The Battle for the Indian Ocean – Part IV: Can India Shape the Future Maritime Balance?

Recap of Part III: The Islands That Could Shape the Indo-Pacific

The previous part explored how the Andaman and Nicobar Islands have become the cornerstone of India’s maritime strategy. We also examined the strategic importance of the Great Nicobar Project and assessed how India’s island territories could support surveillance, sea denial and maritime security operations across the eastern Indian Ocean. In this concluding instalment, we widen the focus to the entire Indian Ocean Region and evaluate whether India possesses the partnerships, capabilities and long-term vision required to emerge as a major maritime power.

Beyond Sea Control: Can India Influence the Wider Indian Ocean?

While the eastern Indian Ocean offers India significant geographical advantages, projecting sustained influence across the entire Indian Ocean Region presents a far more demanding challenge.

Unlike operations close to its own coastline, maintaining a continuous naval presence from the Gulf of Aden to the Mozambique Channel requires long-range logistics, replenishment capabilities and access to friendly ports. Geography may favour India in its immediate neighbourhood, but distance remains an unavoidable constraint in the western reaches of the Indian Ocean.

Recognising this reality, New Delhi has steadily expanded its network of defence partnerships and logistics agreements. Reciprocal logistics arrangements with countries such as the United States, France, Australia, Japan, Singapore and Russia have significantly improved the Indian Navy’s operational reach. These agreements allow Indian warships and aircraft to access fuel, maintenance and replenishment facilities at designated locations, reducing the logistical burden associated with long-distance deployments.

India has simultaneously strengthened defence cooperation with several island nations across the Indian Ocean, including Mauritius, Seychelles, Maldives and Sri Lanka. Coastal radar networks, capacity-building initiatives, joint exercises and maritime surveillance cooperation have reinforced India’s role as a net security provider while improving regional maritime domain awareness.

This approach differs markedly from China’s infrastructure-driven expansion. Rather than seeking exclusive access to overseas facilities, India has prioritised strategic partnerships built on shared security interests and regional stability.

The Indian Navy has increasingly demonstrated this broader role through anti-piracy operations in the Gulf of Aden, evacuation missions during regional crises, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief operations, and multinational exercises across the Indo-Pacific. These missions have enhanced India’s credibility as a dependable maritime partner while showcasing its ability to undertake sustained deployments beyond its immediate waters.

At the same time, India’s maritime ambitions must be viewed realistically. The Indian Navy remains significantly smaller than the United States Navy in terms of global reach, expeditionary capability and overseas logistics. China, meanwhile, continues to expand both the size of the People’s Liberation Army Navy and its overseas support infrastructure.

Maintaining technological superiority, accelerating indigenous shipbuilding and expanding submarine, anti-submarine warfare and maritime aviation capabilities will therefore remain central to India’s long-term maritime strategy.

The Emerging Balance of Power

The strategic competition unfolding across the Indian Ocean is fundamentally different from the naval rivalries of previous centuries.

This is no longer simply a contest measured by the number of warships each nation possesses. Instead, it is increasingly defined by resilience, logistics, technology and access.

China is building an expanding network of commercial infrastructure that enhances the operational reach of its navy beyond the western Pacific. The United States continues to leverage decades of alliances, forward deployments and expeditionary capability to preserve its dominant maritime position. Russia, constrained by resources but determined to remain strategically relevant, has adopted a pragmatic approach centred on defence partnerships and reciprocal logistics arrangements.

India occupies a unique position within this evolving landscape.

Unlike the other major powers, it does not need to establish a permanent foothold in the Indian Ocean because it already sits at its geographical centre. Its challenge is not gaining access but transforming this natural advantage into sustained strategic influence.

The continuing modernisation of the Indian Navy, the expansion of the Andaman and Nicobar Command, the development of Great Nicobar, improved maritime surveillance and stronger defence partnerships all point towards a coherent long-term strategy. Rather than competing ship for ship with larger navies, India is investing in capabilities that exploit geography, strengthen deterrence and improve operational endurance.

The result is a maritime posture intended not merely to defend India’s coastline but to shape the wider security environment across the northern and eastern Indian Ocean.

The Battle Has Already Begun

The Indian Ocean has quietly become the centre of gravity of twenty-first century geopolitics.

Every major power now recognises that economic prosperity, energy security and military effectiveness depend upon uninterrupted access to its sea lanes. Ports that once served only commercial shipping now possess strategic significance. Logistics agreements have become as valuable as military bases. Surveillance networks, satellite systems and undersea infrastructure increasingly shape the balance of power as much as aircraft carriers and submarines.

For China, the objective is to secure maritime access that supports its expanding global interests. For the United States, the priority is preserving a rules-based maritime order backed by unmatched expeditionary capability. Russia seeks to retain strategic relevance through selective partnerships and flexible logistics arrangements.

For India, however, the stakes are more immediate.

The Indian Ocean is not an expeditionary theatre. It is India’s strategic neighbourhood, its primary maritime gateway and the foundation of its economic security. More than 95 percent of India’s trade by volume and the overwhelming majority of its energy imports move by sea. Protecting these sea lines of communication is therefore not simply a military responsibility but an economic necessity.

Geography has provided India with an extraordinary strategic advantage, but geography alone does not guarantee influence. Sustained investment in naval modernisation, maritime infrastructure, indigenous defence manufacturing, technological innovation and regional partnerships will ultimately determine whether New Delhi can convert its natural position into enduring maritime leadership.

The new Maritime Great Game is already underway. Unlike the rivalries of previous centuries, victory will not be determined solely by the size of a nation’s fleet. It will depend on who can best integrate geography, logistics, technology, diplomacy and economic resilience into a coherent maritime strategy.

In that contest, the Indian Ocean is no longer a secondary theatre. It has become one of the principal arenas where the future balance of power in the Indo-Pacific will be shaped, and India finds itself at the very heart of that transformation. Whether it can convert geography into enduring maritime influence will shape not only its own future, but also the strategic balance of the Indo-Pacific for decades to come.

Conclusion: The Indian Ocean Will Shape the Century

This concludes The Battle for the Indian Ocean series. As geopolitical competition intensifies across the Indo-Pacific, the Indian Ocean will remain central to global trade, energy security and military strategy. The contest unfolding across its waters is no longer a distant strategic possibility, it is already reshaping the geopolitical order. Understanding the evolving balance of power in the Indian Ocean will therefore be essential to understanding the future of global geopolitics.

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The Battle for the Indian Ocean is a four-part geopolitical analysis tracing the historical evolution, strategic realities and future balance of power across the Indo-Pacific.

✔ Part I: The Ocean That Powers the World