Indian Council of World Affairs

Pragya Pandey:  Good afternoon. Before we start the program, may I request you all to kindly put your mobile phones on silent mode. Excellencies, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the Indian Council of World Affairs, it is my pleasure to welcome you all for the panel discussion on the theme “Non-traditional challenges in the Indo-Pacific, Redefining the Maritime Security Situation in the Region, and Elevating Cooperation”. We shall begin the program with Additional Secretary ICWA, Ms Nutan Kapoor Mahawar, delivering her welcome remarks. The panel discussion will be chaired by Vice-Admiral Shekhar Sinha, Co-Founder DeepStrat, Former Flag Officer, Commander-in-Chief, Western Naval Command, and Chief of Integrated Defence Staff. Our distinguished panellists for today are Commodore Abhay Kumar Singh, Research Fellow, MPIDSA; Professor Jagannath Panda, Head, Stockholm Centre for South Asian and Indo-Pacific Affairs, Ms. Marianne Peron-Doise, Director of Research, the French Institute for International and Strategic Affairs, and Ms Swati Ganesan, Consultant, Energy Transition and Climate Policy. The discussion will be followed by a brief question and answer session moderated by the Chair. May I now invite Ms Nutan Kapoor Mahawar, Additional Secretary ICWA, to kindly deliver her opening address.

Nutan Kapoor Mahawar: Distinguished Chair, Vice-Admiral Shekhar Sinhaji, distinguished panellists, including those who are joining us online from Stockholm and Paris, students, and friends, the Indo-Pacific region is a large maritime geography, combining the Indian and the Pacific Ocean into a single continuum. The region has some of the most crucial sea lanes and choke points for global commerce, Malacca Strait and Strait of Hormuz being the most crucial for global trade routes. The region not only has enormous economic value but also immense strategic resonance given its search for peace and stability amidst the long history of civilisational strife, colonialism, and Cold War hostilities.

In recent years, the security situation in the region has deteriorated in the light of rising tensions in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, with the Houthi rebels turning aggressive and hostile. The region is experiencing spillover effects of Russia-Ukraine crisis, Gaza conflict, Israel-Iran tensions, and strategic contestations in the Indo-Pacific, including in the South China Sea, the Taiwan Strait, and the Korean Peninsula, resulting in volatile situations.Changing equations between US-Russia, US-Europe, which we are witnessing these days, almost by the day, will impact the geopolitics of the Indo-Pacific.

The criticality of the Indo-Pacific maritime theatre to global economic and strategic stability and security is widely acknowledged as the global centre of gravity shifts to the region. But what is less appreciated is that the region also faces a gamut of challenges from sources other than the traditional security, which, as , relates to territorial disputes and defence of the people. Non-traditional sources of challenges to maritime security are gaining in salience, calling for elevated cooperation in this area in bilateral and plurilateral frameworks.

You would all recall that since around 2006-2007, piracy has emerged as a significant non-traditional security threat in the Western Indo-Pacific. Recent years have witnessed frequent instances of attacks by pirates on vessels passing through the region. You would have read in the media about the swift and successful response of the Indian Navy to thwart recent pirate attacks by Houthi rebels and off the coast of Somalia. Such operations need a high level of preparedness and effective maritime domain awareness networks.

Overfishing and IUU fishing, Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated fishing, is an important threat to the sustainability of marine fisheries. IUU fishing is a major challenge in the region, which also has implications for food security. SDG 14 and its sub-goal 14.4 inter alia talk about regulating, harvesting, and ending overfishing and IUU fishing. Again, combating IUU fishing needs patrolling, effective patrolling, and monitoring capabilities.

Cooperation to fight organised crime, including drug trafficking, goods and arms smuggling, dark shipping, that is which is under the radar, human trafficking, and ecological concerns in the region is an imperative for maintaining good order and tranquillity at sea, for upholding rule of law in sovereign territorial waters, exclusive economic zones, as also high seas beyond jurisdiction. Crime-free waters are a necessary complement to the continental law and order efforts of countries in the region, and need patrolling, surveillance, interdiction capabilities, combined with deployment of relevant technologies.

You are aware that the region is also prone to natural disasters. You all recall the 2004tsunami. India strives to be a first responder in supplying humanitarian aid in the region. These have included disaster relief to countries like Myanmar and Vietnam in the wake of the recent Cyclone Yagi, or earlier to Madagascar, or to Sri Lanka in the wake of oil spills or water to Maldives.

Challenges to marine biodiversity due to increasing pollution with plastics and marine debris are a serious issue which needs attention.

These are all paramount challenges. Regional and multilateral cooperation is indispensable to deal with such non-traditional challenges.It is important for the regional countries to work together for a stable and secure maritime order in the region. Capacity building and sharing of best practices are important aspects of such cooperation.

An enhanced MDA capacity, Maritime Domain Awareness capacity, is the key to maritime safety and security. Cooperation amongst the regional countries for enhanced and shared MDA to promote stability and prosperity in our seas and oceans remains crucial. Here the role of fusion centres is important as the nodal point for MDA related information. We have one in India in Gurugram which is called the IFC-IOR.

Multilateral initiatives like IORA and IONS, IOC, ASEAN with its ASEAN outlook on Indo-Pacific and related mechanisms offer platforms for cooperation. India is playing an active role in all the multilateral regional architectural fora. India has been active in CGPCS, Contact Group on Piracy off Coast of Somalia. It is also active in regional cooperation agreement on combating piracy and armed robbery against ships in Asia.

India's IPOI offers scope for partnerships among like-minded countries for practical cooperation in the maritime domain.

India's Sagar vision encourages states to cooperate and synergise efforts towards a safe, secure and stable maritime domain as also take meaningful steps for its conservation and sustainable use. Importantly, India strives to be a net security provider in both the traditional and non-traditional security realms in the region.

Friends, we are at present living in times of heightened strategic uncertainty with intense geopolitical contestation in the region and the world. At a time when deep polarisation is making it difficult to find common ground, the transnational threats which present a challenge to collective security also offer prospects for cooperation among nations.

Our distinguished panel today will discuss how the non-traditional challenges are not only redefining maritime security, but are also elevating cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region. I am sure the panellists will come up with many valuable observations regarding the challenges facing the region and suggestions for cooperation. I look forward to a lively and thought-provoking discussion. I wish the panellists all the best.

Dr. Pragya Pandey:May I now invite the Chair, Vice-Admiral Shekhar Sinha, to deliver his remarks and conduct the session.

Vice Admiral Shekhar Sinha (Retd.): Well, Namaskar, Jai Hind, good afternoon, and good morning to our two panellists who are on the screen, one from Stockholm and one from Paris. Thank you, Madam Nutan, for inviting me to speak. It is really a great pleasure coming to ICWA, not very often, though. We have very distinguished panellists, four of them, and I am sure that what they do not know is not worth knowing, I can say with great confidence. But let me jump into the subject right away, and I find that it is very good to see that it says redefining maritime security situation in the region and elevating cooperation. So obviously it means that what we are talking about, what we know about, is not adequate and some more things have to be added. And they have to be added because of the technological advancements which have taken place from the time that we talked about this, what Madam Additional Secretary just mentioned about. So what I will do is I will try and add a few more and see if our panellists can throw some light on that. It may be a little bit out of the syllabus, but I feel very strongly wherever I go I talk about this.

The first thing is the climate change. The climate change impact in the Indo-Pacific littorals is going to be quite massive. And therefore we need to have a mechanism as to how to help them. Unfortunately what we do in the non-traditional threats in HADR, it's only after the event is over. And I believe that rather than only looking at mitigation, we should also be looking in advance as to how to prevent or be ready for it to be faced head on. So climate change is a priority to my mind. It requires very urgent attention. And I think that Quad is quite reasonably suited, by its own charter as well, to have mechanisms of helping and not only mitigating but to see how you can inculcate, how you can indoctrinate those countries’ people out there as to this is likely to happen.

The second one is obviously the cyber. The cyber crimes can have an impact on the trade and commerce worldwide. And if your systems are attacked, if they are put down, you will have problems of the transiting, loading, unloading on every port. And you can imagine the cures that will happen, and it will lead to a fair amount of human tragedy. If it stops for four or five days, it's a real tragedy for the whole world.

Then you see, we went through the COVID-19. This is the third point I'm making. Now, COVID-19, you saw that so many countries are without the vaccines, and people have to be given aid, they have to be given hospital equipment, and that for which we were not prepared. So, I think we should add this pandemic as one of our non-traditional threat, which we have seen, and there is no guarantee that it will not come. In between, you keep hearing that something has happened in China, something has happened in so-and-so country, and we hope that it does not spread out to other countries in the world. So that is the-- and this can lead to mass migration. And when you have mass migration, you have a human assistance disaster relief sort of scenario, and that we have to be ready for, and this readiness will be slightly different than what we are already doing.

These are all preventive, or if you like, you can't prevent something from happening, but you can keep the people indoctrinated and ready that you must have these things with you if you have to counter this. And the last one, which I feel very strongly, is the destruction of the subsea communication cables. Now, why I call it non-traditional? Because this is not traditional to go and destroy, the warships don't do it. But you can employ ships or you can employ people who can go down in submersibles and destroy. It has already happened. And you can imagine a scenario in the world that you have no internet, you have no connectivity, no telephone talking. So this is one area that I would very strongly believe that Quad should look at, how to prevent it just like for the IUU. We have the Indo-Pacific Maritime Domain Awareness Network, the work is in progress, and US is supposed to spend $5 billion. And as Nutanji mentioned--Madam Nutan mentioned aboutthe fusion centre, the three, four, five fusion centres in Indo-Pacific are supposed to be networked with the help of a satellite. So that is what is going on, the work is in progress.

But well, it is certainly not the last one, but to sum up I would say, the geopolitical situation in the Indo-Pacific, what you see the competition or contest is growing by the day, mainly because of resources. Oil is a resource, gas is a resource, trade and commerce is a resource. And this is only going to keep increasing. And this will have its own collateral effect on the countries who cannot match these people. We have to do our own thing and see that in case this actually turns out to be a conflict, then what do we do? How do we manage the day-to-day affairs? India alone, I mean, our 90-95% of trade is on the oceans. 70% of the world is water.

So it is really not without any impact. And I think every country is going to get impacted. And it is crucial that we understand as to what is the competition of great power competition which is playing out mainly in the Indo-Pacific. What you see on the land, yes, but it is regional. It is confined to a region. But Indo-Pacific is quite wide. And we are talking about so many countries who are in the littorals. So I think these are a few points which I hope that our panellists will make a mention of this somewhere and how do we get counter this. So with that, I will stop here. And all my speakers will have 10 minutes each. At nine minutes, I will remind you so that we have about 20 minutes for Q&A at the end of it. And then we'll have a sum up. So thank you for joining, number one. Firstly, CommodoreAbhay Singh. Go first.

Commodore Abhay Singh:  Yeah. Can I have my presentation? Yeah, thank you. Thank you very much. And thank you, sir, for this opportunity. Thank ICWA for inviting me to this discussion. Chair has already spoken about the vastness and the connectivity provided by the ocean. And this picture simply indicates that whenever we envision ocean, we are talking about the whenever we envision ocean, largely, we see empty space, land is largely seen as a teaming with individual population, but sea is normally conceived as a empty space. And that's the perception which we have. But, sea is increasingly becoming dense populated with various kind of actors, primarily being trade, but along with the trade, there are explorations, there are recreational widgets, and there are non-traditional threat within this ambit. And that's the environment which we need to understand.

While the panel is about redefining the maritime security situation, but in maritime world, more things change, more they remain same. And essentially, security situation is governed by four basic attributes of the ocean. Some of them has been talked about by Additional Secretary and the Chair. And these are resource, transportation, connectivity, dominion, and environment. The resource in terms of what hydrocarbons and the fish, which are the resource base of many coastal countries and energy being driver. Their uses themselves while create cooperation of any source of conflict, IUU fishing has been mentioned in detail.

Again, transportation, despite our technological advancement, as of now, as the chair mentioned, 90% of trade by volume and nearly 80%, 70% to 80% by value still moves by the sea. And this uninterruptable sea lane of communication of what keeps the globalisation going, and that's an issue which the nation collaborate and seek strategic stability in the maritime arena. However, while the trade is a connector, information is another connector, and we often do not envision that our internet and their nodes are primarily means of move through the sea itself, cables laid at the sea bottoms. And they largely follow the same sea lane of communication routes connecting to short points, and disruption in the internet cables has become increasingly concerned, as was talked about by the Chair.

We live on the land, but human desire to increase its control over the adjacent oceanic and even space sets has been the human desire. So coastal states always have been increasingly being attentive to enhancing their dominion and control over the sea. Jurisdictional control, while has been legislated to UNCLOS, however, it is contestable. And more so, the sea power is a means to enhance its nation's influence across even in the distant water through the medium of the ocean. And that also is a kind of challenge.

And environment has been talked about in terms of how the climate change and rising sea could be a security concern as well. Now, within this ambit, we need to understand that there is a spectrum of cooperation and conflict what defines the naval role. Now, each of these basic attributes of the use which we consider, blue is what we derive from. And then there are the resultant factors which are there which contribute towards the concerns in security. So while it is sourced, we have oil and gas, competitive approach creates tension between the states and that's in the red is the traditional security concern. And resulted is the environmental concern due to pollution.

Fish is a source for income for the coastal state, IUU fishing creates tension among the states and more so is also is a harbinger of other maritime crime. Shipping is, as I spoke about, that it's a key virtual artery for of the globalisation to move. But again, shipping potentially gets disrupted when there are tension between the states due to conflict. And again, piracy and the terrorism creates a threat which can often create disruption in the shipping flow.

Similarly, Cargo, while we all have a desire to move and seamlessly move legitimate cargo, but riding on that, there are challenges through the cargo which some of the cargo which must be stopped at each kind and those relates to movement of terrorist-related materials, drugs, and even human smuggling. So these are the spectrum of the security, both traditional and non-traditional, related to resource and transport. From the dominion, competitive approach of the states to claim a jurisdiction more than what is assigned or serve somebody else legitimate, this competitive approach is a potential basis for the dispute and which would result in a conflict.

Environment, again, rising sea temperature, climate change, and their resultant effect could lead to major disruption is also a challenge. So that's the spectrum of maritime security threat which I attempted to map here. Now, defining maritime security is what one scholar called Christian Bueger, which has come and because maritime security comes at the intersection of multifarious issues, some of them which I spoke to earlier. But basically, maritime security relates to freedom from threat at or from the sea is what basically we should understand as. Indo-Pacific region, what defines here is, in an area has been mapped about the density of the shipping. Yellow and red indicates the density of the shipping in a particular area. If you see across the globe, Indo-Pacific regions has one of the densest sealanes of communication, fundamentally because there are choke points through which the ship moves and that created concentration of shipping at a particular time.

One of the complexity of the Indo-Pacific region is threats are concentrated at those choke points itself and that becomes a challenge. So particularly, we know that on Horn of Africa, we had a piracy change. Now, there are Houthi rebels creating concern and again, disruption--potential disruption in the trade flow. Similarly, in Arabian Sea, we have a threat of both traditional and non-traditional security challenge. Malacca Strait also, despite the cooperation among the state, has a maritime crime and a piracy threat.

South China Sea is a kind of potential which has both, again, traditional and non-traditional threat, which can potentially disrupt into it. So while we have a dense shipping and the trade volumes are consistently been growing, but at the same time, so is the intensity of the threat also, which needs to be considered. Now, maritime security amelioration, largely related to the issue reflected to what we consider good order at sea. And good order at sea is analogous to what we consider as law and order situation on the land.

Definition is flashed on the slide that ensures safety and security of shipping and permits country to pursue their maritime interest and develop their resources in ecologically sustainable, peaceful manner in accordance with international law. Now, again, similar to law and order situation, it is simple but deceptively complex concept. Fundamentally, again, global norms are as per UNCLOS and UN-related activity mapped on the slide. But why good order at sea is a common interest but consensus has been eluding us is what is the description on this slide. There are certain issue when there is a great consensus. That's the piracy, maritime terrorism, smuggling, and disaster relief climate change issues are largely states are in consensus. And hence, there are some solution can be worked about.

But there are complex challenges. IUU fishing, fundamentally, few states are beneficiary, few are not. And similarly, if there are territorial disputes between the two states, these are complex challenges. However, there solutions are still possible. But good order at sea increasingly challenged by something what I describe as wicked challenges. And those are wicked challenges which are difficult to solve. And they do not have a simple solution.

Fundamentally, one such example is South China Sea where there are multiple claimants. But more seriously is the revisionist approach towards rules and norms. Rules and norms provide stability but they are increasingly being questioned. So good order at sea is fundamentally means that you need to have a rule-based order and institutions supporting them. Rule-based order should be based on norms and values, not on the power of the states. Institutions supporting these good order at sea as legal diplomacy and maritime enforcement agencies.These are drivers for maritime security cooperation because it's largely in everybody's interest because we are connected region and transnational character of maritime claim and inclusive order of good are drivers towards our maritime security cooperation.

How can we ensure that is enhancing maritime domain awareness, having a maritime policy based on norms and states having integrated maritime governance approach and all these at a national stage should align to the international stage and collaboration, collaborative implementation by the maritime forces is what will lead to maritime cooperation. I'll stop at this stage. Thank you very much.

Shekhar Sinha:Thank you. Thank you very much. You really opened up the entire sort of Indo-Pacific space with all that happens or all that which is likely to happen. The two points that I want to just pick out from what Commodore Abhay said. One is the terrorist using the sea routes. Now, it is not a story that one of the container ships quite some time back, it was stopped at sea and in one container, Al-Qaeda operatives were taking passage in a fully air-conditioned container. So that tells us what we need as far as the port security is concerned. Americans have done PSI. It has gone quite far, but everybody is not party to it. I would say that this security actually starts from not at the port of arrival, but from the port of departure really. So that is the kind of network that we need.

The second one is that Commodore Abhay rightly pointed out that people or countries are wanting more space than what is given in UNCLOS and there are a lot of disputes, contested UNCLOS as you mentioned. Is it time for UNCLOS to be reviewed? Should the United Nations look at it? Or will the countries, particularly the powerful countries, allow this to happen? Because with this kind of, sometimes loose laws also gives room for bending it. Like America has signed, but they have not ratified. Is it valid for them? But yet they follow the UNCLOS. So these are some practical challenges which subject matter by itself. So I'll stop here.

Jagannath, Dr Jagannath, are you ready? Okay, now I'll invite Professor Jagannath Panda, who's at Stockholm. He's our old Indo-Pacific warrior for a long time, for many years we have known each other. So the time starts now. You have 10 minutes.

Jagannath Panda: Thank you, Admiral Sinha Sir. Great pleasure to meet you again and thank you to ICWA, to Additional Secretary for this kind invitation and also thank you to Dr Pragya for the logistical arrangement and invitation again. What I'm going to do is that just going to share a conceptual aspects about non-traditional security threat. Essentially what we have seen more from the scholarship point of view that we have this habit of classifying non-traditional security threat from two perspectives, one from the perspective of peace, that at a time of peace, how we face non-traditional security threats. Also, we have this way of putting it in the second category to contextualise non-traditional elements in the security context.

So basically, peace and security are the two aspects where non-traditional security issues has been discussed. But I think if we take the experiences of Northeast Asia, East Asia, and also today, the experiences from Baltic regions, including the way Europe is fighting a non-traditional security threats at many level. There are two more or two new elements that I would like to bring out in the context of non-traditional security threat. One is that non-traditional security threat should not be limited to peace and security context only. It should be also discussed during the wartime context. And this is where the north states’ experience, as well as the experiences in the Baltic regions, particularly the way European community, or the Baltic Nordic community, looking at Russia, unlike India they call Russia as a threat. The way they are looking at, I think, non-traditional security issues should be seen also in the context of wartime.

One more new angle that we should be discussing in the context of India, particularly because the whole world is facing is non-traditional security challenges or security issues should be discussed in the context of age of information and disinformation. And I think these are the two new elements we should be discussing. But while saying that I think there are also when we are talking about the maritime security issues, and trying to understand the non-traditional security issues, we should not be really limiting ourselves to a particular geographic context because non-traditional security challenges in the maritime domain could also be a challenge in the land domain. So therefore, we also need to have a much more collaborative, cohesive, as well as comprehensive understanding.

One example, I would--couple of examples I would cite. One is our neighbourhood on the Himalayan regions or in the context of Tibet, particularly. If we see about the way the Chinese are looking at security context and security threats, of course, their security is being defined every five to seven years or 10 years. And this is how they have expanded the prism of their security in the official parlance. But a key development is taking place in Tibet and Himalaya regions that we should not be overlooking. And that has implications, not only for the land domains, but also in the maritime domain. And here I point out that China's infrastructure building activities in the Tibet, the railway activities, the mining activities, and also the other road and military construction activities that they are carrying out. Now, the impact of these activities are turning to be reflecting on the climate challenges. As the esteemed Chair pointed out, that climate change is one of those critical aspect.

Now, if we are really talking about climate change as a non-traditional security issues, it cannot be distinguished from maritime angle to the land domain. So therefore, anything happening on the Tibet and Himalayan regions, it has its implications also for the land corridor as well as for the maritime regions. The second example I would really cite is also from the East Asian experiences or North East Asian experiences. Look at the examples of Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. The way they are facing in the context of Taiwan, the way Taiwan is facing cyber security threat and concerns from China, from mainland China, and also the way South Korea and Japan are facing from North Korea.

And a number of implications are there for India, which India should be drawing implications from these experiences, because these set of countries, of course, particularly in the context of South Korea and Japan, if not Taiwan, if not Taiwan as a country, but as an island, I think these three places, these three regions are continuously fighting cyber security threats, technological threats, and different kind of threats from authoritarian powers. And therefore, we need to also draw inferences from there. One more example I would cite, and before I stop, is that as I'm based there in Stockholm, unfortunately, right now, I'm in Seoul, I'm traveling. So therefore, yesterday, we were talking about the same issues in the context of North Korea and South Korea. But I'll just draw your attention to the Baltic region or the Nordic regions. In the Baltic and the Nordic regions, and what I could see Ambassador Ashok Sajjanhar is there in the audience, who has been our ambassador toSweden.

Today, India is actually having a very close network with the NB8 countries, that is the Nordic countries, five Nordic countries and the Baltic countries, the three Baltic countries, what we call NB8 countries. Now, if we see those countries, those countries are actually facing non-traditional security concerns,quite clearly for many years. I will cite the example of Sweden. In Sweden, visiting to any kind of mining industry or any kind of corporate sectors, be it any water related or hydrogen related or energy related, it is a security issue. One has to go through a little bit of a security check and clearance because there are overseas threat, they anticipate that there will be-- somebody might be contaminating the water, somebody might be putting a surveillance technology. So I think we also need to draw from the far Nordic regions and Baltic regions, how non-traditional security threat is coming in the new and in the information and disinformation context. If we do that, I think that would be an absolutely useful experience for India and also for the Indo-Pacific region to learn.

I would also go back to the China experience. If we also take the experiences of China, how they have actually strengthened their security measures in terms of looking at both the traditional security and non-traditional security. Most of the coastal places like Shenzhen, Guangzhou, all of these provinces, they are also having their non-traditional research focuses and research is a huge aspect of dealing the future. I think, unfortunately, we have not really invested much energy in the Indo-Pacific regions on education and research when it comes to non-traditional security threat, but the Chinese have done that.

And interestingly, if we take the Chinese examples here, they have been talking about actually a space assurance and space insurance. They are talking about sea control. They're also talking about air quality superiority. And these are seen as part of non-traditional security challenges. I don't know from where China faces all of these challenges, but definitely there are discussion in Chinese academics and in the intellectual community that we should not really overlook and learn from them how they are trying to address some of the air related issues and non-traditional security related issues. With this note, I will stop here and probably invite your comments and questions. Thank you very much.

Shekhar Sinha: Thank you, Dr Panda. I think you have really taken this discussion to what was defined, which was expected, this is redefining the maritime security situation and what we should be discussing for future, getting a little higher than what we have already talked about. And you mentioned a very good thing about Tibet. Last year, I had been to Sichuan province and Tibet border. They wanted to show me a Tibetan village, which was on the bank of a river, which was actually ultimately flowing into, possibly into Himalayas. And they couldn't find the village. The watch keepers who were keeping a track, sentries were positioned, they wouldn't let us go in. And later on, we gathered, very difficult to find out. I had somebody who knew Mandarin. And she was telling me, a professor, she was telling me that because of this water having been disturbed, it has actually taken, there has been a massive mudslide and the entire village has disappeared. Some people have survived, some have not. Fortunately, when I went, it was their summertime, yet the water is very cold. A lot of people died of hypothermia, etc., etc. So this is really, as you said, land and sea, well, the water bodies can really create havoc wherever they are. And they have a direct impact on the human habitat, as they call it. So I get your point.

And I think the second very important point you made, that we are not doing any research. Our universities are not into this thing very deeply. Though I believe that climate has become a subject of master's and MBA in some universities, I was just seeing some syllabus and I was asked to come. So it will be gathering momentum. And I think that people like you-- you are into the academics. I think your inputs will be very, very valuable. So thank you for those comments. Now, let me invite Madame Marianne to take the mic and tell us.You have 10 minutes from now, ma'am.

Marianne Peron-Doise:Thank you, Mr Chair, for giving me the floor. And first of all, I would like to thank very warmly the Indian Council of World Affairs for this invitation and for allowing me to take part to this simulating panel. In my presentation, I would like briefly, briefly in 10 minutes, address maritime situation in the Indian Ocean, in the Indo-Pacific, sorry, around four points, at least four points. I think it's important to contribute and of course, to defend good order at sea. This has been already said, and this implies having and developing a common understanding on what is good orderat sea.

Another element which is important in my view is to promote maritime multilateralism, meaning that it is important to develop best practice at sea between the major user of the sea, not only a naval unit, but a civilian and merchant ship, for example, and to develop some code of conduct. I will insist also on the need to support maritime capacity building initiative, and this bring me and bring us to the concept of maritime domain awareness, which is at the centre of our concern today. We had a lot of offer actually on the table coming from the IPMDA, UNODC is working on MDA, the EU is proposing a CRIMARIO initiative, we had some NGO in mind, Skyline for example, so there is a lot of option and maybe this option need to be complementary to each other and need maybe to find a way to work and cooperate between each other. And in a broader perspective, I will insist on the need to contribute to what I define as regional maritime security architecture, and we will do it through the main regional organization. We may help to develop the blue thinking within IORA, within IUC, inside FIP, Forum of Pacific Islands, within BIMSTEC, and I think that maybe if they are already and they are already working on maritime issue, having some working group, but maybe there is a need to help them to operationalise this maritime thinking, helping to develop, for example, a regional maritime strategy for all of the region, having in mind the standard of the African Union integrated maritime strategy, for example. And so, I will go with a French perspective, if you allow me, on all of this proposal very, very briefly.

So, we already said that Indo-Pacific is a very complex area when considering the challenge of maritime security, because of its vastness, it is very immense body of water, it is very fragmented, and there are already very great maritime power with very different maritime national interest, speaking of India, speaking of the United States, Japan, Russia, China, or French. And it is an area of great tension at sea, and particularly in the South China Sea, the East China Sea, not to mention the Taiwan Strait, and it had already been mentioned, there is also a clear tendency to question international law, in particular, the Montego Bay Convention and the freedom of navigation in the area. And this tension is now taking place against the backdrop of strong growth in arms spending, particularly in Natal, by all the players, starting with China. So from one theatre to another, Indian Ocean to the Pacific, we are facing a wide range of threats, piracy, geopolitical competition, claims on maritime borders, but we are also witnessing the development of new security threats linked to the concern of the protection of the blue economy, and therefore of the economic development of the coastal state.

And this trend is very visible in the Western Indian Ocean, in the South Pacific, among island states, which are confronted with illegal fishing, but also under environmental and climate threat. As you know, France is a resident country, the Indo-Pacific, it has territories there, and it is very aware of the issue at stake in maritime security. During several visits to the region, President Macron spoke out on the importance of maintaining the Indo-Pacific region as an open and inclusive space, based on respect for international law and multilateralism. Notably, he emphasised the importance of respect for freedom of navigation and overflight. And I would like to insist on the fact that France has a maritime security agenda in the Indo-Pacific that covers the field of traditional maritime security, but also non-traditional security, precisely in relation with the protection of the blue economy of its island territories.

So first of all, France is trying to contribute to the good order at sea in the region. France has military forces stationed permanently in the region, in Djibouti, Abu Dhabi, Réunion in the Indian Ocean, but also in the South Pacific with New Caledonia and French Polynesia. It also has regular and operational deployment of its navy and air force. Actually, the French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle is currently on the mission in the Indo-Pacific, which allow it to train and to cooperate with several navies. France's priority in the area is to support and contribute to good order at sea. The French navy participates in EU operations in the region, so operations to combat piracy in the Indian Ocean, Atalanta, protection of merchant traffic against the Houthi attack in the Red Sea, ASPIDES, and also the protection of the Strait of Hormuz with the AGENOR Mission. And the objective of this French regular deployment and patrol is to provide a very visible and very concrete defence of freedom of navigation and respect for the Montego Bay Convention of the Law of the Sea, including in area under tension, such as the Taiwan Strait and the South and East China Sea, and many other EU navies are also showing the flag and patrolling in the region.

Second point, France is convinced of the need to promote maritime multilateralism and capacity building initiative. It is engaging in extensive cooperation with like-minded partners, India, Sri Lanka, Japan, Australia, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, New Zealand. It works with all of the coastal and island states of the Indo-Pacific, in particular towards strengthening the maritime capacity of the Navy or Coast Guard of partners. It seeks collaboration to set up Maritime Training Institute, as it has just done in Sri Lanka. It is working on setting up a security academy in La Reunion in New Caledonia. And finally, in terms of maritime domain awareness, France actively contributes to regional maritime institutional awareness mechanism via regional bodies with the participation of liaison officers in various maritime fusion centres in the region, in Madagascar, in India, in Singapore, at the IFC in Changi, and also within the Pacific Fusion Centre with supporting capacity building initiative. And to this end, it also supports EU capacity building initiatives, the program CRIMARIO, a maritime information sharing initiative that has been gradually expanded through the Indo-Pacific since 2015. And it also supports the program of SAFESEAS Africa in order to develop port security in the Western Indian Ocean.

And through its Indo-Pacific strategy, but also by relying on the initiative and resources implemented by the European Union, France can develop numerous cooperative projects, which make it possible to present an alternative to the proposal made by other actors. And this gives the countries of the Indo-Pacific region the opportunity to choose a partner according to the project proposed. And it's made maybe easier to build a strong maritime community, a trust in strong maritime community.

Shekhar Sinha: Ma’am we have one minute left.

MariannePeron-Doise:Okay. Another priority I've shown of France, and it will be my last point, is to support and to contribute to the establishment of a regional maritime security architecture and to help, in one word, to disseminate a blue thinkingvisit alongside regional multilateral organizations. For example, it does so through the Indian Ocean Commission, of which it is a full member. In 2020, it also became a member of IORA, which adopted a vision for the Indo-Pacific in 2022. And it's true that IORA has organised already several working groups dedicated to maritime security, the blue economy and illegal fishing. And the aim of France is willing to help to make IORA operational so that it can make concrete progress in this area. So France is also aware of the region connection on maritime issue to be strengthened by facilitating exchange between IOC, IORA, of course, ASEAN, which is at the centre of many fora and discussion, dialogue, but also the Pacific Island Forum. In addition to maritime traditional security issue, there is, and this has been already mentioned, a concern about the management of natural disaster, climate change, and preservation of this ocean. And this is at the core centre of the concern of this regional organisation, and helping them to communicate and interact more regularly with each other and help strengthening maritime multilateralism to the benefit of all. And I will stop there, Mr Chair.

Shekhar Sinha:Thank you, ma'am. Thank you very much. I think you made some very, you brought the blue economy back into discussion, and I think it's a very important part and what deals with trade and commerce as Madam Nutan mentioned in the beginning in her opening remarks. Second point you mentioned that the – it's not only naval ships, but there are commercial ships. Let me assure you that at any given time, only 10 percent ships are of warships. The rest, 90 percent are all commercial ships. So – and thirdly, France is very much an Indo-Pacific country. They are very active. You have your territories in the Indian Ocean and the South Pacific. So therefore, France is very much an active player and they are contributing quite a lot. The last point that you made was, the organisations which exist. There are far too many organisations. What we need to do is possibly to make them, enable them to achieve this task. They all have climate change. They all have blue economy, the verticals. We need to operationalise and give them those assets. And that brings me to our last speaker, Madam Swati Ganesan. Floor is yours, 10 minutes from now. I know we are behind time. I think Nutan Madam is looking at me. But we will finish in time.

Swati Ganesan:Thank you very much, sir. Thank you very muchto the Indian Council of World Affairs, also to the additional secretary, to the chair, and all the other speakers for actually making my time of 10 minutes a little bit much easier, because everybody else has already covered quite a lot of points. So let me quickly also address a couple of points that came from the other panellists and also from the chair, and then move on to largely discussing some of the other issues that I can probably also highlight hereupon.

I think it was very interesting that it was highlighted by Professor Panda that non-traditional security issues are looked at as from two types, from a peace point of type and also from the point of looking at it from a security point of view, which has largely been the context, and now also looking at it from a wartime context as well. I think we are also looking at it in this aspect is that either you're looking at it from a point where we are at a helm where non-traditional issues are not non-traditional anymore. They are mainstream. You do not go into a foreign policy discussion without discussing climate change and energy anymore. It is as equally important as much as other geostrategic discussions are. So it has now become a mainstream issue. One is that. So whether now I will still call energy security or water security a non-traditional issue is itself something that I would like to have an open debate and discussion about, because I also don't know where one would like it to be.

But now your security apparatus tends to revolve around these issues. You want to secure your water resources. You want to secure your energy resources. And henceforth, whatever architecture that we do develop, whether it is for water or for energy or for even our ports, everything is designed. The security apparatus is now designed to undertake efforts to secure all of these resources, which are considered non-traditional in many ways. So that's one point. I think that is to take forward what Professor Panda has already talked about. And also, there is quite a tendency, which I wanted to break, because I come from an international relations background as a student. And when I was getting into non-traditional issues, either you're this side of the traditional border or you're out to that side, which is from the climate or from the science point of view or from largely the people who come with the facts and the checks and the scientific aspects. For me, I wanted to put forth a pressure to the international community to make sure that we do thisto combine the two and say that both of them depend on each other in many massive ways. And from that point of view, if you look at, is that polarisation is now also now becoming a little bit more mixed, where we also don't know where one ends and one begins. I think that itself is very, very critical for a large area like Indo-Pacific.

The Indo-Pacific rhythm, as Additional Secretary already said, Madam said, all about the larger geostrategic area of the REM and also the maritime realm of the place itself is quite huge. Now, when we're looking at such a huge place, we also have to take into consideration that all of the countries are not on the same place. Some of them are highly developed. Some of them are not at all developed. Some of them are in the middle path to being developing countries. 13 to 14 of the countries within this particular region are the LDCs, which means we are looking at a very polarised setup in terms of the economics itself. Beyond that, when we look at, we take into the construct of in shipping, also we look at tourism. Tourism, this particular region would be the highest in all of the region, because Southeast Asia itself is one of the largest tourism attractions in the world.

Then comes shipbuilding. The three of the highest shipbuilders of the world are in this region, Japan, South Korea, China. Then you have the largest shipbreakers are also in the same region. So you're looking at an industry and a setup, completely maritime domain structure, which is already in place. I think what we are now looking at is how much of the climate impacts are going to be affecting all of these aspects. I think there was a lot of discussion, and Sir Ma’am also pointed out about IUUs. There is an increase in IUUs also because people are moving beyond their borders because they can't fish anymore within a certain realm anymore. And there is now people moving out of their own EEZs, they are moving out into the international waters. Some are moving into other people's waters and getting caught up, all because there is a lack of fish stock over an overall period, which is coming from the fact that the water is getting warmer, there is more pollution in the water, and henceforth there is that – which is a cyclic aspect.

Also, there is increase in piracy in many areas, not probably in our region, frankly, especially within the Indian, but in some of the other continents, is because there is a lack of economic opportunities as well, and people are forced to get into these areas as well. Sea level rise is one of the biggest problems that I think this particular region is looking at and what we are looking at is disaster or climate resilient infrastructure which needs to be now the larger. With some of the largest ports of the world being helmed in this region, I think a disaster resilient or even to say a resilient infrastructure is something which is to be taken into context and to be worked on now.

From a biodiversity point of view, I think again this region tops it because we are highly biodiverse. We also hold some of the largest deltas including the Sundarbans, 8% of the mangroves of the world is here. We are looking at such a biodiversity and we are in this particular region and especially in the maritime domain, this particular thing is going to become ever more important for us to look at. From climate point of view, I think there is a lot of numbers that everybody can throw out and everybody already knows in terms of temperature changes and biodiversity, sea level rise and so on and forth. But from beyond that point, I think one thing that I would really like to focus on is that while we are looking at the structures within the Indo-Pacific which is several developed economies, several developing, which is also a purview in climate change discussions and if you see the developed economies with visibly developing economies, I think we get the opportunity to probably take it further and discuss opportunities and cooperation issues where we can probably figure out ways and means to address these. I think the way we are looking at managing IUUs. When we manage IUUs from a security point of view, I think we need to go a step further and make sure that that apparatus now is also complemented with a way to conserve biodiversity in a way that it helps you to gain more, especially from a regional point of view and even from a national point of view and be able to secure your own resources much more effectively.

And from that context, if I would say is that I think two things where we really need impetus is the access to technology and access to finance, both of them which we are fighting for pretty much in every COP and I think the last COP we have voiced a very valid concern about how the finance is not enough. I think if you say Bloomberg's last one of their net zero scenarios shows that we need almost 88 trillion close to for only the Asia-Pacific itself, I mean I am not even looking at the Indo-Pacific, so that would be even further larger by 2035-2040 kind of scenario, 2050 scenario. If that is the context of what we are looking at, what we have right now in our hand is very low from a finance point of view.

From a technology point of view, we still have to make a lot of efforts to harness cooperation between the Indo-Pacific countries, with many of them actually already advancing way ahead of many others. And the third point I think for me, because I see so many students, is upskilling. We need to have adequate funding and resources to upskill as well as educate our next generation in the areas which are upcoming, specifically from a maritime domain, whether it is bioengineering or blue biotechnology or many other areas. But these areas need more funding and more resonation within our own work as well. Thank you.

Shekhar Sinha:Thank you, Swatiji. I think some of the points are really very important. One, you talked about the biodiversity and later on you talked about the funding and IUU fishing. I think all these may not look on the immediate as to what impact it has. But if you do the study and discussion that she was talking about, we should have discussion, they will all lead you to human suffering, mass migrations, etc., etc. You just see the impact.You had Houthis attacking the ships, merchant ships, so they were taking a longer route around the Cape of Good Hope, that is Africa, adding seven days to transit time and also it means spending more money for the payment to the crew and also the ship. Ultimately, who paid for it? Ultimately, the cost of petrol went up everywhere, diesel, and people were suffering. Some people could not afford and that led to a fair amount of difficulties which can be counted as a human disaster, really. So what I'll do is I'll stop here. Can we take one round of questions? So just one round of questions, please state your name, be specific if you want to address to somebody. Our two panellists are still there online if you want to ask them. Do we have a mic? Yes, we have a mic here. Please state your name and go ahead.

Aakar Thabu:Hello everyone, I'm Aakar Thabu, I'm an analyst in Indo-Pacific geopolitics. In non-traditional security, I've looked at illicit narcotics, water, and energy. A lot of problems that we discussed today could be resolved with resilient infrastructure and every year we will feel the need for it more and more. But we have seen the US aid being pulled out of the region, and now there are talks about China filling that void. There has been geopolitical competition in HADR, and it is likely that it will be there in development of resilient infrastructure. And if we see the balance being skewed in favour of China, no problem in taking help from them, but it gives them huge leverage on critical infrastructure. If the panellists know of something already in the works about this, or any suggestions on how to prevent it. Thank you.

Abhay Singh:Okay, insofar as maritime security cooperation is concerned, one of the key issues is willingness of the countries to abide by norms. Willingness in terms of capacity and capability-building assistance is also along with that it comes to. Now, fundamentally, if we see that US aid had been pulled out, but how much was it was contributing towards the maritime security cooperation initiative? I mean, that's the question which we need to, say, fundings in terms of enhancing state capacity in combating or enhancing maritime security environment is not related to US aid. Countries have preferential security partners, and there is a competitive approach there as well. There are partners among the co-partnership with the Quad countries, partnership with the EU partners, there are partnerships with China as well. So, let's not see is the withdrawal of US aid leading to security cooperation withdrawal in the whole ambit. That's what we need to wait and watch. And I think Professor Panda can elaborate further on this issue.

Shekhar Singh:Dr Panda, you would like to add anything to this?

Jagannath Panda:No, I don't have much to add. I think I would agree with that assessment that Commodore Abhay shared. But I think if we take the case of China, yes, of course, from India's point of view, we are looking China more from the prism of security concern as a threat. But then if we take from the perspective of UN and international governance, I think it makes sense to also collaborate with China and learn from the experiences. There has been a lot of international experiences that the Chinese Navy, China's military has conducted in different parts of the world. That also comes as a lesson, not only for the Indian military and establishments, but also for the rest. Of course, we see them as an adversary, that's a different story. But learning from your adversary’s experience should not be ruled out and should not be seen as an isolated phenomenon. I'll stop here. Thank you.

Shekhar Singh:I think that's a very important point. In fact, even the Indian Navy cooperates with the Chinese naval ships in the Red Sea. They have a very informal arrangement where they talk to each other and they do the scouting of the convoys in the peacetime. They used to do that. As you know from Red Sea, as you come out of the Suez Canal, the number of ships which can, they all line up and one of the warships accompanies them right outside the Gulf of Aden into the Arabian Sea. So that procedure was very much existing, still exists. Mind you, at sea, nobody is an enemy till a country has been declared a belligerent. Right? Till then, he is a seafarer and he is to be taken as one. And all seafarers go by the norms promulgated by the IMO, International Maritime Organisation. And that calls for support in case of any disaster. The nearest ship, whether it is a merchant ship or a warship, they are duty-bound. And one of the reasons why Indian naval ships actually helped the ships which were hit by the Houthis in Red Sea, brought them to our harbour and, got it repaired and sent them to their destinations. And if it was not possible, then some of the crew were – in fact, some crews were from Pakistan. But we don't, as it is in political terms, Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam is truly exercised at sea. There are no borders there. Sir, you wanted to ask a question. Can you give the mic? Yeah, mic, later on. Just after that.

Unidentified Speaker:Thank you, sir. The question is regarding climate change and by blue economy. We know that climate change because of two degree temperature, it is said that most of the sea coast city may disappear. It has happened many time in other parts of the world, like Tulu, T-U-L-U, and it is said that it will be first country, which is a very small island, may just disappear, same with Mauritius and other countries. So do we have any collaboration, scientific, so that we can save this on our seashore area? And same thing about blue economy. Do we have any collaboration with any country to explore which is another more than agricultural economy and there are many habituals and mineral matters we can exploit it?

Shekhar Singh:Ok, yeah.

Saurav Kumar:Thank you panel for the talk. I am Saurav Kumar, a student of international relations at South Asian University. So my question is how do non-traditional securitychallenges intersect with Indo-Pacific's evolving securitisation dynamics, alliance formation, and identity construction. Given the geological significance of language in shaping material security outcomes, how India's distinct historical and strategic responses influences approaches to NTS threat. Furthermore, in an era where economic and security concerns are increasingly interwoven, how do initiatives like Blue Dot Network and Asia-Africa Growth Corridor reflect the region's effort to address NTS threat while maintaining strategic autonomy and counterbalancing China's rise within Quad Framework? Thank you.

Abhay Singh:Now, that question is just too broad, but say you have used-- to simplify you are asking that how do we make sense of our non-traditional security concern among the other geopolitical churning which is happening around? That's the sum of your question, right? So in that case, okay, maritime security has non-traditional because the actions which are not related to state actions, which I had said earlier. Within that, if you are talking about securitisation of maritime geopolitics, that is in a nature of it because as usage has increased, so is the concern about the potential disruption. Hence, every realm has been used as terms of security and non-traditional security as you have seen the spectrum from say piracy to even the climate change concern because it impacts on some of the aspects of a nation or a coastal state or a group of states security issues.

Now, next question is that impulse to cooperation, I also said that since issues are related and it's not in one nation's ambit to solve everybody, you need to collaborate and cooperate on this issue. Now, the third phase of your question is about as we are cooperating among the Quad and other cooperative structure, how do we maintain our strategic autonomy? Now, strategic autonomy is inherent in state behaviour as we have said in case of India, our partnership of various grouping is based on our own understanding of interest and theseinterest alignment will allow us to cooperate. It doesn't mean that if we are into Quad or BRICS or in a EU-led cooperation, we are compromising on our autonomy. That is the sum of your questions but we can have a separate discussion on this. Thank you very much.

Shekhar Singh:I think that is very well brought up. Let me just sum it up because I am not going to take any more questions. I had said one round so four questions. You see what is happening that the distinguishing line between war and peace has become so blurred that you can't figure out. You have grey zone warfare, you have all kinds of names. It is all short of war. What is short of war? I mean after all the Chinese coast guard ships have gone and bashed up the Filipino ships, the fishing boats. Is that not a hurt? Is it not a physical war? But can we call it a war because the shot has not been fired? But still the losses, they had to recover this guy who had fallen into sea and give him some assistance. So I think that more and more of this kind of approach, this kind of features will occur where it will become even more difficult. And as an IR student I would say that as far as the strategic autonomy is concerned we cooperate with all our adversaries on many multilateral forums.

On multilateral forums we are all together. We are doing with China on solar and climate. We are all with them. We are on the same page. But when it comes to our border issue or bilateral, well there are difficulties and I think the country particularly the foreign office is going ahead and dealing with it very, very diligently, not compromising on our autonomy at all. So I think the points which have been made today, let me just try and see if I can. As I just mentioned that the Houthis attack on the merchant ship irrespective of any nationality, we had our 20 ships, 100 days, 5,000 people engaged crew and 900 hours of aircraft flying. Have I got the figures right? Okay, it's fine. You didn't hear. So okay. These are the data, declared data. And mind you, none of these ships were Indian flagships. So we have cooperated, we have done it for, this is our duty to the world as a seafaring country. And therefore cooperating with any country there is not a very--absolutely unquestionable. It does not affect our, we are not going to start fighting at sea, no. As I said, till such time our country is declared belligerent, naval ships cannot open fire on a belligerent, any other country, right? You can stop him, you can resist his movement, and you can do all that. So what I'll do is I will put a stop and thank Madam Nutan for really giving us opportunity to come and speak our mind. We have added a few new areas which requires discussion, which I've given the opening part. So those of you who are studying maritime, you may like to take off from there as to do they form part of non-traditional security threat. I would say that all of it.

Today, in fact, security is such a word. Energy security, food security, water security, anything is security. Is everything security? In fact, in Foreign Affairs Magazine, if you pick up, you will find a number of discussions which have come up on this issue. What is security and what is not security? So I guess that human life is all security. So all that remains for me to give a big round of applause to our speakers, two here and two there. And speakers, thank you very much for being here and clutching in early in the morning, I guess it must be 11.30, 12:00, I guess. So giving your time to ICWA. Thank you, ma'am.

Pragya Pandey:Thank you, sir. On behalf of the ICWA, I would like to take this opportunity to thank our chair and esteemed panellists. We have benefited immensely from their views. My special thanks to the audience for their valuable participation. Thank you all. And to know more about ICWA's research work, visit our website and follow us on our social media handles. Now I invite all of you to join us for high tea at the foyer. Thank you once again.

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List of Participants                       

1. Nutan Kapoor Mahawar, Additional Secretary, ICWA 
2. Vice Admiral Shekhar Sinha, Co-Founder, DeepStrat, Former Flag Officer Commander-in-Chief Western Naval Command & Chief of Integrated Defence Staff 
3. Commodore Abhay Kumar Singh, Research Fellow, Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses 
4. Jagannath Panda, Head, Stockholm Center for South Asian and Indo-Pacific Affairs (SCSA-IPA), Stockholm 
5. Marianne Peron-Doise, Director of Research, The French Institute for International and Strategic Affairs (IRIS), Paris 
6. Ms Swati Ganeshan, Honorary Adjunct Fellow, National Maritime Foundation (NMF)