Geostrategy and navyports in the Indian Ocean since c. 1970

The Indian Ocean has been, and remains, of vital strategic importance as an arena of superpower rivalry and intervention, the highway for the carriage of Middle East oil, and the theatre of local conflicts. Against this background the paper discusses naval deployment by external and internal powers, and focuses in particular on the navyport and other support systems that have been crucial to that deployment. These support systems are not simply important for the projection of naval power, but also for their contribution to urban development, and it is proposed that their impacts can be clarified by recognising four types of major navyport: (1) the metropolitan Bombay-type; (2) the big-city Cochin-type; (3) the small-town Berbera-type; and (4) the “pure” navyport á la Diego Garcia.