Abstract
The Indian Ocean has found renewed emphasis in strategic geopolitical discourse and will play an increasing role in global security considerations in the coming decades. From the arc of Islam and Africa on its western reaches to Australia on its east, the vast expanse of the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) and its adjacent waters are considered to be the theatre of conflict and competition in the twenty-first century. The geopolitics of the IOR will have wider implications on the transformations taking place in Asia, the global economy, and key global relationships.
Along with the global economic balance shifting eastward, the US has shed its fixation with the Atlantic has turned its focus to developments in Asia. A paradigm shift from the assumed stability of the world order, propped up at the end of the Cold War, to the change in global power distribution currently underway has thrown Asia, and concomitantly, the IOR into sharp relief. Though geopolitical movements, amidst the rise of China and India, have set the context for viewing the importance of the IOR in a new light, the strategic imperatives of several enduring trends make the region a hotbed of global challenges.