Peace Is Not a Slogan: Indian Ocean’s Dangerous Moment

This moment has a history. In 1971, Sri Lankan Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike proposed to the United Nations that the Indian Ocean be declared a Zone of Peace

The Indian Ocean has been declared a zone of peace on successive occasions. It is time the world’s major powers started acting like they believe it. For smaller nations like Sri Lanka, still climbing out of the worst economic crisis in its modern history, this is not an abstract geopolitical development. 

A Strait Under Siege

In the waters around the Strait of Hormuz, a large number of commercial ships have come under attack in recent days. Iranian commanders announced that they were in full control of the strait, warning that any ship trying to pass through faced the risk of being hit by missiles or drones. Hundreds of tankers found themselves stuck, unwilling to move. The price of Brent crude jumped by nearly nine percent in a single day. Freight rates shot up to theoretical earnings of $400,000 per day, though very few actual deals were struck because insurers had stopped offering war-risk coverage across the whole region. Ships travelling between Asia and Europe gave up on the Suez Canal route altogether, swinging south around the Cape of Good Hope instead, a detour that adds ten days to every journey.

The Indian Ocean, long considered a relatively stable maritime domain, found itself at the heart of a geopolitical storm.

This is no ordinary oil price rise. Two blows landing at the same time are driving a sharp spike. The total blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, through which a quarter of the world’s seaborne oil and a fifth of its LNG passed in 2025, has combined with direct strikes on energy facilities in Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Israel to push output below pre-war levels. Repairing the damage will keep supplies tight long after the shooting stops.

Demand in the meantime has barely budged. India, Pakistan and Bangladesh are the exception, having introduced gas rationing in their industries, a step that shows just how badly the pressure is being felt on the ground. The disruption is quietly handing Russia back its leverage. With major producers knocked offline, Moscow’s sanctioned oil and gas are now among the few supplies large enough to help steady world markets. Europe, which imports heavily and is absorbing the full force of the price increase, is the most vulnerable of all. It is footing a large part of the bill for a war it had no hand in starting.

India’s Uncomfortable Position

For India, this crisis has opened up a wide gap between what it promises and what it can deliver. India has long presented itself as the main guarantor of peace and order in the Indian Ocean, built around its SAGAR doctrine, Security and Growth for All in the Region. But its quiet, hands-off response to events unfolding virtually on its doorstep has raised hard questions. This crisis has not happened in some far-off corner of the world. It has happened in the very waters where India claims to be in charge. While tankers sit stranded, insurance companies pull out and the United States steps in to shape what happens next in the Indian Ocean, India’s absence from the room where decisions are being made is difficult to ignore. If New Delhi cannot show that its ambitions are backed by genuine strength and the willingness to act under pressure, other powers will quietly step in and build the region’s security order on their own terms.

A Vision From 1971

This moment has a history. In 1971, Sri Lankan Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike proposed to the United Nations that the Indian Ocean be declared a Zone of Peace. It was a bold initiative from a small island nation that resonated powerfully across the developing world. Her proposal called for the removal of all foreign military bases, nuclear weapons and great-power rivalries from the ocean. The United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution 2832 that same year, driven not by a superpower, but by a small nation speaking on behalf of the region’s collective interests.

When Bandaranaike put forward this proposal, opposition leader J.R. Jayewardene brushed it aside, arguing that the whole world should be made a peace zone instead. It sounded bigger but meant nothing, there was no plan, no framework, no practical way forward. It was a clever way of saying nothing at all. History gave its verdict clearly. The United Nations adopted her proposal. Nobody adopted his. Five years later, as host and chair of the 1976 Non-Aligned Movement summit in Colombo, she put Sri Lanka at the heart of world diplomacy, standing firm in her belief that smaller nations had every right to an independent voice in global affairs. More than fifty years on, with conflict once again pushing into Indian Ocean waters, what she stood for feels not just relevant but necessary.

American dominance in the second half of the twentieth century was never won through military victory over its rivals. It happened because of a unique moment in history: Western Europe was rebuilding from war, China was torn apart from within, and Soviet Russia had cut itself off from much of the world. That moment is gone. Other nations have since recovered, grown stronger and found their place. The US is moving, slowly and reluctantly, toward becoming one important country among many rather than the single power that sets the rules for everyone else.

The total blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, through which a quarter of the world’s seaborne oil and a fifth of its LNG passed in 2025 has caused immense difficulties. The second is a series of direct strikes on energy facilities in Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Israel, forcing them to shut down production. Together, these have pushed oil and gas output below the levels seen before the war began. And the pain will not stop when the fighting does. Repairing damaged infrastructure will keep supplies short long after the guns fall silent. The world now faces a market with far less supply but roughly the same level of demand. Asia is the partial exception, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh have introduced gas rationing in their industries, which shows how serious the pressure has become.

This chaos is handing Russia an unexpected advantage. With major producers knocked offline, Moscow’s oil and gas, long pushed aside by Western sanctions, are now among the few sources large enough to help steady global markets and hold prices back from rising even further.

We call on all parties to stop the asymmetric warfare that is pushing this conflict far beyond where it started. Striking targets in open ocean waters does not defeat an enemy. It unsettles an entire region, puts innocent nations at risk and chips away at the international rules that the whole world relies on. A more balanced and peaceful world is within reach, but only if the major powers choose restraint over reach.

Sirimavo Bandaranaike understood that in 1971. The Indian Ocean does not need to become a battlefield to prove it again.

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