Can India Exploit China’s ‘Malacca Dilemma’?
India’s defense spending is just over a quarter of China’s, and China holds a 3:1 advantage in airpower. The article argues India could offset this by developing maritime-denial capabilities around the Andaman and Nicobar Islands to threaten the Strait of Malacca, through which nearly 80 percent of China’s energy imports pass. It notes that India currently lacks a coherent maritime denial strategy for the strait.
Why it matters: This bears on the geoeconomics theme of using maritime chokepoints to impose costs on a conventionally superior power.