India may invite Australia for Malabar naval exercise with US & Japan

India is considering inviting Australia to take part in its trilateral Malabar naval exercise with the US and Japan this year, which if it happens will mark the first time the “Quad” countries will come together for the high-voltage combat manoeuvers on the high seas after a gap of 13 years.

There is “a move by India to include Australia” in the 24th Malabar exercise, which will be held in the Bay of Bengal in July-August after the monsoons, but “the final decision is yet be taken”, said sources on Tuesday.

Australian diplomatic sources, on being contacted by TOI, said, “We have a very strong bilateral defence relationship with India. We would be glad to consider all opportunities to engage with the Indian military”. An Australian warship, Anzac-class frigate HMAS Toowoomba, incidentally, is also currently in Mumbai on a four-day visit.

The move to include Australia in Malabar, if it actually translates into reality, will come after India also agreed last year to upgrade the “Quad” dialogue to the foreign minister-level from the earlier joint secretary-level meetings. On the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York last September, the four ministers had discussed shared interests in building a free, open and stable Indo-Pacific, with an eye firmly on an aggressive and expansionist China.

India, of course, will have to keep the “China factor” in mind. China had strongly objected to the India-US Malabar exercise in the Bay of Bengal in 2007 when it was expanded to include Japan, Australia and Singapore as well, firm in its belief that a multilateral naval construct was emerging to “counter and contain” it in the region.
 This had led India to restrict Malabar to a bilateral one with the US for several years -- Japan was included only when the exercise was held in the north-western Pacific in 2009 and 2014 -- before finally agreeing to make Japan a regular participant from 2015 onwards.

India has traditionally been against any militarization of the Quad to avoid needlessly antagonizing a prickly China. Similarly, New Delhi has also made it clear the US should not “conflate” the Indo-Pacific with the Quad, stressing the centrality of Asean in the former.

If Australia is indeed called for the Malabar, it will be a breakaway from the self-imposed restraint. India, of course, is bilaterally expanding its military ties with Australia. India, for instance, had for the first time in mid-2018 dispatched four Sukhoi-30MKI fighters, a C-17 Globemaster-III and C-130J “Super Hercules” aircraft, along with 145 personnel, to take part in the multilateral “Pitch Black” exercise in Australia.

In April last year, India and Australia also conducted their biggest-ever naval exercise called “AusIndEx” to “build inter-operability” off the Visakhapatnam coast, which was followed by the “2-plus-2 dialogue among the defence and foreign secretaries of the two countries in December.

 timesofindia