Indian Ocean Regionalism – Picking up the Pattern of Connectivity

Photo: Lucentbyte/Wikimedia commons.

This is a cross-post from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute‘s blog The Strategist.

It’s fair to say that, despite the existence of initiatives and organisations such as the Indian Ocean Naval Symposium (IONS) and the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA), Indian Ocean regional architecture is under-developed. This reflects a lack of shared interests relative to some other regions, including limited economic and strategic integration, great socio-economic disparities, and modest people-to-people links. Yet there’s benefit in seeking to address Indian Ocean transnational issues by regional means.