INDO-FRENCH STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP IN THE INDIAN OCEAN: IMPLICATIONS FOR PAKISTAN

Abstract

The Indian Ocean is emerging in the 21^st century’s hot battleground not just for regional countries like India, and China but also for the European nations, particularly France. France has overseas territories in Asia-Pacific impelling France to become the resident power. Moreover, France has been continuously engaging in the activities of the Indian Ocean to achieve the objective of securing Sea Lines of Communications and counter the increasing influence of China with the help of India in the region. Both France and India are engaging on many fronts ranging from the maritime partnership to the defense and security pacts. France currently is the second largest defense partner of India. In the recent past, India received 26 Rafael jets for its air force from France, and 39 more marine versions of Rafael were also handed over to the Indian Navy. Both countries also signed agreements to share the diesel submarines. India has still to receive the last diesel submarines from France under project 75. While keeping the close relations between Paris and New Delhi and latter’s proximity with Pakistan resulted in security and military threats. The strategic partnership between India and France has geo-strategic geopolitical and geo-economic challenges for Pakistan. This paper, thus, aims to explore these challenges for Pakistan. The method employed for this research is a mixed method in which both primary and secondary data was used to conduct this study.