The six-day-long exercise currently underway in the Bay of Bengal is one of the biggest war games the world will see this year. But not all its participants want that fact broadcast. The exercise, dubbed Malabar 07-02, involves warships from the U.S., Australia, India, Japan and Singapore — more than two dozen, in all, including two U.S. aircraft carrier and India's sole carrier, and a nuclear-powered submarine. Participants are keen to stress that the exercise will focus on anti-piracy drills and rescue missions and in no way threatens a certain growing Asian power to the north. "There is no military alignment," India's Defense Minister A.K. Antony said recently. "It's only an exercise."
But Beijing won't see it that way. China's government was unhappy when India, Japan and the U.S. held a smaller naval exercise in the western Pacific earlier this year. When officials from those three countries and Australia met in June for talks on a new "Quadrilateral Initiative," Beijing protested and asked the four nations for an official explanation of the grouping.
For domestic reasons, each of the countries spins the growing ties between the four quite differently. Japan, which feels most threatened by a stronger China, is keen to play up the strategic importance of the group. Japanese leaders speak of "an Asian arc of freedom and prosperity" made up of democracies across the Indian and Pacific Oceans, and presumably acting as a counterweight to undemocratic China. Australia, on the other hand, is extremely worried about upsetting Beijing. Its economy has boomed over the past decade thanks in part to China's voracious appetite for raw materials, which Australia is only too happy to provide. India's government is keen to strengthen ties with Washington, but must also deal with the fact that the left-wing parties on whose support it relies to stay in power are unhappy about growing Indo-U.S. relations, and see the military exercise as proof of "India's growing subservience to the United States." Washington, for its part, would like to strengthen its defense ties with Asian allies without annoying Beijing.
But no matter how each participant tries to sell this exercise, there is little doubt as to its symbolic and even practical implications in the region. The four navies, plus that of Singapore, will test what military folk call "inter-operability" of equipment and techniques. That will not only help in future operations they might conduct together, but will also showcase what weapons systems countries such as India lack, and may end up buying from the U.S. Washington is in the running to sell Delhi combat planes and other weaponry. India will likely still source some of its military needs from Russia and Europe, but the days when it would not buy American for ideological reasons are long gone. As commercial and military ties grow stronger, there is little doubt that such naval exercises "point toward the future geopolitical arrangement in the Asia-Pacific region," says Brahma Chellaney, Professor of Strategic Studies at the Delhi-based Centre for Policy Research. "Yes, some of the countries involved don't want to promote this too much to avoid upsetting China, but at the same time it's a very important reminder to China."