This year, the Ministry of Defence and the Sri Lankan Navy hosted the 11th edition of the Galle Dialogue at the Lighthouse Hotel, Galle.
This is a meeting of regional Navies and maritime security experts held every year. The Galle Dialogue was initiated in August 2010 as a forum for the discussion of maritime security issues.
It had a humble beginning with nine States as its initial participants, which gradually attracted the participation of many States as a key event focusing on maritime security.
The relevance of the Galle Dialogue is connected with the strategic nexus of the Indian Ocean and the geopolitical currents that have emerged from the Indian Ocean such as the significant Chinese presence in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) with ports in several countries.
The significance of the Indian Ocean as an indispensable factor was first enunciated by Robert Caplan, who predicted the future importance of the Indian Ocean as the playing pond for the US-China rivalry. Most importantly, Kaplan stresses the strategic location of Sri Lanka.
The IOR has some of the busiest sea lanes transporting the highest tonnage of goods in the world. Almost 100,000 ships pass through the IOR annually, transporting two-thirds of the world’s oil shipments, one-third of its bulk cargo, and half the world’s container traffic.
It is of significance that only 20 percent of trade carried by merchant ships through the Indian Ocean is intra-regional. Any disruption to the free flow of trade through the Indian Ocean impacts the entire global economy. All these factors offer opportunities for the development of the region’s Blue Economy. However, the lack of adequate maritime infrastructure in most countries has held them back from realising the true potential of the seas.
Given such an important context, the Galle Dialogue stands above the mere format of a security platform confined to issues of maritime security.
It is by all means a place where Sri Lanka can project its critical importance at the crossroads of the Indian Ocean sea lanes. From the Indian perspective, the Galle Dialogue has been depicted as an effort made by a small State displaying its ability to spur regional collaborations and New Delhi was somewhat skeptical towards the very objectives of the Galle Dialogue in its initial stages.
BRI
In particular, the Dialogues held in 2011 and 2012 were lampooned by Indian critics suggesting events that supported China’s attempt to legitimise its presence in the IOR through its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), now also called the Global Development Initiative (GDI).
Incidentally, the BRI marks its 10th anniversary this year. The theme adopted by the Galle Dialogue in 2013 was known as “Strategic Maritime Partnership” and a year later India objected to China’s submarine deployment in Colombo.
In addition to the traditional challenges stemming from geopolitical entanglements, the IOR is faced with other severe issues such as illegal fishing, human smuggling, narcotics smuggling and resource exploitation.
The Indian Ocean has the fullest potential to provide resources such as minerals, oil, gas and renewable energy. Also, the issues arising from Climate Change which can directly affect the Small Developing Island States (SDIS) such as Maldives, Seychelles and Mauritius loom before the Indian Ocean community of nations.
Thus, these non-traditional issues are highly relevant to be addressed as the most pertinent issues related to the future of the IOR.
Realistically, the geopolitical competition among China, the US and India has become an issue which is highly unlikely to be resolved through the Galle Dialogue as this embodies the realistic picture of security concerns of great power politics.
The emergence of security partnership such as Quad and AUKUS have certainly created a volatile environment in the security nexus, but the conclusions that can generate from Galle Dialogue as a harmonious body which consists of many States including rival States, can pacify the tensions at an unprecedented level.
On the other hand, the engagement of Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA), whose ministerial sessions were held last week in Colombo) with the Galle Dialogue is a necessary factor in deciding the overarching success of it, which is further bolstered by Sri Lanka’s ascendency to the Chair of IORA.
The purpose of this engagement is to find out the possibilities of strengthening the maritime networks among the Member nations and this requires an astute mechanism in bringing various parties to the same floor.
The ultimate success of Sri Lanka’s small State diplomatic strategy lies in the ability to manage different interests, which can lead the way to start a strategic dialogue for regional issues among rival powers on the same platform.
US Admiral
In the words of Admiral Harry Harris, the US Admiral who visited Sri Lanka at the Galle Dialogue in 2016 “The Indian Ocean matters to the United States, Sri Lanka matters to the United States and the United States matters to Sri Lanka”.
Such a claim arose from top military personnel in Washington and echoes the special interest of the US towards the IOR and Sri Lanka. But policymakers in Colombo should not facilitate the platform of the Galle Dialogue for the geopolitical projections of the bigger powers.
Instead, participation in the Galle Dialogue should be broadly expanded to regional organisations such as SARRC, ASEAN and the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) which will certainly widen the regional ambit from the IOR to the Indo-Pacific Region.
To succeed in its small State diplomacy and punch above our weight, policymakers in Colombo should aptly adhere to a policy, which would ensure the equilibrium of its external relations with the other powers. In doing so, the Galle Dialogue can be a matching platform without any particular preference.
Also, the policy that President Ranil Wickremesinghe tends to maintain by balancing both India and China without any agitation can be tactfully accomplished from the very objectives rooted in the Galle Dialogue.
The writer is a lecturer at the Faculty of Law, Sir John Kotelawala Defence University
