Indian Ocean Futures: Implications for U.S. Strategy

Abstract

Indian Ocean Futures:Implications for U.S. Strategy Zack Cooper (bio) What strategic futures are possible in the Indian Ocean and how will the United States' approach to the region shape and be shaped by these possibilities? By questioning some fundamental assumptions about the Indian Ocean's future, Arzan Tarapore and David Brewster have helped drive an important discussion. In particular, they have initiated a needed debate about the degree to which the United States can rely on its allies and partners in the region, and whether those allies and partners can themselves trust that Washington will devote sufficient attention and resources to the Indian Ocean region. It is now common for U.S. leaders to state that the Indian Ocean is a priority for the United States.1 The growing influence of the Quad, renaming of the Indo-Pacific Command, and adoption of an Asia strategy predicated on the Indo-Pacific concept demonstrate a broadening of the traditional U.S. focus on East Asia.2 What these changes belie, however, is the reality that the United States will have to make some hard choices about prioritization in the years ahead and that, in these debates, the Indian Ocean is unlikely to come out on top.3 Rather than being a priority theater, the Indian Ocean could become an economy of force theater, particularly as the United States draws down forces in Afghanistan and perhaps also the Persian Gulf. In short, the Indian Ocean may not be a top priority for Washington in the years ahead. Of course, the United States will still operate in the region and maintain diplomatic and economic ties with countries bordering [End Page 23] the ocean.4 But U.S. leaders are unlikely to devote scarce defense resources to the region, particularly when military challenges farther east are growing more severe.5 As a result, a division of labor is likely to emerge in which Washington asks its allies and partners around the Indian Ocean to take on much of the burden so that the United States can focus elsewhere. The question remains, however, whether U.S. allies and partners will be willing and able to share that burden. Questioning Assumptions Perhaps the most valuable aspect of futures exercises is the ability to question assumptions that are too often implicit rather than explicit. In this regard, Brewster and Tarapore's scenarios should force a public debate about one key assumption: that the United States will devote substantial resources to the Indian Ocean region in the years ahead. This is not an argument about what the United States should do, but rather about what the United States will do. The strategic logic of a U.S. presence in the Indian Ocean is clear, but whether this accords with political realities and resource constraints is the critical issue at hand. In recent years, there have been several arguments put forward about why the United States should increase the attention it pays to the Indian Ocean region. One popular line among military strategists is that the United States should look to compete with China in the Indian Ocean because the United States has a bigger advantage there than it does closer to China's coastline. In particular, some have suggested that the United States should threaten to conduct a peripheral blockade in the Indian Ocean to deter Chinese military adventurism in East Asia by imposing severe economic costs on China's economy.6 From a strategic standpoint, this makes some sense. The U.S. presence in the Indian Ocean region might force Beijing to devote substantial resources to a distant area where it has some inherent geographic disadvantages, thereby imposing a disproportionate cost on the People's [End Page 24] Liberation Army (PLA), particularly the PLA Navy.7 This approach could also trigger greater balancing by India, which would be threatened by a larger Chinese maritime presence in the Indian Ocean. As a result, some experts have suggested that the United States could avoid vertical escalation in East Asia by relying on the threat of horizontal escalation in the Indian Ocean.8 The reality, however, is that U.S. leaders are likely to see a peripheral campaign of...