NEW DELHI: The United States has put out feelers for basing Marines in India under a scheme for a chain of joint Anglo-US bases in the Indian Ocean area, the “Indian Express” reported in a dispatch from London today. American naval bases in the Indian Ocean are expected to link the Seventh Fleet in the South China Sea and the Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean and thereby facilitate US action in any future emergency in South-East Asia, the report added. Britain is reported to have decided to make available certain British-administered islands in the region to US Navy.

The British decision to provide bases formally ends the lingering doubts in strategic thinking in Whitehall, which has hitherto regarded the Indian Ocean as the Royal Navy’s exclusive preserve, the report said. Whitehall maintains that the projected joint bases, when created, would supplement and not replace the Aden and Gan bases bases of Britain. Gan is the RAF staging post in the Maldives. Although Whitehall insists that America is not replacing Britain in the Indian Ocean, the British decision to lease the bases is an open admission that Britain is no longer able to shoulder its “traditional” responsibilities in the area, the report added.

Published in Dawn, September 1st, 2014