Article
For ninety years, Turkey has been positioned as the principal gatekeeper of Black Sea security. As a result, European and NATO efforts to support Ukraine will require closer engagement with Ankara.
Thomas de Waal
{
"authors": [],
"type": "scholarSpotlight",
"centerAffiliationAll": "",
"centers": [
"Carnegie Endowment for International Peace"
],
"collections": [],
"englishNewsletterAll": "",
"nonEnglishNewsletterAll": "",
"primaryCenter": "Carnegie Endowment for International Peace",
"programAffiliation": "",
"programs": [],
"projects": [],
"regions": [
"South Asia",
"India",
"East Asia",
"China"
],
"topics": [
"Security",
"Military",
"Foreign Policy"
]
}
Source: Getty
Scholar Spotlight
Executive Summary: Samudra Manthan: Sino-Indian Rivalry in the Indo-Pacific
As China and India develop strategic interests beyond their territorial and regional waters, their naval footprints will grow, overlap, and generate the basis for potential conflict.
Published on Oct 24, 2012
As China and India globalize their economies and develop strategic interests beyond their territorial and regional waters, their naval footprints will grow, overlap, and generate the basis for potential conflict. While neither country is ready to supplant the United States as the dominant naval power in the Indo-Pacific, their growing rivalry promises to deepen security dilemmas in the region and alter the world’s maritime space.
Key Themes
- The Chinese and Indian navies are transforming themselves from coastal defense forces into instruments of power projection.
- China’s principal maritime preoccupations remain the western Pacific—reunifying Taiwan, defending Chinese territorial claims, and constraining the naval dominance of the United States. However, Beijing is beginning to push into the Indian Ocean to ensure access to overseas energy sources.
- New Delhi is now starting to make regular naval forays into the Pacific Ocean, having proclaimed for decades that its strategic interests stretched only from Aden to Malacca, the two choke points to the Indian Ocean.
- China seeks long-term access arrangements in the Indian Ocean and India is consolidating long-standing economic and security cooperation with Mauritius, Seychelles, Maldives, and Sri Lanka.
- In the Arabian Sea, rivalry between China and India is muted by America’s overwhelming political and naval presence.
- The Chinese and Indian navies are starting to explore bilateral confidence-building measures, including ship visits, port calls, joint exercises, and high-level naval exchanges.
Recommendations for Chinese and Indian Policymakers
- Negotiate an ‘incidents at sea’ agreement. Borrowing from a successful pact between the American and Soviet navies, China and India should exchange information on encounters between their two navies and establish a joint committee to annually review incidents.
- Pursue a maritime security dialogue. A substantive and open-ended dialogue between China and India on maritime and naval issues is imperative to reduce the potential for miscommunication and conflict.
- Secure the commons. China and India should initiate a trilateral dialogue with the United States on potential cooperation in securing the maritime commons in the Indo-Pacific.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: C. Raja Mohan heads the strategic studies program at the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi. He is a columnist on foreign affairs for one of India’s leading English dailies, Indian Express. Mohan is also a nonresident senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Carnegie does not take institutional positions on public policy issues; the views represented herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of Carnegie, its staff, or its trustees.
More Work from Carnegie Europe
- Managing Montreux: Turkey and the Russia-Ukraine War in the Black Sea
- Geopolitical Europe Needs Air-ConditioningCommentary
Western Europe’s dual-use infrastructure melted down during its latest heat wave. If a predicted hot weather event can take the continent by surprise, what chance does it have to withstand unexpected geopolitical crises?
Rym Momtaz
- The Trump-Shaped Hole in the European Security StrategyCommentary
There is an elephant in the room when it comes to the EU’s upcoming security strategy: Donald Trump. Unless European leaders acknowledge the depth of the transatlantic crisis, true autonomy will remain out of reach.
Stefan Lehne
- A Grand Strategy for Europe’s Clean Industrial FuturePaper
Europe’s industrial supply chains leave it vulnerable to global shocks. The EU needs a pragmatic green industrial strategy that balances durable partnerships and bolsters homegrown clean tech without sacrificing low-carbon ambition.
Milo McBride, Pauline Gerard
- Europe Needs a Strategy for Its Turn to New Defense TechCommentary
Defense tech innovations will be at the heart of Europe’s new security strategy. But so far, Brussels has been making moves without a broader plan, undermining readiness and credibility.
Raluca Csernatoni
