The Indian Ocean as a new political and security region

The Indian Ocean region (IOR) has increasingly gained currency due to its strategic value as the centre of global geopolitics. Frédéric Grare and Jean-Loup Samaan's latest work analyses the IOR's emerging political and security architecture and comprehensively examines how the regional outlook of various stakeholders has evolved. What stands out the most is the inclusion of perspectives from actors that have so far received limited academic focus in constructing the evolving strategic landscape of the region. The introductory chapter provides a good outline of the book's argument, namely that the ‘emerging multipolarity is the main characteristic of the “new” Indian Ocean’ (p. 6). Thus, given the power asymmetries between the relevant players, the regional security architecture in the IOR should be seen as composed of ‘diverse but overlapping structures’, including military partnerships as well as regional organizations. The IOR is thus a ‘political construct’ (p. 8). Interestingly, in the second chapter, the authors discuss China's regional strategy, characterizing the PRC as one of the most predominant variables shaping the security and political landscape of the IOR, something that the authors argue throughout the book. While the Belt and Road Initiative has been seen by India, the US and others primarily as a Chinese instrument for strategic expansion the authors emphasize its role in regional integration (p. 23). The third chapter examines India's shifting strategic focus in the IOR as a result of both its burgeoning economic power and the security concerns raised by China's regional expansion (p. 46). The chapter outlines India's renewed efforts to become a regional leader, including its Act East policy, a reinvigorated outreach towards the western Indian Ocean, and integrated outlook towards the IOR through the Security and Growth in the Region (SAGAR) framework.