• Indo-Pacific (US), BRI (China), and SAGAR and MAHASAGAR (India) and their effect on maritime players

Mosaic is an art form where smaller pieces are combined to make a visible illustration that is eye-catching, very clear, and pleasing. Applying this to the modern-day maritime environment, one wonders whether the mosaic maritime players are building makes matters clearer or, contrarily, makes them more complicated.

Maritime affairs have always been complex, intertwined, and at times confusing. Thus, throughout history many powers have laid down or promulgated frameworks on what they intended or expected by the maritime space to be.

These theoretical expressions always demonstrated the strategic intentions of the creator for achieving or pursuing the maritime interests that were designed to fulfil their national interests. With the dawn of the 21st century all global maritime players started to focus on maritime space as much of global economic connectivity lay across the oceans. 

These lines of connectivity prompted these players to promulgate their maritime strategies and concepts in serving their maritime and national interests. Such a declaration was intended to make a clear and focused picture of what the maritime space should be according to their interest. 

The maritime strategies of these global players and that of regional players pushing their own concepts and views of the wide maritime spaces led to competition and conflict. It has also become a confusing arena for the smaller, or lesser, players, such as Sri Lanka.  

The Booz Allen Hamilton report

In the contemporary world, the American consultancy firm Booz Allen Hamilton report on energy security in April 2007 for the State Department stands out prominently in building a maritime mosaic for the 21st century. 

This report coined the terminology ‘string of pearls’ and it was picked up by the Indian media to give widest publicity to growing Chinese presence in the Indian Ocean. The report analysed the Chinese and Indian energy needs, leading to numerous investments at that time in the Indian Ocean, and forecasted the measures that the American authorities should be taking to address global American interests. 

The report has far-reaching effects as various entities from governments to lobby groups used the contents of the report to pursue their intentions at the cost of someone else’s. For example, in the published document ‘Energy Futures in Asia’ by the Net Assessment Director of the Office of the Secretary of Defence (a 49-page document in PDF available on the internet), the report under sub-heading ‘Geostrategic/Geopolitical Drivers’ discusses a ‘cataclysmic event in either country,’ citing the Tamil Tigers as the example. It appears that by the time the report was being drafted, the Tamil Tiger factor was well established in the US electoral interests based on the diaspora entities’ propaganda campaigns that were aggressively underway.

In 2008, the American elections were closely supported by these entities and for Sri Lanka what mattered was the close support extended to presidential candidate Hillary Clinton by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE)-linked diaspora financially and vote-base wise. This segment of the diaspora was not interested in China, but they used the China factor to draw the candidate’s attention for their cause in support of the separatist terrorism taking place in the island. 

For Indian media, the term was very pleasing and just the right catchphrase in their plethora of defence opinion-making. There was no article in Indian media that did not use the US-made terminology ‘string of pearls’ in expressing their opinion of defence and security related articles. These articles invariably had Sri Lanka and Hambantota in their narratives.

Sri Lanka’s maritime posture

At the time the Booz Allen Hamilton report was made public, both Hambantota and Colombo South Harbour extension plans were ongoing and the then Sri Lankan Government was trying to finance the projects. India declined financing Hambantota when offered by the then Sri Lankan Government, which was then offered Chinese funding whilst Colombo was able to secure Asian Development Bank (ADB) funding. 

The tenders were floated for both harbours and Hyundai and China Huanqiu Contracting and Engineering Corporation secured the tenders to build the two harbours, respectively. Both these deep-water harbours were a need of Sri Lanka’s port and shipping planners, and no political leadership was able to make decisions till that time to construct new two deep-water port facilities. 

The external pressures to not make harbours or develop Sri Lanka’s harbours was covertly being forced on the political leadership, thus none until President Mahinda Rajapaksa were able to make the decision – a decision of strategic consequences. 

In fact, the maritime posture Sri Lanka had by 2005 was not encouraging at all, with separatist terrorism raging in the island with acquired air capability by the LTTE and a non-State actor having influence in the political arena of India, Europe, the US, Australia, and in South Africa. 

And India was inaugurating its Sethusamudram Shipping Canal Project to link India’s west coast to its east coast through the semi-enclosed sea area known as the Palk Bay and Palk Strait. Thus, the decision to build two deep-water port terminals indeed was strategic and bold under the prevailing circumstances. Further delays in constructing the two deep-water harbours, it seemed, would be catastrophic as Sri Lanka’s shipping and maritime posture was at stake.

This Booz Allen Hamilton report marked the Hambantota Port development as one of the Chinese; in a sense it was true as it was Chinese funding and a Chinese port builder. The report compared the port to Pakistan’s Gwadar, which by that time was nearing completion. Among these revelations, another development was also highlighted in the Bay of Bengal as another spot of the ‘string of pearls’: the Cocos Islands radar installation. 

The realities on the ground it seems were overlooked for academic and theoretical assumptions in serving the American national interest to facilitate the intended concept of the Indo-Pacific in the strategic thought process at that time. ‘Pivot to Asia’ in November 2011 was used as the springboard to design and promulgate the Indo-Pacific in 2017 and the race to get more stakeholders into the bag.

China’s approach 

The Booz Allen Hamilton report was studied by global leaders and particularly China started to draft its own version based on its historical records. China is in possession of detailed records as many of its monks who travelled onboard ships or through land routes recorded what they saw and experienced. 

These were part of Chinese governance and in December 1947, when the then Chinese Government disclosed its maritime map of ‘Location Map of South Sea Islands,’ it included the 11-dash lines marked based on its historical records. These 11-dash lines were mere representations of historical extensions of Chinese emperors made based on the records presented to the emperors. And today, these historical records have become a political tool to flex geostrategic muscles for and against contested maritime spaces.

The 11-dash line was reduced to a nine-dash line in 1952, when the North Vietnamese Government at that time requested the removal of the two lines of the Gulf of Tonkin (situated in the northern part of the East China Sea bordering China and Vietnam) from the Chinese maritime maps and stands as a good indication of what can be achieved through more amicable relations than more arrogant contestations.

The Chinese response to the Booz Allen Hamilton report was promulgated in 2013 as the ‘One Belt One Road’ (OBOR) initiative. Going one step further from ‘string of pearls,’ the OBOR initiative had a maritime belt and overland road in reaching global economic powerhouses. 

And unlike the ‘string of pearls’ which was more naval or military, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) was economical and appealed to many global clienteles pursuing economic prosperity through connectivity. By 2013 when OBOR was introduced, Sri Lanka had already commissioned the two deep-water port terminals in 2009 and was operating them. 

The Ports Authority by this time had developed a masterplan but there was no national vision or strategic vision as a State in developing these two deep-water harbours with the political culture prevailing at that time in the island. It was all about the Rajapaksa Government and corruption and the political opposition was hellbent on proving that these were useless investments. 

For the political opposition, Hambantota was the primary focus as it was neighbouring the Rajapaksa constituency and was not under funding agreement like that of the ADB’s Colombo south extension. As a result of not having a national vision and not understanding the foreign concepts of ‘Pivot to Asia’ or OBOR, the political masters of this island nation missed the opportunity to make an informed decision when it came to regional maritime posture.

Indian stance

By 2010, the Indian Sethusamudram Shipping Canal Project flopped due to a ruling by the Indian court of law, lack of promised investments by stakeholder agencies, and the changing political landscape in the southern state of Tamil Nadu. 

From another aspect, such could be perceived from the angle of India’s ‘SagarMala’ and Security And Growth for All in the Region (SAGAR) concepts promulgated in 2015. It is also interesting to note that both latter initiatives were North Indian-driven, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led concepts whereas the Sethusamudram is South Indian-driven and a specific State-focus initiative. However, all these have one end-state in common, to serve the maritime aspirations of the rising India. 

India’s maritime posture had a slow start. Post-independence visionaries of the calibre of K.M. Panikkar repeatedly emphasised investing in maritime posture, but the political leaders were slow in understanding Cold War power politics. However, with younger political leaders taking the helm of India in the late ’80s, the foundation was laid to consolidate maritime power, and the rest remains history.

The ‘string of pearls’ theory was marketed aggressively by the Indian media and debated widely in the academic circles of India. In 2013, the writer on invitation of the National Maritime Foundation presented a paper titled ‘Changing Dynamics of Indian Ocean’ citing the introduction of the ‘string of pearls’ and developing scenarios in the Indian Ocean. 

Then in 2016, whilst attending the National Defence University in Beijing, China, the writer was invited to deliver a similar academic paper on ‘OBOR and Strategic Thought Process’ in which the Chinese university authorities politely asked the writer to omit the terminology of ‘string of pearls’ as it was not originated or created by China. 

However, in general the whole world believes that the ‘string of pearls’ is a Chinese-designed terminology when, by the time Booz Allen Hamilton published the report, China was not even thinking of such a global concept.

The Indian SAGAR in 2015 and Mutual And Holistic Advancement for Security And Growth Across Regions (MAHASAGAR) in 2025 appear to have taken the best from both the US’s ‘string of pearls’ and China’s OBOR initiative to serve Indian aspirations, which aim at regional and subsequently global influences. They all serve the maritime environment by investment and expansion in port and harbour developments, connectivity developments, and above all the maritime security dimension. 

Maritime security 

Maritime security is being served by several tools and Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA) remains a primary tool for maritime governance today. The disappearance of Malaysian flight MH 370 on 8 March 2014 was an eye-opening scenario in relation to MDA as all were of the opinion that air spaces were well covered and monitored until the flight went missing. 

When international efforts to trace the flight path based on numerous theories wanted to check the eastern end of the Indian Ocean, Indian authorities declined to permit investigations into Indian air spaces or the Indian Flight Information Region (FIR) covering that geographical area. 

The real reason for such a turndown, as per certain reports, was that the airspaces were not monitored as expected, thereby exposing the gaps in air space management that could have embarrassed the Government. There have been several key events in the past where lapses in military preparedness have embarrassed governments, proving why military investments both in manpower and technology are not a matter to be taken for granted.

The ‘island chain strategy’

The complex picture of maritime initiatives of the US, China, and India is turning out to be another interesting episode with the changing geopolitical landscape with President Donald Trump’s second tenure. 

The intensity of dialogue of the Global South replacing the Global North and the two theatres of military actions – one in Gaza and the other in Eastern Europe – indicate the dynamics of geopolitics at a pace never seen before. Among these developments comes the new concept of maritime theory to the erstwhile ‘peaceful’ Indian Ocean from the Pacific theatre and it is called the ‘island chain strategy.’

The ‘island chain strategy’ was mooted by yet another American, John Foster Dulles, in 1951 to explain the post-World War II communist expansion of South-East Asian countries to the Pacific Ocean. The ongoing Korean War at that time reinforced the concept of containing Soviet Russia and China from expanding their maritime reach to the rest of the Pacific. 

Similar to the 2005 Booz Allen Hamilton report, this ‘island chain strategy’ originated in American thinkers and today with the Indo-Pacific in mind, the island chains have spilled over to the Indian Ocean to encompass the whole of the Indian Ocean. The image represents the ‘island chain strategy’ and it is highly visible as to why such American-led thinking will surely confuse the maritime mosaic of the Indian Ocean when all rim nations perceive China from a different lens to that of the US.

An Asian energy trading bloc

In the Booz Allen Hamilton 2011 report, there is a ‘text box’ on page 11 (of the PDF version) explaining a possible scenario of ‘Asia for Asians’ and it indicates that “an Asian energy trading bloc would see Russia become the supplier of choice and China as a market unto itself”. Therefore, in a way the report had served the Global South in achieving what was intended to be something opposite. 

The Indian Ocean has been observing a ‘rules-based-order’ – another catchy terminology developed in the Pacific – and, unlike the Pacific, practising and enjoying the adherence to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) as the global order in maritime space. 

However, the maritime concepts introduced by the two extraregional players are creating a maritime mosaic of confusion at a time when the Indian Ocean rim nations have understood the value of oceans in making respective economies more robust.

The maritime environment today can not be served by theory alone, nor can it be seen from the academic point of view either. Today’s maritime posture needs more practitioners than theoreticians as the environment in focus is largely under the control of nature and the concepts need to meet a wider segment of regions, from big to small players.

The theories and theoretical conclusions developed through them whilst dwelling on opinions may be twisted with time and space as it is pragmatism that rules in the end. As an island State in the Indian Ocean, even with a player that can bring influence, we should be bold enough to engage with wisdom. This wisdom comes from knowing what the maritime environment is all about, from science to geopolitics.

(The writer is the former Chief Hydrographer/Chief of Staff of the Sri Lanka Navy, who post-retirement writes on the maritime environment and analyses the regional developments in maritime and geostrategic scope. He remains an International Consultant for undersea cables and maritime intelligence)

(The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the official position of this publication)