Why in news?
Malabar 2017, which began on July 10, is being held in the Bay of Bengal.
What is Malabar?
- Malabar is an annual military exercise between the navies of India, Japan and the U.S. held alternately in the Indian and Pacific Oceans.
- It is a platform to improve interoperability between the navies.
- It began in 1992 as a bilateral exercise between India and the U.S.
- Then it got permanently expanded into a trilateral format with the inclusion of Japan in 2015.
- The 10-day games will have two phases, an initial harbour phase in Chennai and a sea phase later which will be held across the Bay of Bengal and the northern Indian Ocean.
- In a first this year, all three countries fielded carriers (India - INS Vikramaditya) for the exercises.
- This year is also witnessing the largest participation to date with 16 ships, 2 submarines and over 95 aircraft taking part from the three countries.
Why it is important?
- These naval interactions have provided the Indian Navy invaluable insights into the tactics, doctrines, warfare techniques and best practices of the US Navy.
- In the realm of maritime warfare, the three navies could derive mutual benefit from their diverse operational expertise.
- With China’s growing military strength and its increasing presence in the Indian Ocean, the Malabar has assumed greater importance.
- Given China’s intent in acquiring bases in the Indian Ocean, and frequent transit of PLA naval units through our waters, cooperation in maritime domain awareness deserve top priority.
- Equally, amphibious operations, trade-warfare, maritime interception operations, anti-access concepts and, of course, disaster relief, must receive due importance.
- There is special focus on anti-submarine warfare operations in the backdrop of increasing submarine forays by the Chinese Navy.
Why is China concerned?
- China always viewed Malabar with paranoid suspicion that India is colluding with the US in an attempt at “containment”.
- Its fears have been aggravated with Japan being included and Australia keen to join as well.
- China had issued a statement to New Delhi questioning the intent behind the war games, which forced India to abandon the expansion.
- Australia has been keen to join the games on a permanent basis, which has so far not fructified due to India’s reluctance.
What could be done?
- For 25 years, Indo-US naval cooperation has formed the sheet-anchor of bilateral relations, ignoring all the political and diplomatic tensions.
- With the invaluable accession of Japan to this partnership, the India-Japan-US triad must be elevated to strategic status.
- A “maritime-infrastructure and economic initiative” must be created that reaches out to smaller Indian Ocean nations in an initiative to sway them away from the Chinese.
Source: The Hindu & The Indian Express
