CNN drew attention to India’s daring anti-piracy operation in the western part of its eponymous ocean earlier last weekend, which involved a coordinated force operating in perfect synchronization over a distance of 1,500 miles, something that few countries are capable of pulling off. The importance of this remarkable development is that it confirms India’s status as the region’s security provider, though to be honest, there was never any real competition since nobody else has attempted to follow its lead.
Neither China, the US, nor the other navies operating in the region have been capable of stopping the spate of Houthi attacks and Somalian hijackings over the past few months, with India being the only one that’s made any real effort to respond to the second of these Hybrid War threats. This isn’t the first time that it’s reacted in a daring way and it’s unlikely to be the last since India envisages expanding its naval capabilities in order to carry out such operations all across its eponymous ocean in the future.
The only country to object to these plans is the nearby Maldives, whose new anti-Indian and hardcore Islamist leader is hellbent on ruining their traditional ties for purely ideological reasons, so much so that he ordered a tiny Indian training mission to depart and might soon replace them with Chinese. Their newly clinched security pact could potentially result in that outcome, but even if it doesn’t, mutual perceptions and trust have already been deeply harmed by his provocative policies.
Their erstwhile strategic partnership has been destroyed for no reason other than to purely spite India, all the while the Maldives is flirting with its Chinese rival in ways that risk worsening those two’s security dilemma as well as creating an unprecedented one between these two Indian Ocean neighbors. The false pretext upon which this is happening is that India allegedly can’t be trusted to ensure the Maldives’ security without lording over it as a hegemon, yet the entire region disagrees with that assessment.
They’re all encouraging India to step up its operations in that eponymous ocean since they appreciate the service that it’s providing to this swath of the international community as they struggle with Houthi and Somalian threats. The Maldives doesn’t care though since its new leader is motivated by ideological reasons to “decouple” from India, which he continues to pursue due to what are presumably the positive signals that he’s received from China and perhaps also Turkiye with whom he has shared interests.
The unresolved Sino-Indo border dispute might have inspired Beijing to stir trouble in Delhi’s maritime backyard as a means of pressuring it into unilateral concessions in the Himalayas while Ankara supports Islamabad in the unresolved Kashmir Conflict and also sympathizes with Islamists wherever they may be. The strategic stage was therefore for the Maldives to turn into a source of uncertainty for India’s regional strategy upon its new leader entering into power late last year.
Nevertheless, for as “rogue” of a state as the Maldives is nowadays becoming, India won’t ever allow it to turn into a source of threats to its security. Last weekend’s daring anti-piracy operation, which involved a combined force operating in perfect synchronization over a distance of 1,500 miles, proves that it can easily respond to such threats as they might emerge. Even in their absence, an unfriendly Maldives won’t “stonewall” India’s policy in its eponymous ocean, neither politically nor militarily.
India’s recent opening of a naval base in the Lakshadweep Islands between the Maldives and Mainland India shows that this neighboring country isn’t indispensable for monitoring – and if need be during times of crisis, exerting control over – the sea lines of communication. Furthermore, the possibility of opening up a similar base in Somaliland and/or South Yemen can’t be ruled out, which would enable Inda to operate closer to these conflict-afflicted waters and expand its maritime security footprint.
By attempting to “stonewall” India’s political and military policies in its eponymous ocean, the Maldives is setting itself up to fail because its Chinese and Turkish allies would be powerless to save this island nation in the event that its leadership crosses Delhi’s national security red lines. That hasn’t yet happened and might very well never materialize, but it’s still possible considering how ideological its new leadership is, in which case it’ll be hung out to dry and become a lesson for others to learn from.
