UDA and Indian Diplomacy for Maritime Cooperation
Ambassador Yogendra Kumar
Former Diplomat and Author
Ambassador (retired) Yogendra Kumar believes that greater focus on underwater domain awareness can boost the nation’s diplomatic effectiveness.
Maritime cooperation has emerged, in more recent times, as the centrepiece of India’s diplomacy. The Indo-Pacific region has assumed dimensions of a grand strategy for sustaining a certain power equilibrium in both the Indian and Pacific oceans in all its hard and soft power aspects. With the geopolitical and geo-economic centre of gravity shifting to Asia, its engagements with other powers, including those from outside the region, have a significant maritime character for the same reasons. The maritime domain has a salience in the era of globalisation as global trade is predominantly carried out at sea and an increased international scramble for the enormous, yet inadequately tapped, marine resources is in evidence. Thus, the challenges of creating or sustaining maritime governance mechanisms are the focus of international diplomacy where security of sea lines of communication (SLOCs), balance of power equilibrium, maritime safety, piracy and transnational crime, and good order at sea are considered as critical determinants.
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Ambassador Yogendra Kumar
Former Diplomat and Author