebels) vs. government regional
predominance
Sudan (Darfur) Several groups vs. Regional 2003 
gvt, Janjaweed militias predominance,
resources
Sudan (various ethnic Murle vs. Lou-Nuer vs. Regional 2008 
groups) Jikany-Nuer predominance
Thailand (southern Muslim separatists vs. Secession, 1902 
provinces) government system/ideology
Uganda (LRA) LRA vs. government National power, 1987 
Resources
/  / : Change in the intensity level of the conflict from 2008 to 2009.
Source: HIIK, 2009, Conflict Barometer 2009, pp. 23
25, 52
55, 72
73.