ISAS Special Reports

The Andaman Sea is increasingly becoming a new battleground for maritime influence in the Indian Ocean. Its geographical centrality in the Bay of Bengal and the Eastern Indian Ocean confers the Andaman Sea geopolitical heft. The geographical centrality of the Andaman Sea in the Bay of Bengal – sprawling as an arc between the Indian subcontinent and the Indochinese peninsula – is eliciting significant interest from both regional and extra-regional powers for three primary reasons: security, trade and shipping. Due to this strategic location, China, the United States, Japan, Australia and the Andaman Sea’s coastal states have begun paying close attention to this critical maritime space. The Institute of South Asian Studies at the National University of Singapore, ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute and the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at the Nanyang Technological University organised a workshop on the various critical elements relating to the Andaman Sea, which are contained in this Special Report.