English Title: 'Region Indian Ocean' : Illusion or Reality?

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Abstract

Die vorliegende Dissertation stellt aus einer neorealistisch-kognitiven Sicht eine Erklärung für das regelmäßige Scheitern von Regionalisierungsmaßnahmen im Indischen Ozean vor und legt dar, wie ihnen dennoch zum Erfolg verholfen werden könnte. Der zugegebenermaßen nicht gerade bescheidene Zweck dieser Erklärung wiederum besteht in der Hoffnung, dadurch den ins Stocken geratene Regionalisierungsprozeß auf realistischer Basis wieder in Gang zu setzen. Die zentrale These dieser Arbeit lautet, daß Regimebildungs- und Regionalisierungsversuche im Indischen Ozean regelmäßig scheitern, weil der Rahmen dieser Initiativen falsch gewählt wurde: der Indische Ozean ist nach Ansicht des Autors in der Perzeption der beteiligten maßgeblichen Akteure keine eigenständige Region, daher kann es auch keine erfolgreiche Regimebildung auf der Ebene des Indischen Ozeans geben. Nach dem Wissensstand des Verfassers wurde diese These bisher noch nicht vertreten, vielmehr wurde (und wird) von der epistemischen Gemeinschaft der 'Indik-Experten' als treibender Kraft hinter den erfolglosen Regionalisierungsbemühungen die Existenz einer eigenständigen Region stillschweigend vorausgesetzt. Indem sie diese stillschweigende Übereinkunft kritisch hinterfragt und letztlich auch als fehlgeleitet entlarvt, betritt diese Dissertation wissenschaftliches Neuland. Es wird sich im Verlauf der Untersuchungen zeigen, daß Regionalisierungsversuche im Indischen Ozean, die ihn komplett abdecken sollen, tatsächlich auf Sand gebaut sind. Es wird sich aber auch zeigen, daß eine Regionalisierung im Indischen Ozean nicht unmöglich ist, wenn man den korrekten geographischen Rahmen wählt: In seinem nördlichen Teil � dem Golf von Bengalen und der Arabischen See � sind aufgrund des sicherheits- und wirtschaftspolitischen Interesses Indiens als eines hegemonialen Staates nachhaltige Regionalisierungsimpulse wahrnehmbar, die sich mittlerweile auch auf die Arabische See ausgedehnt haben. Tatsächlich besteht bezüglich des Golfs von Bengalen sogar Grund für verhaltenen Optimismus. Die Quintessenz dieser Dissertation lautet daher, daß die epistemische Gemeinschaft als bisher wichtigster Impulsgeber und Ideenlieferant gut beraten wäre, sich in den nächsten Jahren vornehmlich mit dieser maritimen Subregion zu beschäftigen und den dortigen, noch recht zaghaften Prozeß nach Kräften zu fördern. Die Vorgehensweise dieser Dissertation schließt sich metatheoretisch und methodisch weitgehend an das Vorgehen Barry Buzans an, der für den asiatisch-pazifischen Raum die � perfekt auf den Indischen Ozean übertragbare � Frage stellte: "Asia-Pacific: what sort of region in what sort of world?" Buzan stellt als Kriterien für das Vorhandensein einer "Region für sich" das Vorhandensein von gemeinsamen Merkmalen (shared characteristics), geordneter Interaktionen (patterned interactions) und gemeinsamen Perzeptionen (shared perception) heraus.

Translation of abstract (English)

"Region Indian Ocean" � Illusion or Reality? I. Introduction With approximately 74 million square kilometers and roughly 20 per cent of the global ocean, the Indian Ocean is the third largest ocean after the Pacific and the Atlantic. Two key characteristics distinguishes the Indian Ocean from the Atlantic and the Pacific: First, only one fifth of the total trade is conducted among the countries of the Indian Ocean themselves, 80 per cent of the trade is extra-regional (for example, crude oil to Europe, the USA and Japan). In the Atlantic and the Pacific, the proportion is exactly vice versa. Second, contrary to the Atlantic and the Pacific as "open" oceans, the Indian Ocean can only be accessed through several choke points: From the West via Cape of Good Hope and the Straits of Madagascar, from the North via the Straits of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf, from the East via the Straits of Malacca, the Sunda and Lombok-Straits and the Ombai-Wetar-Straits. The modern history of the Indian Ocean is a history of perennial regional conflicts - in the Persian Gulf, in South Asia (the Indo-Pakistani wars), in Southeast Asia (e. g., the so-called Konfrontasi between Indonesia on the one side and Malaysia and Singapore on the other, and, nowadays, the East-Timor conflict and the possible disintegration of Indonesia itself) and in Southern Africa. Because of the possibility of an interruption of the sea lines of communication (SLOCs), these conflict always have an international dimension as well. Therefore, from a political science point of view, it is quite surprising that up to now, no platform for regional cooperation has been successfully established in the Indian Ocean that could have been able to ameliorate such conflicts on a common security level. Of course, there have been some attempts to create such multilateral platforms, like the Indian Ocean as a Zone of Peace (IOZOP) proposal, the Indian Ocean Marine Affairs Cooperation (IOMAC) or even the modest Indian Ocean Tune Commission (IOTC). Even the most recent attempt, the Indian Ocean Rim Association for Regional Cooperation (IOR-ARC) does not seem to be particularly successful and is deemed to be already dead by many observers. This state of affairs is a stark contrast to a seemingly successful regionalization on at least the economic and security levels in the Asia-Pacific, where security regimes like the Western Pacific Naval Symposium (WPNS) or the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) and economic regimes like the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) could be established. Now, both the Asia-Pacific and the Indian Ocean are maritime 'grand' regions with similar sets of problems � and possible solutions. The main puzzle, therefore, can be summed up in the following two questions: 1.Why does regionalization work in the Asia-Pacific, but not in the Indian Ocean? 2.What are the reasons for the failure of regionalization attempts in the Indian Ocean? I argue that the main reason for the continuous failure of establishing a successful multilateral platform in the Indian Ocean, be it on a security level or on an economic level, can be found in a faulty construction of the region itself: In the perception of relevant actors in the Indian Ocean, the Indian Ocean is not a region by itself, and because of the absence of a meaningful region, any attempt to start a process of regionalization is doomed to fail from the very beginning. To proof � or disproof � this argument, I will examine the Indian Ocean as a geographic region, a historical region, an economic region and a political region. In a final part, I will use the findings to examine whether the Indian Ocean could be seen as a cognitive region, that is a region which exists as a 'mind map' in the perception of its epistemic community, its business community and its political community. The thesis then concludes with proposing a way out. II. Theory and Methods Since I am looking for a 'region' named Indian Ocean, it would only be consequent to adopt a geo-political approach as a theoretical background. Instead, I opted for a cooperative neorealist-cognitivist approach in connection with constructivism as the meta-theoretical framework. As a methodology of research, I have chosen � and adapted � world-systems theory of Immanuel Wallerstein. I am convinced that this approach is a more neutral one than a geo-political which is geared more for research on political relationships within a grouping of states. As we will see later on, geopolitical concepts are important for the Indian Ocean in modern times. However, adopting such an approach as the main instrument of research might have given this thesis an undue tilt towards modern developments, thus neglecting historical and cognitive aspects. The systems theory can easily be adapted for a research on historical aspects of international relations. It also makes it possibly to discern between empirical-analytical regions which can be measured but which do not have an identity of its own � in my parlance "systems" � and cognitive regions which also exist in the minds of people, at least in the minds of relevant actors from political, economic and socio-cultural elites as opinion-leaders. In a sense, to play with Marxian terminology, I am looking for "Region an sich" and "Region für sich". To facilitate further in-depth comparison of the Indian Ocean with the Asia-Pacific in regard of regionalization processes, I adopted Barry Buzan's way of analyzing the latter one: He first looked for 'shared characteristics' or common geographical and climatic features, then for 'patterned interactions' � perhaps unconsciously following Braudel � and finally for 'shared perception'. In this thesis, the search for a geographical or climatic region runs under the headline 'shared characteristics, the search for an economic and/or a geopolitical region under the rubric 'patterned interaction' and, finally, the search for a cognitive region under the heading 'shared perception'. III. Regionalization Attempts in the Indian Ocean Today After explaining the theoretical and methodological approaches and before questioning the very idea of a region, it is fitting to describe the current state of affairs in regard of regionalization in the Indian Ocean 'region'. On a sub-regional level, we can see several organizations with different grades of success: Southeast Asia is home of the most successful sub-regional organization outside of Europe, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), founded in August 1967 in Bangkok. Also quite successful up to now is the Southern African Development Community (SADC), which was inaugurated in 1990 as successor of the previous anti-colonial Southern African Development Coordination Conference (SADCC). Like ASEAN, SADC comprises all sub-regional states, and also like ASEAN, it is gradually developing into a security community. Less successful is the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) in South Asia, founded in 1984, which is greatly hampered by the perennial Kashmir Conflict between India and Pakistan. As some critics claim, its greatest success can be found in the fact that against all odds, it still exists. Politically nearly dead but alive and kicking as a socio-cultural venture, the Gulf Cooperation Council struggles on in the Persian Gulf sub-region. GCC was created as an internal security community under the impression of the first Gulf War between Iraq and Iran from 1980 to 1988 and was made all but irrelevant by the outbreak of the 2nd Gulf War, the so-called Kuwait War. On the Eastern coast of Africa, another sub-regional community has already disappeared without a trace: the East African Community (EAC). EAC had been founded in 1967 as an African EWG, bringing together the states of Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. Under the impression of Idi Amin's reign of terror in Uganda, Tanzania's socialism under Julius Nyerere and Kenya's capitalism under the guidance of Jomo Kenyatta and Daniel Arap Moi, EAC broke up in 1977, only ten years after its creation. On a 'trans-sub-regional' level, we find two relatively new regimes in the Gulf of Bengal and the Arabian Sea: In the Gulf of Bengal, we find Bangladesh-India-Myanmar-Sri Lanka-Thailand Economic Cooperation (BIMST-EC) as an attempt for economic cooperation, founded in 1997. Officially, the idea had been tabled by Thailand, but basically, BIMST-EC is an Indian venture. The same is true for Milan, a very low-key naval symposium, or rather, in the words of some Indian admirals, "a get-together of regional navies". Milan goes back to an initiative of Admiral Ramdas, INS, and was inaugurated in 1995. Since 2000, it has been 'exported' into the Arabian Sea as Milan West, bringing together the navies of India, Iran and Oman. Both BIMST-EC and Milan could turn out to be success stories, but in the moment, it is still too early to take a position. On a regional level, spanning the Indian Ocean as a whole, we find three attempts at regionalization which, so far, all failed. The first attempt was the Indian Ocean as a Zone of Peace (IOZOP) proposal, tabled by Sri Lanka in October 1971 at the UN. However, for various reasons � the most important a shift in security policy by the Indian Union � IOZOP has never been implemented. The Indian Ocean Maritime Affairs Committee (IOMAC) as a second attempt to start a process of regionalization in the Indian Ocean came into being in Arusha, Tanzania, in 1990. Contrary to IOZOP, IOMAC focused on non-military security issues like maritime resources management and coastal development. Since it has never been ratified by the required quorum of states, it can be considered dormant from its very start. Today, we are witnesses of a third attempt at regionalization: The Indian Ocean Rim Association for Regional Cooperation (IOR-ARC), inaugurated with high hopes in Mauritius in March 1997, is meant to do to Indian Ocean economics the same as the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) did for the Asia-Pacific. So far, the output of IOR-ARC has been less than satisfying � many critics are convinced that IOR-ARC is already dead. In a nutshell: Compared with the Asia-Pacific, regionalization in the Indian Ocean did not take off, favorable push-and-pull factors like the end of the Cold War, the demise of the Soviet Union and the forces of globalization and liberalization notwithstanding. If we accept the tenet that regionalization is beneficial in terms of security, including economic and social welfare, it is important, therefore, to answer an important question: what kind of "region" is the Indian Ocean � if any? In my opinion, and congruent with the mainstream of regionalization theory as influenced by constructivism, the main actors of a "region" have to be convinced that such a region exists before they start with attempts of regionalization. If they do not believe in the existence of a "region", why should they embark on regionalization in the first place? The main part of the thesis tries to answer this question by looking at various ways to form a "region" � a geographical region, a climatic region, a historical region, an economic region, a political region and � most important and most difficult at the same time � a 'cognitive' region, which means, a region as a "mind map" in the heads of the leading actors. IV. The Indian Ocean as a Geographical Region The easiest way out seems to be to define the Indian Ocean simply in a mere geographical sense as a maritime entity comparable to the Atlantic and the Pacific. However, such a definition is nothing but a matter of convenience and conventions. For example, some decades ago, geographers did not deal at all with oceans or maritime regions � oceans were either ignored or seen as barriers between continental regions and obstacles for human interaction. To define maritime entities like the Atlantic and the Pacific is a rather recent theoretical development. Please do not forget that the expression "Indian Ocean World" was not coined by geographers, but by historians like Kenneth McPherson. For this reason, I argue with Fernand Braudel that it is human interaction which forms a region by filling a mere geographical construct with life, thus attributing to it meaning and identity. The same is true for the Indian Ocean. So, in my opinion, because of its ambivalence, a geographical definition does not lead us far enough. Another possibility would be to define the Indian Ocean as a climatic region, thus saving the day for geographers. True enough, in the Indian Ocean we can see a phenomenon affecting it: the system of the monsoons. However, the monsoon system does not at all affect the whole Indian Ocean, but only its northern part, which means the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal. Since large parts of the Indian Ocean are not covered by this system, we cannot define the Indian Ocean in toto as a climatic region. Since the monsoons also affect the South China Sea, which does not form part of the Indian Ocean by any definition, we could rather be tempted to conclude that there is a climatic region named Southern Asia, as defined � in a more conventional geopolitical fashion � by the late Jawaharlal Nehru and as taken up again by various Indian governments from the early nineties onward. Attempts to define an "Indian Ocean region" on the basis of geographic and/or climatic evidence are thus not very convincing and not capable of providing a fundament strong enough for regionalization. V. The Indian Ocean as a Historical Region How about a historic region, then? Just like a geographic system, a historic system belongs to Buzan's category of shared characteristics. Apart from scrutinizing Buzan's criteria, the 'quest' for a historic region Indian Ocean or at least a historic system in the Indian Ocean is more than a simple exercise in advanced casuistic: the knowledge of such a historic system can be used as a foundation for present � or future � regionalization ventures. One telling case in point is the ancient Silk Road of Central Asia, formerly connecting Europe and China: Today the common heritage of this trade route is used as a vehicle for the reconstruction of economic relations between the former member states of the erstwhile Soviet Union. I have already mentioned the idea of a self-contained Indian Ocean World, which was born in the times of Sumer and Harappa roughly 2500 b. C., reached its apogee during the fifteenth century and eventually faded away in the later half of the sixteenth and the seventeenth century � the so-called "Vasco da Gama" epoch. This Indian Ocean World was a system of sea lines and trading places. It was known under the names Maritime Silk Road, Spice Road or Porcelain Road, depending on the most expensive goods at a certain epoch. In the fifteenth century, this trade system covered the Arabian Sea from Sofala in modern Mozambique as its southernmost terminus, the entire Bay of Bengal and the South China Sea up to Zaitun or today's Quanzhou on the Chinese coast as its northernmost terminus. It is nearly identical in its reach with the monsoon system, which � in the age of the sailing craft � greatly facilitated movements of ships, goods, and human beings. But the historical system shares another feature with the climatic system of the monsoons: This historical system is at the same time too large � it also covers the South China Sea which is not considered to be part of the Indian Ocean today � and too small, since it leaves out the whole southern part of the Indian Ocean including both extremes of the Indian Ocean Rim, South Africa and Australia. For our purpose, such a definition is useless. So let us talk about the Indian Ocean as an economic and/or a political region. VI. The Indian Ocean as an Economic Region In regard of Indian Ocean economics, one can find at least three different systems: First, there is an extra-regional bustling transit trade between East and West or between the Pacific and the Atlantic passing through the Indian Ocean. In the words of Sandy Gordon, the Indian Ocean functions as an "international transit lounge of global trade". The second trade system in the Indian Ocean is the trade with natural oil and gas coming from the Persian Gulf. Although a certain amount of these commodities remains in the Indian Ocean Rim states, especially in India, most of this kind of trade again is extra-regional in character. Only the third trade system is regional � or shall we rather call it 'sub-regional'? Calling it sub-regional may be more appropriate, since there are basically two different systems, one in the Arabian Sea, the other one in the Bay of Bengal. Apart from these two sub-regions of the Indian Ocean, there are no other areas with intra-regional trade connections to speak of. All other maritime trade originating from Indian Ocean Rim countries or ending there is conducted with countries or regions outside of the Indian Ocean: with the USA, the European Union, or the countries of the Asia-Pacific. In a nutshell, it is not very plausible to define the Indian Ocean in a geo-economic way. VII. The Indian Ocean as a Political Region The last definition that remains to be destroyed is the (geo-) political one. Unfortunately, that can be done quite easily, too. Just take a look at Australia's and South Africa's foreign and security policies: Australia, where the seat of government, nearly all important business branches and the majority of the population is situated at the shores of the Pacific, is looking East into the Pacific in general and the USA and the Asia Pacific in particular. South Africa on the other hand is mostly interested in its own sub-region, Southern Africa and, apart from that, looking into the Atlantic. The neglect of the Indian Ocean goes so far that we failed to get even one interview partner from South Africa for our research project on maritime security in the Indian Ocean: Everybody seemed to be occupied by the political transformation of the country and its implications. When we now turn our attention north to India, we find a country that, despite being called the one dominant power or the natural hegemony of the Indian Ocean, had only very residual maritime interests until the end of the Cold War. The Indian Ocean never loomed large in the perception of Delhi's policy makers, and even now, the Indian foreign and security policy interest is focused on the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal, and that's it. The very same picture you get when you are an adherent of Barry Buzan's concept of security complexes. Buzan himself argued in 1985 that in the Indian Ocean, there are five security complexes with only few or no connections at all: a) Southern Africa, b) the Horn of Africa, c) the Persian Gulf, d) South Asia and e) Southeast Asia. Nearly two decades later, I would argue that there are at least some connections between the security complexes of South Asia and Southeast Asia which overlap in the Bay of Bengal anyway and between the security complexes of South Asia and the Persian Gulf which meet in the Arabian Sea. Again, what comes out is a certain trend for increasing interactions in the northern part of the Indian Ocean. I will come back to this finding later on. VIII. Empirical Results: A Summary As the elaboration above shows, there is no empirical evidence beyond mere "geographics" proofing the existence of an Indian Ocean region, neither in terms of history, economics or geopolitics. However, there is ample empirical evidence pointing at the existence of a "system" consisting of historical, political and � somewhat lesser developed � economic contacts with its center of gravity in the Northern parts of the Indian Ocean, viz. in the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea. However, the availability of such empirical evidence does not necessarily mean that there is an awareness of the existence of such a system which could possibly form the focus for future regionalization attempts. To translate this argument into Marxist terminology: what we have shown so far, is the existence of a system in the Northern part of the Indian Ocean as a "Region an sich" (a region as an analytical concept), but not as a "Region für sich" (a region being perceived as such by relevant actors). IX. The Indian Ocean as a Cognitive Region In order to further elucidate the fragility of the concept of the Indian Ocean as a region in its own right, we now have to turn to the Indian Ocean as a "cognitive region", which means: an Indian Ocean region as a mental map in the minds of relevant actors from political, economic and cultural elites. For this purpose, it is in order now to present an overview of perceptions about the geopolitical environment of the Indian Ocean today as seen by members of the political elite, business groups, and the epistemic community. IX.1Epistemic Community In the perception of the epistemic community as members of the socio-cultural elite of Indian Ocean Rim states, the Indian Ocean definitely is both a geographic and a historical region, formed by the system of the Monsoons and the trade networks. In their view, the Indian Ocean has been an economic region of its own until the advent of Western powers in the 16th century, but it is no economic region today. The opinions about whether the Indian Ocean of today also could be called a political region range from a cautious "yes" to an absolute "no". IX.2Business Group Members In the opinion of the business group members, the very question is irrelevant: Thinking in terms of globalization and liberalization rather than regionalization, business persons are interested first of all in market shares in the developed countries of Western Europe, North America and Pacific Asia and, second, in their own subregion. For them, the Indian Ocean of today is nothing but a "transit lounge", as Sandy Gordon put it. The business community would only take a closer look at the Indian Ocean if they could be convinced that an economic take-off is imminent. Unfortunately, up to now, they are not convinced that the Indian Ocean would follow the example of the Asia-Pacific anytime soon. The Indian Ocean Association for Regional Cooperation (IOR-ARC) is a case in point: In the opinion of most respondents from both the business and political community, IOR-ARC does not have a future. All respondents except one expressed grave doubts about IOR-ARC's potential for further meaningful development. It was frequently pointed out that fewer and fewer delegates are attending IOR-ARC meetings. One could argue that empirical data on IOR-ARC suggest exactly the contrary, but if this negative perception spreads, it would be a kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy. IX.3Political Elites Interestingly, respondents from political circles did agree that the Indian Ocean has been a region in its own right in the eighties because of the spill-over of the superpower conflict between the USA and the USSR from the Atlantic and the Pacific into this region. This resulted in a perception of common security concerns and in initiatives like the Indian Ocean as a Zone of Peace (IOZOP) proposal. Now that the superpower conflict is gone, the idea of a region dissipates again. The reason behind this is, in the opinion even of the Indian respondents, a general lack of a "maritime tradition" and a general lack of knowledge about the importance of the ocean for the Indian Ocean Rim states. Therefore, respondents from the political elite � naval officers and government officials � opined that the Indian Ocean as a peaceful ocean does not draw enough official interest to be thought of as more than a geographic region � nobody has a real stake in it. In their view, the Indian Ocean definitely is neither a political region nor an economic region. IX.4Conclusion In a nutshell, the Indian Ocean being an underdeveloped but peaceful ocean devoid of potential military conflicts is only being perceived as a region by members of the epistemic community. This view, however, is not shared by members of both political and economic elites of the major Indian Ocean Rim states. One can argue that the Indian Ocean does not feature high on the business, foreign and security policy agenda of its most powerful rim states because of its being peaceful. This means for the time being, there are no incentives to establish a meaningful multilateral security platform there. Interestingly, the interviews with South Asian and Southeast Asian respondents also contained a possible solution for this problem: inaugurating some form of co-operation in one part of the Indian Ocean "where the trouble makers are not present", as one Indian respondent quipped, and slowly and gradually extending it to other parts of the region to eventually cover the whole Indian Ocean Rim. An example for this approach could be Milan East in the Bay of Bengal. This "social gathering of naval personnel" from navies present in the Bay of Bengal was initiated by India as an attempt to appease concerns in regard of its naval build-up. Because of its success as a confidence building measure, India organized a similar venture in the Arabian Sea in the year 2000 as Milan West with the navies of Iran and Oman as participants. Since the Bay of Bengal is a part of the Indian Ocean without "trouble makers" (as defined by Indians), it could be a useful focus for either beefing up Milan or implementing a more ambitious symposium. X.A 'Focus Theory' for the Indian Ocean In the beginning, I described myself as a neorealist. Now it is time to use the word "realist" in its colloquial meaning: there seems to be an impenetrable barrier between non-official second track affairs conducted mainly by members of the epistemic community and the official first track diplomacy conducted by government officials. In other words: developing new ideas about ways to live together more peacefully are the easy part of the job. The difficult part is trying to get listened to, by way of policy counseling and/or lobbying. Policy counseling implies an already existing access to relevant policy-makers, lobbying implies the existence of some pressure groups with a similar set of interests. Both of them imply the existence of (lots of) patience and perseverance. In the Asia-Pacific, the epistemic community got its miracle by way of the dissolution of the USSR and the dawning of the new era of "globalization" and "liberalization", which helped to bring about policy changes in the USA which was largely responsible for the creation of first the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) as an economic regime and then the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) as a security regime. Both are still working. The epistemic community in the Indian Ocean only got half a miracle which helped bringing about the Indian Ocean Rim Association for Regional Cooperation (IOR-ARC) as a feeble attempt to establish an economic regime. Since IOR-ARC has lost most of its initial steam, and since a security regime still is out of question, the epistemic community would be well advised to both re-examine their geographical definition of the phenomenon colloquially called "Indian Ocean", which is obviously faulty, as this thesis has demonstrated. The Indian Ocean as a peaceful ocean is no region in its own right, but merely a geographical construct without any further meaning. For that reason, any attempt to inaugurate a forum for security cooperation in the whole Indian Ocean is premature and bound to fail: No dominant power has a real stake in the whole Indian Ocean � neither India, nor Australia, nor South Africa. But at least one dominant power, India, has a stake in the northern part of the Indian Ocean, e. g. the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea. I would therefore suggest to drop all over ambitious plans for the moment and concentrate on these two regions. We may actually have a chance of getting something accomplished�