The upheaval in North and Sub-Saharan Africa and West Asia over the past few months and belligerent postures adopted by China and Japan in the East China Sea in 2010 make for compelling reasons for India to craft an overseas and maritime security strategy to better protect its national interests. Maritime security has acquired new salience, particularly for countries like China and India which are heavily dependent on import of oil.

It will be recalled that India has a 70 per cent oil import dependency to drive its economic growth. Most of its oil imports are from the Gulf countries, Africa, including Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America, in particular, Venezuela. That most of these regions are strife torn and fragile, today, is evident. But violence in these regions have impacted oil supply and prices and caused interruptions even in the past; post the 1967 six day Arab-Israeli war was one instance when the Suez canal was closed for eight years; the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war was another when sea mines were put in the Strait of Hormuz ; there was a terrorist attack in Bab el- Mandab on USS Cole in 2000; the Strait of Malacca, too, has witnessed terrorist attacks, besides, there have been occasions where these transit choke points so mentioned above have remained blocked because of grounded tankers or fuel fires, etc. The past and the present have been underpinned by bad tidings. But what is of concern is that even the future bodes ill for some or most parts of these regions, which also form transit routes for oil and other supplies.
For instance, the Iranian nuclear question and the deadlocked Israeli-Palestinian peace process are two issues which hang like the sword of Damocles in the region with uncertainly and instability writ large in the foreseeable future. The situation in Africa, where 11 per cent of the world oil reserves are located is no less foreboding with question marks on assured and uninterrupted flow of oil through production and transit regions.
The number of terrorist attacks in 2010 in West Asia and Iran, and Africa have been in thousands. Deaths due to terrorist attacks last year in Iraq, Somalia, Congo, Uganda, Sudan, Central African Republic, Algeria, Yemen, too have been significant. Significantly, these countries constitute major sources of supply for Indian crude oil. Instability in above mentioned regions, countries and passage ways can greatly impact the country’s growth story. Different countries have different strategies. The US, for instance, has invested $50 billion in the Persian Gulf security in 2009. The US has had a time tested and long standing maritime strategy in the region looking to its future requirement up to 2035 for 40 per cent of its oil liquids from West Asia. China, the second largest oil consumer and the third largest importer, has only in March called for expansion of maritime strategy,” wherever our national interests extend to, our military will have to protect to that point, “(Ming Pao, March 4, 2011, as quoted in China Brief by L.C.Russel Hsiao). There is a growing recognition in China that national security involves not only territorial integrity but also an overseas economic security, including across the global. Interestingly, its official 91.5 per cent of billion dollar defence budget (there is consensus amongst policy makers that China’s actual defence budget is two to three times that of the officially announced one) remains aligned with its GDP. India can do the same. As its economy continues to do well, India will have to improve security measures in the maritime environs to ensure economic momentum.
Three additional factors necessitate evolution of a maritime strategy with more defence budget allocations. One, China and India are both dependent, more or less on the same regions/countries for oil and gas which are in the throes of conflict or are potentially so; two, the oil reserves are diminishing as more developing/developed nations are added to the list of oil dependent economies. This state of affairs is likely to continue for another three decades or so, till the countries diversify to alternate sources of energy; three, more strident activist postures are being adopted by nations towards their maritime environment as evinced by the collision of a Chinese fishing trawler with Japanese coast guard vessels off the disputed Senkak-u/Diaoyu islands last year, raising questions on stability of the east China Sea. Salience of this incident cannot be lost sight of as nation states contest jurisdictional rights under the Law of Sea on future stability of Sea lanes.
India must also take a lesson or two from the strategic repercussions of China’s ability to send a frigate and long range military transport aircraft to a violence hit Libya in which effort Sudan also made available its air field at Khartoum to enable a successful evacuation of Chinese expatriates. With a growing number of Indian expatriates in these regions, India too will be called upon to increasingly commit its defence forces on such like missions as the one they, recently, performed in Libya. India would also be taking a close look at the Nato opening up an oil transit route through rebel controlled eastern Libya.
Time for India to rewrite the rules of national security to incorporate overseas economic security in it, either it requires bigger defence allocations. India’s growth story warrants a fulsome maritime and overseas economic security strategy.
The author is an
associate fellow at the Centre for Land Warfare Studies, New Delhi