International Relations in the Great Indian Ocean through the Prism of Geopolitics and Geostrategy

Abstract

The article is devoted to an analysis of some concepts and geopolitical approaches towards the international relations in the Indian Ocean, later the Great Indian Ocean (GIO). It is the conceptual approaches that have given and give the opportunity to understand the system and structure of the IO region and to analyze the evolution, trends and practices in this system. In recent decades, the region has evolved from the mosaic of countries and the randomness of interstate relations in the first postcolonial years to a qualitatively different than before, expanded and central role in world politics and geostrategy due to new factors of the 21st century, many of which were somehow reflected in theoretical ideas of international relations (IO), proposed by Indian scholars. The article analyzes the correlation of approaches of Indian authors with Western approaches, reveals the features of Indian approaches in the context of the characteristics of the IR system of the Indian Ocean region, and identifies similarities with approaches of specialists from other Asian countries. The evolution of the concepts of Indian scientists has gone through three stages in its development. The first one is a postcolonial period till 1991, the end of bipolarity. The second is characterized by forming of the IO system under conditions of littoral states entrance in the IO scene and China intrusion in the Indian Ocean region. The essence of the third period is in transformation of the GIO IR system in force of the concept of uniting with the Asia-Pacific Region (APR) and forming Indo-Pacific megaregion.