Maritime Domain Critical in Global Competition: Admiral Krishna Swaminathan

Chief of the Naval Staff Admiral Krishna Swaminathan on Wednesday said that today's world is undergoing intense competition and friction, shifting power-equations, major technological shifts, and competing strategic interests. The maritime domain is not insulated from these developments, but is at the heart of them. At the Indo-Pacific Regional Dialogue (IPRD) held in Delhi, he also advocated for enhanced collective understanding of factors affecting security at sea and strengthened regional cooperation. The Indo-Pacific Oceans Initiative (IPOI) was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the 14th East Asia Summit in Bangkok in November 2019. It provided a framework for regional maritime cooperation under seven pillars. The theme of IPRD 2026 - Science, Technology, and Academic Cooperation is directly linked to one of these pillars. He said that long before the term Indo-Pacific was included in the strategic vocabulary, nature had fully integrated the two oceans - the Indian Ocean through the surface waters and the crescent currents through the Indonesian archipelago.