Indian Ocean: An Area of Tension and Big Power Pressures

The Indian Ocean has become an area of acute tension—a peril zone with conventional and nuclear naval vessels of the major powers staging a permanent presence in the area. Naval task forces, because of their inherent mobility, can constitute a powerful projection of military might. That is why the non-aligned countries of the Indian Ocean are exercised over the threat posed to their national security from the high seas. They can hardly forget that the powers that dominated and colonised them for centuries came to the area via the high seas. They also remember that, even in the decades since the Second World War there have been several glaring instances of naval might being used by the Big Powers to exert military pressure in almost every ocean. The concern expressed by nations who do not want a return to gun-boat diplomacy and domination by military forces is, therefore, indisputably legitimate. Rivalry and competition are not new trends in international affairs or in the Indian Ocean. They were imported into this ocean by the colonial powers, when they sought to oust one another from enjoying the fruits of colonisation. Today, they exist in the Indian Ocean area for a variety of stated and unstated reasons. When the 26th Session of the United Nations General Assembly adopted in 1971 a resolution proclaiming the Indian Ocean ‘a zone of peace for all times,’ people in many countries heaved a sigh of relief. Those countries whose merchant vessels plied the Indian Ocean hoped that a zone of peace would guarantee their security and enable them to develop economic contacts with different countries of the world. For champions of peace throughout the world demilitarisation of the Indian Ocean would mean elimination of one of the world's most dangerous hot-beds of tension. This however, did not happen. The safeguarding of vital interests of the Big Powers provided to them enough justification for an unprecedented escalation of military presence in the area. There was a time when the ‘vacuum theory’ was universally peddled by the western powers and their mass-media. It postulated that the withdrawal of British naval power from the Indian Ocean would create a void which if not filled by the United States and its allies would invite Soviet presence. The non-aligned countries felt very strongly that if at all there was a vacuum, it should be filled by the littoral states, who alone would be responsible for the security of their waters. Though the vacuum theory is seldom mentioned now, the quantum of the Big Power naval forces in the Indian Ocean has steadily increased.