Indian Ocean Policy

Report Outline
Strategic Vacuum East of Suez
Indian Ocean in Geopolitical Perspective
Indian Ocean in the Seventies
Special Focus

Strategic Vacuum East of Suez

U.S. Concern Over New Soviet Interest in Area

The waning british presence in the Indian Ocean leaves a political and strategic void which other big powers increasingly show signs of wanting to fill. Over the past three years, the Russians have moved substantial elements of their fleet into the ocean, surmounting considerable logistic obstacles to do so, and have sharply increased their economic and political activity in the Asian, African and Middle Eastern nations on the ocean's littoral.

Washington has been nervously eyeing the Soviet initiative but, publicly at least, has been reluctant to make a full-scale move into the area. Embittered and wearied by the long and costly involvement in Southeast Asia, the American people seem to want fewer, not more, American commitments to remote and little understood regions of the world. The Nixon Doctrine, first announced by the President on his Asian tour in 1969 and subsequently refined in two annual “State of the World” messages to Congress, calls for reducing the U.S. military presence in Viet Nam, and for maintaining a “low profile” in most other areas. Wherever practical, the President aims to substitute U.S. arms and equipment for American manpower.

Nonetheless, there is evidence that concern about the Indian Ocean is building at the top policy levels of government. The National Security Council recently completed a review of U.S. strategic interests in the region. The Pentagon was reported to have held secret talks on what to do about a growing Soviet naval buildup in the Indian Ocean. The Naval War College recently undertook a study of potential Soviet threats to the ocean's “choke points”—key straits and passageways. The Center for Strategic and International Studies scheduled a conference, March 18–19, for international experts on the history, economy and politics of the Indian Ocean area. The center is an influential, non-governmental program of Georgetown University and frequently serves as a sounding board for U.S. policy initiatives.