The Indian Ocean links West Asia with the South China Sea, and it is there that containers and freighters matter. Oil is big business, but that’s not all there is to the Indian Ocean. By the second millennium BC the Mediterranean was rapidly coming into contact with the Indian Ocean. Arab engagement with the Indian Ocean began somewhere in the eighth century AD, peaking in the 11th and 12th before ebbing somewhere in the 14th. Not so the wars of the future, if they are waged at all and if they involve India and China athwart the Indian Ocean.

Source: The Nation September 11, 2021 00:22 UTC