Indian Ocean: As if Regional States Mattered

In November 2020, carrier battle groups of India and the United States took part in the annual MALABAR naval exercise, along with combat platforms from Japan and Australia. Held amid the military standoff in Ladakh between India and China, the iteration saw India invite Australia for the first time after 2007, reuniting the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) states for Indian Ocean war games. An Indian expert commented, ‘MALABAR-20 is a strategic signal that the four navies’ pooled military power surpasses that of the Chinese Navy’. The development brought to the fore increasing intersection of Indian, American, and Chinese ambitions in the Indian Ocean. This maritime triad has been evolving for over a decade, with its contours influenced by other great powers and increasingly by smaller regional states. During this period three books have used wide-angle geopolitical lenses to capture the triad’s nuances in the Indian Ocean, and in the Indo-Pacific, from the perspective of the United States, India, as well as, the smaller littoral states. This Review Essay uses these books to tease out deeper concerns underlying the emergence of this strategic triangle and to identify the key actors that could shape its future trajectory.