Editorial: US Official Calls for Permanent Expansion of Malabar Exercises With India

By Prashanth Parameswaran

BAY OF BENGAL (Sept. 7, 2007) - An F/A-18F Super Hornet assigned to the Strike Fighter Squadron 102, left, and an F/A-18E Super Hornet from Strike Fighter Squadron 27, foreground, fly in formation with two Indian Navy Sea Harriers, bottom, and two Indian Air Force Jaguars, right, over Indian Navy aircraft carrier INS Viraat (R 22) during exercise Malabar 07-2. More than 20,000 personnel from the navies of the United States, Australia, India, Japan and Singapore are participating in the exercise. U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Jarod Hodge (RELEASED) [Image: Wiki Commons] >>

The move would be a ‘tangible demonstration’ of regional maritime security cooperation.

The United States and India should consider permanently expanding their annual naval exercise to include other like-minded partners as part of their joint cooperation in the Asia-Pacific, a U.S. defense official said earlier this week.

Exercise MALABAR, which initially began as a bilateral naval exercise between the United States and India back in 1992, has at times been expanded to include other partners as well. The 2007 iteration included Japan, Australia, and Singapore, while Tokyo also participated in 2009 and 2014. This year, Japan has been included but Australia has reportedly been left out (See: “Japan to Join US, India in Military Exercises This Year”).

But Robert Scher, the assistant secretary of defense for the Office of Strategy, Plans and Capabilities, told an audience at a Washington, D.C.-based think tank on July 13 that the United States and India should consider permanently expanding the exercise to include these partners instead of doing so on an ad hoc basis. Scher said that expanding the exercise would be one tangible demonstration of Washington and New Delhi working together on maritime security in the Indian Ocean.

“Why can’t we look at regularizing multilateral Malabar all the time? We’ve done it occasionally and then we kind of fall back and then we go forward a little more,” Scher, who also previously served as deputy assistant secretary for South and Southeast Asia at the Pentagon, said during a panel discussion at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Read the full story at The Diplomat