Air Power and the Strategic Balance: The Indian Ocean and Bay of Bengal

Contents: Preface. Part-I: Air Power in the Indian Ocean and Bay of Bengal. 1. Air Power Key to Multi-Domain Operations in the Indian Ocean Region/Anil Chopra. 2. PLAAF in the Indian Ocean and Bay of Bengal: Contest for Air Dominance/SP Singh. 3. Strategic Importance of the Bay of Bengal in the Future of the Indo-Pacific/Sreoshi Sinha. 4. Integrated Air Power in the Indian Ocean Region/Swaim Prakash Singh. 5. Air-Sea Battle over the Indian Ocean: Force Ratio Balance/Joshy M. Paul. Part-II: Strategic Importance of the Indian Ocean in the Indo-Pacific. 6. Indian Ocean in the Indo-Pacific Strategy of the US/Vivek Mishra and Rushali Saha. 7. Quad and the Trilaterals in the Indo-Pacific: Air Power an Effective Tool/Dinesh Kumar Pandey. 8. Japanese and Korean Air Power: Counter-Balance to the PLAAF in the Indo-Pacific/Simran Walia. 9. An Assessment of Power Projection Across the Taiwan Strait/Radhey Tambi. 10. AUKUS and the Indo-Pacific Chessboard: Towards an (In)Stable Regional Security Architecture?/Mahima Duggal. Part-III: Military and Economic Influencers of the Indo-Pacific. 11. Impact of South China Sea Dispute on the Security of the Indo-Pacific: Analysis of Some Possible Scenarios/Pooja Bhatt. 12. India-Japan Economic Relations in the Indo-Pacific Region/Anushree Dutta. 13. Powering the Indo-Pacific: A Study of India’s Bilateral Nuclear Energy Engagements in the Region/Prachi Lokhande. 14. Supply Chain Resilience in the Indo-Pacific/Neha Mishra. 15. Placing Cyber in the Great-Game of the Indo-Pacific: Challenges and Solutions/Khyati Singh. Index.

Over the past decade, Bay of Bengal and the Indian Ocean at large have become critically linked to the future of the Indo-Pacific. They have emerged as centres of global power play with increased strategic significance. The objective of this book is to analyse the rapidly changing dynamics in this vital region, with a particular focus on regional multilateral and minilateral set-ups, including QUAD (Quadrilateral Security Dialogue), Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC), AUKUS (Australia-UK-US), and others. Positioning India at the centre, this book examines the delicate strategic balance of power in the Indian Ocean region, especially looking at air power, capacity building, and air-sea battle operations. It seeks to understand how like-minded Indo-Pacific countries can work together to enhance collaboration in varied domains ranging from nuclear energy to air power and cyber security to economic and supply chain cooperation. Through such collaborations, India and its like-minded partners can work together to reduce the predominance of any single nation, and ensure that they can actively shape a free, open and inclusive Indo-Pacific. In this sense, the legacy multilateral institutions and the new minilaterals emerging within and across the region are aimed at securing a peaceful and stable Indo-Pacific. The book comprehensively covers geostrategic issues in the Indian Ocean and Bay of Bengal, with focus on air power being the fulcrum of strategic balance in the region. With a cross-section of contributions from experienced and emerging scholars, this book is a must-read for practitioners and research analysts in the aforementioned domains.