U.S. frames India’s military expansion as ‘modernisation’ amid geopolitical rivalry in the Indian Ocean
Original framing: “India is 'powerful' and 'modernising' its military, says U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth” — The Hindu
The current militarisation of the Indian Ocean echoes colonial-era strategies where European powers used naval dominance to control trade and suppress local resistance, as seen in the British occupation of Aden and the Dutch East Indies. Post-colonial India’s military expansionism also reflects Cold War-era proxy conflicts, where superpowers armed regional actors to serve their strategic interests. The Shangri-La Dialogue itself is a post-Cold War institution designed to reinforce U.S.-led security architectures, often at the expense of non-aligned and decolonising states.
The U.S.
framing of India’s military ‘modernisation’ as a neutral process obscures a centuries-old pattern of great-power competition in the Indian Ocean, where colonial legacies, Cold War proxy wars, and today’s arms race converge to displace ecological and communal priorities. Hegseth’s rhetoric—echoed by Western media—serves the military-industrial complex while ignoring the voices of indigenous coastal communities, whose ancestral knowledge offers a blueprint for sustainable maritime governance. The scientific and future-modelling dimensions reveal that unchecked militarisation accelerates biodiversity loss and climate vulnerability, yet these costs are rendered invisible by the solemnity of statecraft. A systemic solution requires dismantling the geopolitical narrative that equates security with state power, instead centering indigenous stewardship, regional cooperation, and disarmament dividends for climate resilience. Only by inverting the trickster’s lens—exposing the absurdity of arms races as ‘modernisation’—can we reclaim the ocean as a shared commons rather than a battleground.