Maritime Foreign Policy Strategy

The Sea as the New Theatre of Strategy

As India and China both turn from the land towards the sea, the coming decades of the Asian century will witness what one scholar calls a ‘clash of the dragon and the elephant’ — a churning of the oceans, or Samudra Manthan, that will reshape the global maritime environment.

Even a settled land boundary would not end this rivalry, since the two will continue to compete for influence across Africa, Latin America, Afghanistan and Central Asia. Geography will remain a persistent irritant, and the sea is where the contest is now sharpest.

India’s security challenge with China, long fought in the Himalayas, is increasingly playing out at the maritime level. As the Sino–Pakistan partnership deepens, India needs a strategy to checkmate China at sea — and its greatest advantage lies in its commanding position in the Indian Ocean and its warm ties with South-East Asia and Africa.

The more China trades with West Asia, Africa and Central Asia, the more its commerce flows through Indian Ocean sea lanes, making the ocean a potential new theatre of conflict.

A peninsula jutting into a vast ocean that bears its name, India sits astride the world’s busiest energy and trade corridors. Nearly the whole of its external trade and the bulk of its energy imports travel by sea.

Securing these sea lanes of communication (SLOC), from the Strait of Hormuz to the Strait of Malacca, is therefore not a peripheral concern but the very foundation of national prosperity and security.

The China Challenge and the Malacca Dilemma

The Strait of Malacca, roughly 900 km long, connects the Indian Ocean to the South China Sea and is a prime artery between East Asia and Europe. A vast quantity of oil — the majority of China’s imports — passes through it. Beijing’s fear that this lifeline could be choked in a crisis is known as the ‘Malacca Dilemma’.

Lying beside the strait, India’s Andaman and Nicobar Islands give it a natural sentinel position; the strait, in effect, is the ‘king’ of the Indian maritime chessboard.

China’s counter-strategy is the String of Pearls — a web of ports and facilities ringing the ocean — and a growing naval presence under its maritime initiatives.

India has responded by patrolling against piracy in the strait since 2006, deepening partnerships across the region, and asserting itself even in the South China Sea, where China’s defiance of international arbitration has heightened the salience of a rules-based maritime order.

The Legal Architecture: India and the Law of the Sea

India’s maritime policy has been shaped as much in conference halls as at sea. Its engagement with the evolving Law of the Sea reflects a consistent pursuit of freedom of navigation balanced with sovereign rights over resources.

▸ The UNCLOS Journey

1958	UNCLOS-I adopted the Geneva Convention, accepting freedom of navigation and sovereignty over territorial seas — but reaching no consensus on the width of territorial waters. India, whose proposal to require authorisation for foreign warships was rejected, declined to ratify it.
1960	UNCLOS-II floated a six-mile territorial sea plus a six-mile fisheries zone, but again failed to secure the required majority.
1968–70	The UN set up a Seabed Commission; a Declaration of Principles then declared the deep seabed and its resources the common heritage of humanity.
1976	India enacted its Maritime Zones Act, codifying a 12-NM territorial sea, a 24-NM contiguous zone and a 200-NM EEZ.
1978	The Indian Coast Guard was raised as an armed force of the Union to enforce these zones and safeguard maritime interests.
1973–82	UNCLOS-III, after nine years of negotiation, produced the modern Law of the Sea in 1982 with its five-zone framework; India was recognised as a pioneer investor for deep-sea mining.

▸ The Five Maritime Zones under UNCLOS

Zone	Extent	Rights
Internal waters	Landward of baseline	Full sovereignty
Territorial waters	0–12 NM	Full sovereignty (with innocent passage)
Contiguous zone	12–24 NM	Enforcement of customs, immigration, sanitation
Exclusive Economic Zone	24–200 NM	Rights over mining, fishing and oil/gas exploration
High seas	Beyond 200 NM	Open to all; global commons

India’s Maritime Strategy and Instruments

▸ Net Security Provider — from SAGAR to MAHASAGAR

India’s guiding maritime vision is to be a net security provider in the Indian Ocean. This is articulated through the doctrine of SAGAR — Security and Growth for All in the Region, which blends security cooperation with shared economic development for littoral neighbours.

The vision has since been broadened into MAHASAGAR — Mutual and Holistic Advancement for Security and Growth Across Regions — extending the same principles of security, capacity-building and prosperity to a wider partnership of the Global South.

▸ Naval Diplomacy and Exercises

The navy has become a versatile instrument of diplomacy — projecting power, building interoperability and delivering disaster relief. India uses a dense network of exercises and forums:

• MILAN (since 1995): a multilateral gathering of regional navies at Port Blair to share practices against piracy and trafficking.
• IONS (since 2008): the Indian Ocean Naval Symposium, a forum of littoral states for cooperation on regional maritime issues.
• Malabar (since 1992): a high-end exercise, now with the US, Japan and Australia, central to Indo-Pacific security cooperation.
• Bilateral drills: SIMBEX with Singapore and JIMEX with Japan deepen trust with key regional partners.

▸ The Indo-Pacific and Partnerships

The post-Cold War rise of Asian economies reframed the old ‘Asia-Pacific’ as the Indo-Pacific, with the US treating India as a lynchpin of the region.

India works this space through its Act East Policy, membership of the ASEAN Regional Forum, the Quad (with the US, Japan and Australia) and the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA), positioning itself as a preferred security and development partner against a backdrop of Chinese assertion.

▸ Towards a Blue-Water Navy

India aspires to a blue-water navy — one able to project power and operate in distant oceans, anchored by aircraft carriers. Steadily acquiring such capability, India aims to move from a regional force to a genuine oceanic power able to secure its interests from the Gulf to Malacca and beyond.

Bay of Bengal as India’s SHANTI Anchor

The External Affairs Minister in August 2026 unveiled the SHANTI framework to build a rules-based maritime order in the Bay of Bengal (BOB) and across the Indo-Pacific.

What is the SHANTI Framework?

• SHANTI — Securing Holistic Advancement through Norms, Trust, and Integrity — is India’s normative approach to regional maritime security, built on shared responsibility rather than a rigid military alliance.
• It targets transnational challenges: illegal fishing, cyber threats, and marine pollution.
• It shifts India from unilateral dominance to cooperative regional stewardship, strengthening multilateral bodies like BIMSTEC.
• Significance: it positions India as a trusted security partner and first responder across the wider Indo-Pacific.

Why Anchor SHANTI in the Bay of Bengal?

• Shared vulnerabilities: littoral states face common threats — cyclones, coastal erosion and sea-level rise (~4.4 mm/year) — making consensus easier.
• Geopolitical centrality: the BOB links India’s Act East Policy with ASEAN and counters Chinese naval expansion (the “Malacca dilemma”) and ports like Kyaukpyu, Hambantota and Chittagong.
• Commercial superhighway: the Bay opens to the Strait of Malacca, carrying nearly a third of global maritime trade and a quarter of seaborne oil.
• Blue economy: it supports deep-sea hydrocarbon exploration and marine fisheries across a fast-developing maritime region.

India’s Emerging Arctic Engagement

India’s Arctic Policy (2022) seeks to combine scientific research, climate understanding, resource security, connectivity and international cooperation in the rapidly changing Arctic. India has been an Observer in the Arctic Council since 2013 and operates the Himadri research station at Svalbard through NCPOR.

Melting Arctic ice is also increasing the strategic importance of the Northern Sea Route (NSR), particularly for India–Russia connectivity and access to Arctic resources.

India’s principal challenge is converting its growing Arctic interests into operational capacity, particularly through polar research vessels, stronger institutional coordination and a clearer legal and diplomatic framework.

The Blue Economy and Port-Led Development

Alongside security, India pursues a Blue Economy — the sustainable use of ocean resources (minerals, oil, gas, fisheries and energy) for growth and human welfare, guided by the core principle of sustainability. This economic vision is delivered through a family of flagship initiatives.

Initiative	Purpose
Sagarmala	Port-led development — modernising ports and building coastal economic zones linked to freight corridors and industry.
Project Mausam	A cultural-strategic initiative reconnecting India with ancient maritime partners across the Indian Ocean Rim.
Maritime India Summit	A flagship investment platform that rallied dozens of nations behind India’s port and maritime infrastructure agenda.
IORA cooperation	Collaboration on fisheries, ocean energy, shipping and maritime exercises across the Indian Ocean Rim.

Issues and Challenges

Challenge	Explanation
Chinese encirclement	Expanding ports, bases and naval presence under the String of Pearls contest India’s maritime primacy.
Capability gap	Slow indigenous shipbuilding and limited carrier strength constrain blue-water ambitions.
Non-traditional threats	Piracy, trafficking, illegal fishing and the risk of sea-borne terror demand constant vigilance.
Coastal vulnerability	A long coastline and many islands remain exposed to infiltration, as past attacks have shown.
Contested legal order	Defiance of maritime law elsewhere threatens the rules-based freedom of navigation India depends on.

The Way Forward

• Build the blue-water fleet: accelerate indigenous shipbuilding, carriers and submarines to secure the extended maritime horizon.
• Deepen the SAGAR–MAHASAGAR vision: expand capacity-building, coastal surveillance and development partnerships with littoral states.
• Anchor Indo-Pacific coalitions: strengthen the Quad, IORA and ASEAN engagement to uphold a free, open and rules-based order.
• Harness the Blue Economy: scale Sagarmala and sustainable ocean industries to convert maritime geography into prosperity.
• Secure the coast: integrate the navy, coast guard and coastal police for seamless surveillance and rapid response.
• Champion the rule of law: lead diplomatically on freedom of navigation and peaceful settlement of maritime disputes.

Synthesis

India’s maritime strategy weaves together law, force, diplomacy and development: a settled legal framework of zones, a navy evolving towards blue-water reach, a dense web of partnerships from MILAN to the Quad, and a Blue Economy that turns the ocean into opportunity.

Bound together by the vision of a net security provider, these strands aim to make the Indian Ocean a zone of security and shared growth — with India at its centre.