Introduction
The maritime domain has become a critical arena for foreign policy advancement by the nation-states, and consequently, naval diplomacy has taken centre stage for securing national interests and projecting capabilities on and under water. The Indian Navy describes naval diplomacy as “the use of naval forces in support of foreign policy objectives to build ‘bridges of friendship’ and strengthen international cooperation, on one hand, and to signal capability and intent to deter potential adversaries, on the other.” This definition reflects a combination of military and diplomatic practices used by naval forces on the high seas and goes beyond the imperial era ‘gunboat diplomacy’ to include port calls, patrolling, Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR), and joint exercises, among others, to strengthen interoperability with friendly nations while securing strategic goals.
The Northwestern Indian Ocean (NWIO) primarily consists of the Arabian Sea and includes the Persian Gulf, the Gulf of Oman, the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea, along with key maritime chokepoints, namely, the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab-el-Mandeb. The significance of these strategic waterways to India can be estimated from the fact that nearly 80% of India’s goods trade with Europe passes through the Red Sea, and around “two-thirds of India’s crude oil imports and half of its LNG imports pass through the Strait of Hormuz.” Thus, securing these critical sea lanes of communications (SLOCs) from traditional and non-traditional security threats to advance the geopolitical and geoeconomic interests is the principal maritime strategy followed by India in the NWIO. In this regard, New Delhi has put forward a calibrated approach by strengthening cooperation with the like-minded countries of the NWIO region and fostering coordination with the UAE and Saudi Arabia forms the core of this strategy.
With this context, this paper aims to explain India’s defence cooperation with Saudi Arabia and the UAE, the two most powerful and emerging middle powers of the region, primarily in the maritime domain, and highlight the strategic significance of this cooperation for India.
