America and India Need a Little Flexibility at Sea

U.S. and Japanese Navy ships are docked at a harbor during the inauguration of joint naval exercises, in Chennai, India, on July 10, 2017. Arun Sankar/AFp via Getty Images

Headlines recently shrieked outrage in India after an April 7 announcement from the U.S. 7th Fleet that it had conducted a freedom of navigation operation (commonly referred to as a FONOP) in the Indian Ocean targeting Indian claims. Some Indian commentators were shocked to learn that the United States, a burgeoning strategic partner, was publicly boasting about sailing warships through Indian waters to challenge India’s “excessive maritime claims”—an indignity they assumed was reserved for mutual rivals like China.

The operation generated a mini firestorm in India, providing fuel for skeptics opposed to stronger India-U.S. ties. It was paraded around as evidence of America’s unreliability, an affront to Indian sovereignty, and an act of hypocrisy from a country that has yet to ratify the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).