Abstract
Since the end of the 1960s and the 1970s, the Indian Ocean and its bordering states have been of growing significance in world geopolitics and global geostrategy. It is a region of great diversity and contrasts in terms of politics, population, economy and environment, as well as being a complex geopolitical framework where foreign powers and local states’ interests deeply intermingle. Since the end of the Cold War, the region has been in a period of great instability and regional rearrangement that is still ongoing today. Taking into account the significance of its strategic energy resources, the importance of its strategic shipping lanes, the ‘rise of India’ as a dominant regional player, the turbulences of the Islamic world, the deep and broad involvement of the United States (and its allies) in the region, as well as China’s recent entry on the regional chessboard, there is no doubt that the Indian Ocean will remain on the forefront of world geopolitics in the coming decades and most probably for the entire twenty-first century.