Former chief of naval staff Admiral Arun Prakash calls for formation of a maritime partnership for IOR nations

VEREM: Former chief of naval staff Admiral Arun Prakash on Wednesday, while speaking at the Goa Maritime Conclave called for the establishment of a multinational maritime collaboration between nations of the Indian Ocean Region.

"It is time for us to consider an Indian Ocean Maritime Partnership," Prakash said while speaking on emerging maritime threats and the options available for India's maritime planners. "Such a multinational partnership could be mobilized at short notice to spread the burden of meeting the tasks related to good order at sea and address many other areas of common concern."

Prakash highlighted the rise of traditional and non-traditional maritime threats while also pointing out that financial constraints prevented individual nations from rapidly acquiring naval platforms.

"The Navies will have make a choice between independent operations and interoperability and cooperation with other navies. Here we may note that broader compulsions of globalization and universal concern for security of global concerns are eroding the old concepts of naval dominance within the nation state paradigm," Prakash said.