"In retrospect, the first-ever visit by a NATO naval force in mid-September last year to the Indian Ocean was a full-dress rehearsal to this end. Brussels said at that time, 'The aim of the mission is to demonstrate NATO's capability to uphold security and international law on the high seas and build links with regional navies.' In 2007, a NATO naval force visited Seychelles in the Indian Ocean and Somalia and conducted exercises in the Indian Ocean and then re-entered the Mediterranean via the Red Sea in end-September.
"[An] Indian warship [dispatched off the coast of Somalia] will eventually have to work in tandem with the NATO naval force. This will be the first time that the Indian armed forces will be working shoulder-to-shoulder with NATO forces in actual operations in territorial or international waters.
"The operations hold the potential to shift India's ties with NATO to a qualitatively new level." [6]
Securing the safe passage of vessels in the Gulf of Aden and particularly those delivering United Nations World Food Programme aid is a legitimate concern.
Plans by the United States and NATO to turn the whole Indian Ocean into its military and global energy war lake are not.
1) Project Syndicate, December 28, 2008
2) My Turn To Speak: Iran, The Revolution And Secret Deals With The U.S, 1991
3) Newsweek, September 23, 1977
4) Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies Journal, June 1981
5) Power and Principle: Memoirs of the National Security Adviser
6) Asia Times, October 20, 2008
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