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The low-profile, or near-non-existent media interest notwithstanding, the trilateral maritime cooperation initiative by India, Maldives and Sri Lanka, has the potential for further improving naval ties in the shared Indian Ocean neighbourhood. However, the three signatories would be called upon to prioritise related and not-so-related national concerns, address one another's and also look inward into resolving domestic problems that are not exactly insurmountable.
What is possibly unique about the initiative is the release of what is called the 'Outcome Document' on their deliberations and decisions, after the second meeting of their National Security Advisors (NSA) in the Sri Lankan capital of Colombo on 8 July, 2013. This should set at rest possible speculation on what the three nations were up to. After all, Indian Ocean is critical in the geo-strategic and energy-security calculations of both territorial and non-territorial nations, including non-regional big powers like the US and China, Russia and the EU, not to leave out neighbourhood nations like Australia and Japan, among others.
Of the three signatories to the Document, India's NSA, Shivshankar Menon, and Sri Lanka's Gotabaya Rajayapksa, had remained in office since the first round at Male, the capital of Maldives, on 1 October 2011. There was a change in the case of Maldives, with incumbent Defence Minister Mohammed Nazim taking over as NSA, following the power-transfer of 7 February 2012. Yet, the new Government's approach to the trilateral initiative remained unchanged, underlining the need for such a course in other two nations, too, independent of possible changes in the power-structure within these countr5ies in the future.
Shared concern on 'soft issues'
For the starters, the 'Outcome Document' confines itself to 'soft issues' that concern them all. The closest it comes to in terms of naval action of any kind is in relation to piracy, which has become a bane of all maritime users, particularly across the Indian Ocean sea-lanes. The soft-issues include various surveillance systems and mechanisms aimed at protecting their EEZ. Jointly and severally, the plans for the three nations to share information, intelligence and data on ship identification and movements, and in other areas of 'Maritime Domain Awareness' (MDA) and pollution control, etc, have their security applications, as well. Rather, security application is possibly the key and goal to the cooperation in networking data.
The 'Outcome Document' underscores the primacy of India in technological terms and in relation to other resources required to secure the shared neighbourhood in terms of the issues, concerns and the tasks that the three nations have identified. India's stakes too are similarly higher. Yet, trilateral cooperation efforts have potential for expanding the shared areas of concerns, as and when issues may crop or become predictable, particularly in the geo-strategic sphere. The Document does not mention it.
Taken to the logical conclusion, however, a calibrated effort on this score, based on the emerging experiences in working with the Document, could lead to a larger cooperation among the three navies, going beyond the tactical. In turn, this could possibly contribute to a furthering of defence cooperation, where other arms of the armed forces, particularly the Air Force, may have specific roles. It is not unlikely that the three nations may have already set their eyes on such possibilities, though may be moving cautiously, after all.
'Inclusive security scheme'
Another area where the Outcome Document could activate activity is in seeking to include other smaller nations in the neighbourhood, which also suffer from resource-crunch of the kind required to protect their expanding EEZ under UNCLOS negotiations and also geo-strategic security. Mauritius and Seychelles are candidates, whose concerns and interests coincide with those of India, Maldives and Sri Lanka. Without naming any country, the Outcome Document provides for such a course.
In the absence of a regional grouping not expanding to include other smaller island-neighbours, it would be inevitable that the vacuum would be sought to be filled by extra-territorial powers. Already, India has some presence in Mauritius. Likewise, China has sought a foothold in Seychelles, and tried its luck in Maldives, too, the latter through developmental investment and tourism promotion. The possible expansion of the current trilateral Initiative to include countries such as Mauritius and Seychelles could also lead to a situation, hopefully within the foreseeable future, the emergence of a regional grouping that could render extra-territorial power-play ineffective.
It remains to be seen if such a grouping could effectively neutralise extra-territorial powers from muddling in their shared waters, if only over time. After all, nations of the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) do not have any great issues that cannot be resolved, barring intermittent irritants of the India-Pakistan kind that have their origins in contemporary history. There has also been adequate global cooperation in the name of joint efforts at neutralising 'Somali piracy'.
It is anybody's guess why the global community, particularly the West, which takes leadership roles and launch fight-to-the-finish operations on other areas of shared security concerns, are seen only as making half-hearted attempts, if at all, against piracy. While explanations and excuses are proffered, there has been a huge and increasing dependence on perceived preventive technology. It also comes with a huge price-tag for nations that face such threats, real and perceived. In turn, this contributes in small way to burgeoning security budgets, which at times gets camouflaged under other heads. The reality is inescapable.
Post-Cold War calculus
What is attempted however in the name of ensuring energy-security is possibly a competitive geo-strategic dominance of the Indian Ocean sea-lanes in particular and IOR otherwise, by extra-territorial powers, particularly the US and China. A resurgent Russia could be back here without anyone knowing and acknowledging. Post-Cold War, Moscow still has the naval and other military infrastructure, including nuclear and missile capabilities, almost intact.
Unless Russia, for instance, wishes to stay away for any length of time from geo-strategic global competition, or try and shift the fulcrum to Moscow's zone of comfort, possibly elsewhere, and succeed in the efforts, the Indian Ocean may still be the theatre of an un-fought 'Cold War' all over again. Barring 'Pearl Harbour', the two World Wars left the US alone. The Cold War era continued in that vein, and extended detente' to Europe. Most major wars of the world during the period were fought in Asia, whether between States or against big-time non-State players, but closing in on the Indian sub-continent, ultimately. The post-Cold War global calculus has made the neighbourhood Indian Ocean even more vulnerable, in terms of Cold War-like perceptions in particular.
It remains to be seen how the US would act/react to the post-2016 situation, when the 50-year Diego Garcia agreement with the UK comes to an end. The global war on terrorism in Afghanistan provided the strategic justification for expanded US military presence in the region. Whether a post-2014 American troops' pullout from Afghanistan would involve large naval/naval aviation assets in the vicinity is unclear as yet.
The US is now known to have proposed SOFA with Maldives, but to no avail as yet. One of Maldivian reservations reportedly owed to the 'immunity clause' that the standard US proposal outlines for its personnel in host country. It was over this clause that the post-Saddam Iraqi dispensation declined to sign a similar agreement. The US left Iraq. As media reports indicate the number of 'terror situation' has not shown any marked deterioration, either. Or, so it seems.
China, which is yet to come in possession of a 'Blue-water Navy', has maritime, if not naval presence in Hambantota in Sri Lanka. It has also been negotiating refuelling facilities with Seychelles, according to media reports. India, the regional power with the required financial, and hence naval, technological and human resources - and also global ambitions - has been patrolling the shared waters in the region, covering also the EEZ of Mauritius and Seychelles, after piracy became a problem for all of them. Post-LTTE, Sri Lanka also has the naval assets, trained and experienced personnel and related resources to share the responsibilities to a greater or lesser extent. It's mainly in the area of near-shore security, but effectively so.
Cautious optimism
It is unclear if US President Barack Obama's stress on Indo-Pacific strategic pivot, as different from Asia-Pacific fulcrum, provides for such issues and consequent concerns of the three sub-continental stake-holders in the IOR and their eligible allies like Mauritius and Seychelles in the expanded neighbourhood. Or, if an 'emerging super-power' in China or even a re-emerging Russia, among others, will find ways to stake their extra-territorial claims, likewise.
At an appropriate time during the career or the maritime security initiative, India, Maldives and Sri Lanka, and their possible future partners to the grouping, may have be called upon to decide on what to do next - and how. In doing so, they would have to mix caution with optimism - caution in seeking to secure their shared waters. Optimism could come in the form of their collective decision to render the Indian Ocean Region a 'zone of peace'.
The regional demand for on 'zone of peace' had been initiated at the height of the 'Cold War' but died its natural/unnatural death, when Cold War itself came calling closer to the region, with the Soviet military engagement in Afghanistan. The Soviet withdrawal and the collapse of East European Communism did not reverse the process. Whether sub-continental nation in particular and other IOR nations in general have the appetite for such a call now, or if such a call would have takers where it matters is another big question. In this maybe, the emerging grouping may have to work with IOR-ARC, if reviving the demand became necessary and was found feasible.
Hiccups en route ?
The 'Outcome Document' has sort of acknowledged India's primacy in maritime and naval matters, and also in the affairs of the shared Indian Ocean neighbourhood, yes. But it also comes with a baggage or more from the past, which individually and collectively, the three nations may have to sort out in domestic and bilateral terms, before moving forward. If nothing else, they should resolve early on, or institute a mechanism to address such concerns, which might be purely tactical in nature, or strategic in content, or political in concept.
The ongoing UNCLOS negotiations on EEZ could prove problematic if the three nations now, and other possible members to the grouping, do not attempt to sort out emerging issues among them, beforehand. The alternative would be for them to decide to abide by the UNCLOS recommendations, or any international judicial process that could follow - without making them the focus of their bilateral relations, hence strains, too, if contestable.
The vast mandate that the three nations have already given themselves under the Outcome Document, when implemented in earnest and full, would have to involve cross-utilisation of their naval resources to be able to rush help to their populations in distress, particularly during tsunami-like situations that are rare, and cyclonic storms that are an annual feature in the shared waters. This would require not only greater working relations between their navies and other maritime agencies, but also the acknowledgement of a shared role by the Governments and peoples in the three countries.
The absence of such an accepted relationship could lead to queer situations where peoples first, politicians next, and the Governments later, end up charging one another with callousness, if not complicity, in responding/not responding to a situation in which their own peoples are involved. A typical case could relate to the existing 'fishers issue' involving India and Sri Lanka. Fewer and less complicates issues of the kind do exist between these two countries separately with Maldives. Sri Lanka also has problems of the kind with the EU, and the trilateral Initiative thus may be called upon to draw the line.
Likewise, political problems between member-nations of the grouping, like between India and Maldives on the one hand, and India and Sri Lanka on the other, may leave more than a shadow on their 'maritime security relations' as outlined now, and 'naval/military relations', as they emerge in due course. Rather, any possible translation of one to the other could be influenced either way by how the three nations - India in particular - handle those issues.
It's the 'ethnic issue', apart from CEPA, for instance in the case of Sri Lanka, and the 'GMR issue' involving the current political dispensation in Maldives. Independent of how these issues are addressed domestically - so do other issues of the kind, existing and emerging - by all three nations, independent of each other and independent of each of these issues, their effect and impact on trilateral maritime cooperation would be keenly watched - and at times sought to be influenced by non-State political players in the respective nations, and extra-territorial powers, otherwise.
In the interim, the three nations will be called upon to do a lot of tight-rope walking, in political and diplomatic terms in particular, and otherwise, too, to make the Outcome Document workable and functional. Only then will they be able to move forward to a possible next step in the invisible ladder. The consequence of even an interim reversal, if not an outright failure, could be disastrous for the region. It will depend more on the timing and the stage at which such a possibility occurs. But then, the damage could well be proportionate to the stakes involved for each one of them - as perceived by them, and by the extra-territorial powers, too.
(The writer is a Senior Fellow at Observer Research Foundation)
The low-profile, or near-non-existent media interest notwithstanding, the trilateral maritime cooperation initiative by India, Maldives and Sri Lanka, has the potential for further improving naval ties in the shared Indian Ocean neighbourhood. However, the three signatories would be called upon to prioritise related and not-so-related national concerns, address one another's and also look inward into resolving domestic problems that are not exactly insurmountable.
What is possibly unique about the initiative is the release of what is called the 'Outcome Document' on their deliberations and decisions, after the second meeting of their National Security Advisors (NSA) in the Sri Lankan capital of Colombo on 8 July, 2013. This should set at rest possible speculation on what the three nations were up to. After all, Indian Ocean is critical in the geo-strategic and energy-security calculations of both territorial and non-territorial nations, including non-regional big powers like the US and China, Russia and the EU, not to leave out neighbourhood nations like Australia and Japan, among others.
Of the three signatories to the Document, India's NSA, Shivshankar Menon, and Sri Lanka's Gotabaya Rajayapksa, had remained in office since the first round at Male, the capital of Maldives, on 1 October 2011. There was a change in the case of Maldives, with incumbent Defence Minister Mohammed Nazim taking over as NSA, following the power-transfer of 7 February 2012. Yet, the new Government's approach to the trilateral initiative remained unchanged, underlining the need for such a course in other two nations, too, independent of possible changes in the power-structure within these countr5ies in the future.
Shared concern on 'soft issues'
For the starters, the 'Outcome Document' confines itself to 'soft issues' that concern them all. The closest it comes to in terms of naval action of any kind is in relation to piracy, which has become a bane of all maritime users, particularly across the Indian Ocean sea-lanes. The soft-issues include various surveillance systems and mechanisms aimed at protecting their EEZ. Jointly and severally, the plans for the three nations to share information, intelligence and data on ship identification and movements, and in other areas of 'Maritime Domain Awareness' (MDA) and pollution control, etc, have their security applications, as well. Rather, security application is possibly the key and goal to the cooperation in networking data.
The 'Outcome Document' underscores the primacy of India in technological terms and in relation to other resources required to secure the shared neighbourhood in terms of the issues, concerns and the tasks that the three nations have identified. India's stakes too are similarly higher. Yet, trilateral cooperation efforts have potential for expanding the shared areas of concerns, as and when issues may crop or become predictable, particularly in the geo-strategic sphere. The Document does not mention it.
Taken to the logical conclusion, however, a calibrated effort on this score, based on the emerging experiences in working with the Document, could lead to a larger cooperation among the three navies, going beyond the tactical. In turn, this could possibly contribute to a furthering of defence cooperation, where other arms of the armed forces, particularly the Air Force, may have specific roles. It is not unlikely that the three nations may have already set their eyes on such possibilities, though may be moving cautiously, after all.
'Inclusive security scheme'
Another area where the Outcome Document could activate activity is in seeking to include other smaller nations in the neighbourhood, which also suffer from resource-crunch of the kind required to protect their expanding EEZ under UNCLOS negotiations and also geo-strategic security. Mauritius and Seychelles are candidates, whose concerns and interests coincide with those of India, Maldives and Sri Lanka. Without naming any country, the Outcome Document provides for such a course.
In the absence of a regional grouping not expanding to include other smaller island-neighbours, it would be inevitable that the vacuum would be sought to be filled by extra-territorial powers. Already, India has some presence in Mauritius. Likewise, China has sought a foothold in Seychelles, and tried its luck in Maldives, too, the latter through developmental investment and tourism promotion. The possible expansion of the current trilateral Initiative to include countries such as Mauritius and Seychelles could also lead to a situation, hopefully within the foreseeable future, the emergence of a regional grouping that could render extra-territorial power-play ineffective.
It remains to be seen if such a grouping could effectively neutralise extra-territorial powers from muddling in their shared waters, if only over time. After all, nations of the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) do not have any great issues that cannot be resolved, barring intermittent irritants of the India-Pakistan kind that have their origins in contemporary history. There has also been adequate global cooperation in the name of joint efforts at neutralising 'Somali piracy'.
It is anybody's guess why the global community, particularly the West, which takes leadership roles and launch fight-to-the-finish operations on other areas of shared security concerns, are seen only as making half-hearted attempts, if at all, against piracy. While explanations and excuses are proffered, there has been a huge and increasing dependence on perceived preventive technology. It also comes with a huge price-tag for nations that face such threats, real and perceived. In turn, this contributes in small way to burgeoning security budgets, which at times gets camouflaged under other heads. The reality is inescapable.
Post-Cold War calculus
What is attempted however in the name of ensuring energy-security is possibly a competitive geo-strategic dominance of the Indian Ocean sea-lanes in particular and IOR otherwise, by extra-territorial powers, particularly the US and China. A resurgent Russia could be back here without anyone knowing and acknowledging. Post-Cold War, Moscow still has the naval and other military infrastructure, including nuclear and missile capabilities, almost intact.
Unless Russia, for instance, wishes to stay away for any length of time from geo-strategic global competition, or try and shift the fulcrum to Moscow's zone of comfort, possibly elsewhere, and succeed in the efforts, the Indian Ocean may still be the theatre of an un-fought 'Cold War' all over again. Barring 'Pearl Harbour', the two World Wars left the US alone. The Cold War era continued in that vein, and extended detente' to Europe. Most major wars of the world during the period were fought in Asia, whether between States or against big-time non-State players, but closing in on the Indian sub-continent, ultimately. The post-Cold War global calculus has made the neighbourhood Indian Ocean even more vulnerable, in terms of Cold War-like perceptions in particular.
It remains to be seen how the US would act/react to the post-2016 situation, when the 50-year Diego Garcia agreement with the UK comes to an end. The global war on terrorism in Afghanistan provided the strategic justification for expanded US military presence in the region. Whether a post-2014 American troops' pullout from Afghanistan would involve large naval/naval aviation assets in the vicinity is unclear as yet.
The US is now known to have proposed SOFA with Maldives, but to no avail as yet. One of Maldivian reservations reportedly owed to the 'immunity clause' that the standard US proposal outlines for its personnel in host country. It was over this clause that the post-Saddam Iraqi dispensation declined to sign a similar agreement. The US left Iraq. As media reports indicate the number of 'terror situation' has not shown any marked deterioration, either. Or, so it seems.
China, which is yet to come in possession of a 'Blue-water Navy', has maritime, if not naval presence in Hambantota in Sri Lanka. It has also been negotiating refuelling facilities with Seychelles, according to media reports. India, the regional power with the required financial, and hence naval, technological and human resources - and also global ambitions - has been patrolling the shared waters in the region, covering also the EEZ of Mauritius and Seychelles, after piracy became a problem for all of them. Post-LTTE, Sri Lanka also has the naval assets, trained and experienced personnel and related resources to share the responsibilities to a greater or lesser extent. It's mainly in the area of near-shore security, but effectively so.
Cautious optimism
It is unclear if US President Barack Obama's stress on Indo-Pacific strategic pivot, as different from Asia-Pacific fulcrum, provides for such issues and consequent concerns of the three sub-continental stake-holders in the IOR and their eligible allies like Mauritius and Seychelles in the expanded neighbourhood. Or, if an 'emerging super-power' in China or even a re-emerging Russia, among others, will find ways to stake their extra-territorial claims, likewise.
At an appropriate time during the career or the maritime security initiative, India, Maldives and Sri Lanka, and their possible future partners to the grouping, may have be called upon to decide on what to do next - and how. In doing so, they would have to mix caution with optimism - caution in seeking to secure their shared waters. Optimism could come in the form of their collective decision to render the Indian Ocean Region a 'zone of peace'.
The regional demand for on 'zone of peace' had been initiated at the height of the 'Cold War' but died its natural/unnatural death, when Cold War itself came calling closer to the region, with the Soviet military engagement in Afghanistan. The Soviet withdrawal and the collapse of East European Communism did not reverse the process. Whether sub-continental nation in particular and other IOR nations in general have the appetite for such a call now, or if such a call would have takers where it matters is another big question. In this maybe, the emerging grouping may have to work with IOR-ARC, if reviving the demand became necessary and was found feasible.
Hiccups en route ?
The 'Outcome Document' has sort of acknowledged India's primacy in maritime and naval matters, and also in the affairs of the shared Indian Ocean neighbourhood, yes. But it also comes with a baggage or more from the past, which individually and collectively, the three nations may have to sort out in domestic and bilateral terms, before moving forward. If nothing else, they should resolve early on, or institute a mechanism to address such concerns, which might be purely tactical in nature, or strategic in content, or political in concept.
The ongoing UNCLOS negotiations on EEZ could prove problematic if the three nations now, and other possible members to the grouping, do not attempt to sort out emerging issues among them, beforehand. The alternative would be for them to decide to abide by the UNCLOS recommendations, or any international judicial process that could follow - without making them the focus of their bilateral relations, hence strains, too, if contestable.
The vast mandate that the three nations have already given themselves under the Outcome Document, when implemented in earnest and full, would have to involve cross-utilisation of their naval resources to be able to rush help to their populations in distress, particularly during tsunami-like situations that are rare, and cyclonic storms that are an annual feature in the shared waters. This would require not only greater working relations between their navies and other maritime agencies, but also the acknowledgement of a shared role by the Governments and peoples in the three countries.
The absence of such an accepted relationship could lead to queer situations where peoples first, politicians next, and the Governments later, end up charging one another with callousness, if not complicity, in responding/not responding to a situation in which their own peoples are involved. A typical case could relate to the existing 'fishers issue' involving India and Sri Lanka. Fewer and less complicates issues of the kind do exist between these two countries separately with Maldives. Sri Lanka also has problems of the kind with the EU, and the trilateral Initiative thus may be called upon to draw the line.
Likewise, political problems between member-nations of the grouping, like between India and Maldives on the one hand, and India and Sri Lanka on the other, may leave more than a shadow on their 'maritime security relations' as outlined now, and 'naval/military relations', as they emerge in due course. Rather, any possible translation of one to the other could be influenced either way by how the three nations - India in particular - handle those issues.
It's the 'ethnic issue', apart from CEPA, for instance in the case of Sri Lanka, and the 'GMR issue' involving the current political dispensation in Maldives. Independent of how these issues are addressed domestically - so do other issues of the kind, existing and emerging - by all three nations, independent of each other and independent of each of these issues, their effect and impact on trilateral maritime cooperation would be keenly watched - and at times sought to be influenced by non-State political players in the respective nations, and extra-territorial powers, otherwise.
In the interim, the three nations will be called upon to do a lot of tight-rope walking, in political and diplomatic terms in particular, and otherwise, too, to make the Outcome Document workable and functional. Only then will they be able to move forward to a possible next step in the invisible ladder. The consequence of even an interim reversal, if not an outright failure, could be disastrous for the region. It will depend more on the timing and the stage at which such a possibility occurs. But then, the damage could well be proportionate to the stakes involved for each one of them - as perceived by them, and by the extra-territorial powers, too.
(The writer is a Senior Fellow at Observer Research Foundation)
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