Sea Lines of Communications (SLOCs) in the Indian Ocean, came into prominence in the 90s when forces of globalisation sparked a process of huge economic growth that resulted in increased consumption and competitive trade, creating an upsurge in oil demand in both developed nations and developing economies.

Covering an area of 73,556,000 sq kms, the Indian Ocean consisted of some of the most critical sea lanes and choke points that connected the oil rich Middle East, East Asia and Africa with Europe and on which most oil and goods trade came to depend. The ocean became the highway of international trade. It inevitably led to a rivalry between countries for dominance of key trade routes and choke points.

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Security of the SLOCs

The ocean’s vast spread hosted heavy international maritime traffic that included half of the world’s container cargo, one third of its bulk cargo and two third of its oil shipment. Its waters carried heavy traffic of petroleum and petroleum products from the oilfields of the Persian Gulf and Indonesia and contained an estimated one third of the world’s offshore oil production. The SLOCs connected major ports through some strategically significant seas and gulfs — the Persian Gulf; the Red Sea; the Laccadive Sea, between Kerala and the Lakshadweep in the Arabian Sea; the Andaman Sea in the Bay of Bengal, between the Andaman Islands and Burma; the Gulf of Aden at the entrance to the Red Sea and Gulf of Oman at the entrance to the Persian Gulf. In about ten years, between 1985 and 1995, the region saw a jump in cargo and oil traffic by nearly 30%. It was the first sign of the area’s growing prominence.

The Navy realised soon enough that to cater to the changed realities, its maritime vision needed to cover the critical areas in the Indian Ocean where our vital national security interests lay. It therefore redrew its area of interests to include the Persian Gulf and the Malacca Strait.

In addition, another phenomenon had a part to play in the Navy’s reworking its priorities — ‘power projection’. Traditionally, Navies have followed a doctrine of littoral power projection along with the ‘sea control’ that principally manifested itself in amphibious landings and carrier air power. This changed during the Cold War, when a confrontation between the Soviet and Western navies on the high seas created a ‘blue water’ emphasis to naval doctrines. The end of the Cold War era, however, saw a return to a littoral priority. The new doctrine proposed a model of ‘power projection’ in the littorals that meant the deployment of standoff military capabilities to deliver significant force either to deter or coerce. Power projection thus, became the centrepiece of the world’s advanced navies. It became critical for the Indian Navy, to take measures to maintain presence, especially in and around critical SLOCs.

Safeguarding the Slocs

Indian Ocean Sea Lines of Communications (SLOCs)

To appreciate the scale of the Navy’s concerns about safeguarding the SLOCs, it is instructive to consider the sheer expanse and stretch of the area that major Sea Lines of Communications (SLOCs) in the Indian Ocean covered.

Major Choke Points of the Indian Ocean

Major choke points in the Indian Ocean that conceivably required greater security included:-

• The Strait of Hormuz between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman.
• Bab-el-Mandeb at the southern access to the Red Sea and the Suez Canal.
• The Mozambique Channel between Madagascar and the coast of Africa.
• The Strait of Malacca between Sumatra and Malaysia.
• The Sunda Strait between the Indian Ocean and Borneo.
• The Lombok Strait between the Indian Ocean and the Sulawesi.

The Emergence of New Threats

With ‘presence’, ‘patrolling’ and ‘projection’, many regional and sub-regional powers thought they had got the power equation right. But, evidently their plans hadn’t catered for the twin scourges of piracy and terrorism. The increased maritime activity of the post-globalisation era undoubtedly resulted in economic expansion and development.

However, despite ‘maritime bonding’, this phenomenon strangely, precluded the emergence of a vibrant trans-oceanic community, possibly because wide dissimilarities and divergent interests in regional countries led them to shun each other, but prompted each to pursue economic linkages with Europe and North America. As a result, trade in the SLOCs grew exponentially in value and importance. The high value cargo transiting through its waters was only an invitation for the twin threats of ‘Piracy’ and ‘Terrorism’ to raise their ugly heads.

Piracy. One of the biggest threats to shipping that emerged in the late 80s was that of Piracy. According to the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) ‘piracy’, since the early 90s, posed a threat to shipping of the same scale as it did in medieval ages. 2680 incidents recorded since 1984 (roughly one every third day over the last twenty years), occurred mostly in territorial waters while ships were at anchor or berthed. A steady increase was witnessed in the 90s decade and as statistics show, there was a marked increase in incidents involving firearms.

Soon, it was clear that any disruption in traffic flow through ‘choke’ points in the Indian Ocean (such as the Straits of Hormuz, Malacca, Lombok and Sunda) could have disastrous consequences. The disruption of energy flows in particular was a considerable security concern for littoral states, as a majority of their energy lifelines are sea-based. Since energy is critical in influencing the geo-political strategies of a nation, any turbulence in its supply would have led to serious security consequences. Given the spiralling demand for energy, it became inevitable for countries to sensitise themselves to the security of the sea lines of communications (SLOCs) and choke points of the region.

Terrorism. Sea Terrorism, in the late 80s was a novel concept, rather too perverse for rational comprehension by national maritime forces that had a linear mind-set. The enormity of the threat that it posed became clear in the 90s, as there was a sudden rush in the number of sea attacks. In 2000, the attack on the American Naval Warship, USS Cole at Aden stunned the world. It was a grim portent of what was to follow in the 9/11 attacks on the USA. Navies reacted by factoring in ‘Terrorism’ in their plans of operations. But it wasn’t an easy exercise as ‘asymmetric warfare’ was going to take much more time, experience and large-scale coordination to tackle effectively.

The increasingly violent nature of incidents, as illustrated below, demonstrated the need for greater co-operation on a multilateral basis to counter these threats.