Fostering Shared Air Interests in the IOR

The Asian security discourse often overlooks the evolving role of the Indian Ocean in setting the future courses of international relations, trade, and security. This is a water mass bounded on the west by East Africa, on the north by the Indian subcontinent, on the east by Indochina and Australia, and on the south by the Southern Ocean off the coast of Antarctica. The Indian Ocean is the world’s third-largest ocean and constitutes about 20 per cent of the water on the Earth’s surface. Although the economic and political views towards the Indian Ocean vary, its critical strategic importance linking the global power game has begun over the past two decades.

The Colombo Air Symposium 2023 stands as a pivotal event in the realm of air power discussions in the region. Since its inception in 2015, it has consistently evolved to become a platform for in-depth scholarly debates. This year’s theme, “Fostering Shared Air Interests in the IOR: Geopolitical Cooperation, Complexities, and Compulsions,” delves into the growing influence of regionalism in the current geopolitical landscape. This forum was attended by the UK, US, Japan, Netherlands, India, Palestine, Egypt and many more representatives from different nations.

The symposium emphasized the significance of state and non-state actors pooling resources and achieving interoperability to safeguard national interests through mutually beneficial cooperation. However, it acknowledged that geopolitical tensions and complex strategic structures require meticulous consideration in multilateral and bilateral relations. The compounding of national and regional interests also extended to the air domain, where militaries and other stakeholders seek to align their goals through coordination and cooperation.

Complex Dynamics in the Indian Ocean Region

This is a region where the US-led Indo-Pacific Strategy and the Chinese-led Belt Road Initiative, and the Maritime Silk Route converge and diverge, paving the way for these two countries to exercise absolute strategic advantages over one another. China has been making increased forays into the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) in the interests of energy security and trade. India is building its naval assets and maritime surveillance capabilities to counter the growing threat of China in the Indian Ocean Region. The complex interplay among the politics of the sea, geopolitics, and geo-economics shows the rise of a new power game in the Indian Ocean.

Sri Lanka is situated in the middle of the Indian Ocean. In the world of antiquity, ancient Ceylon represented a cross-pollinated land of convergence. There are overlaps between maritime security and national security; marine security and environmental security, offshore security (OSC) and national defence. The role of non-state actors and environmental threats pose high stake threats to the IOR countries, and no single country can act as a net security provider for the IORA region. The Indian Ocean is governed through a number of ratifications of maritime agreements. The Indian Ocean comes with a mix of geo-strategic interests and geo-economic realities. Most nations are focused on achieving an acceptable standard of living for their people through the development of industry, trade and commerce.

Preventing piracy, smuggling of illegal drugs, especially methamphetamine pills, illegal human trafficking, illegal trespassing, and cross-border terrorism has become critical security issues. Safety, security, and pollution prevention are of the utmost importance for maritime transport. Terrorist threats show no signs of decreasing, and both ships and ports may continue to face the threat of terrorist acts.

IORA Apart from maritime piracy and terrorism, illicit maritime trades and trafficking are on the rise too. The Indian Ocean region is viewed increasingly through the prism of strategic competition and power rivalry. In October 2023, Sri Lanka assumed the IORA Chair and presented its theme as ‘Strengthening Regional Architecture: Reinforcing Indian Ocean Identity’. This presents Sri Lanka’s vision and mission for IORA and its partner countries. The concept of IORA originated with the vision of President Nelson Mandela (during his visit to India in 1995). His vision encapsulated the ‘concept of an Indian Ocean Rim for socio-economic cooperation’.

Regional Cooperation and Air Power Dynamics

It was realised with the founding of IORA in 1997 as an inter-governmental organisation formed to foster regional economic cooperation. Sri Lanka had and continues to have its share of maritime terrorism, interstate dispute/illegal fishing, trafficking narcotics, humans and artefacts, including environmental crimes (e.g. oil spills). It is understood that fisheries management should be at the core of the new maritime policy, which IORA should strengthen and develop to build mutual understanding among all decision-makers.

We witness an age where all leading nations and even smaller ones, routinely exploit air power as a significant instrument of national power. Air power is the integrated employment of all air and space forces to control and exploit the air and space environments to achieve national security objectives. Winston Churchill once said “Airpower is the most difficult of all forms of military force to measure, or even express in precise terms”. Air power has certain capabilities that result directly from its characteristics of speed, range, and elevation. Air power can concentrate non-lethal power globally through mobility to position forces and equipment, through responsiveness to provide presence, and through perspective to maintain awareness. Air power remained a rather understudied area in the Indo-Pacific region, which is primarily a naval domain.

The Air Force ensures the nation’s ability “to do something in the air.” The strengths of air power are based on its ability to exploit the characteristics of speed, range, and elevation. The fundamental strengths of Air Force air power are: 1) air superiority, 2) reliable global mobility, 3) rapid global employment, and 4) acute global awareness. What does influence and shape mean for an air force? It would mean the employment of the non-combat assets in providing humanitarian assistance in times of natural calamities; the use of high-end air power capabilities to demonstrate intent and employing the reach, responsiveness and penetration of air power to respond and contain emerging challenges to the nation’s or region’s strategic interests.

The symposium was organised around five sub-themes: airspace management, challenges and opportunities for air power, socioeconomic considerations in air power applications, the volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) environment and regional coherence and interdependence. These sub-themes reflect the diverse areas of scholarly and practical interest. The symposium presented research articles and academic inquiries that delve deeply into the regionalist approach in the IOR and beyond, with a particular focus on the developing states and their capabilities to protect the national interests in airspace, maritime, economic, and geopolitical domains.