The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 amplified the Red Sea’s strategic relevance, making it one of the world’s most vital maritime corridors - funnelling nearly 12% of global trade between Asia, Europe, and Africa. Owing to the increasing economic and geopolitical significance of the trade corridor, countries along the western littoral of the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden have become focal points for ports, bases, and logistics hubs. 

As maritime chokepoints have become arenas of strategic contestation, the Red Sea remains at the centre of regional geopolitics. The turbulence witnessed during the last 24 to 36 months, diplomatic manoeuvring is not an aberration. Rather, it is the latest phase in a long historical continuum in which the Red Sea has functioned as a conduit of trade, ideas, power, and rivalry.

India’s fortunes are strongly intertwined with these distant waters. Its trade flows, energy supplies, diaspora, and development partnerships span these regions. Stability in the Red Sea directly affects its economic trajectory. 

From Houthis To Somaliland

During the Cold War, the Red Sea became a theatre of superpower rivalry through alliances with regional states, military bases, and naval presence. Conflicts in the Middle East, the Horn of Africa, and Yemen frequently spilled into the maritime domain, reinforcing the perception of the Red Sea as a zone of strategic volatility. More recently, the repeated attacks on commercial ships by the Yemen-based Houthi rebels in 2023 and 2024 not only jeopardised the maritime security in the Gulf of Aden, the Red Sea and the larger Western Indian Ocean but also gave an opportunity to US and its allies to further militarise the region under the umbrella of the Combined Maritime Forces (CMF) Task Force. 

Israel’s recent recognition of Somaliland, in December 2025, has further added a new layer of complexity into the already volatile region. This move, in all likelihood, would allow Israel to gain a foothold in one of the world’s most critical corridors for global trade, while bolstering its intelligence activities, most likely directed against the Houthis in Yemen. Israel’s recognition signals that the Red Sea is no longer merely a trade route but an extension of Middle Eastern security competition. However, Tel Aviv’s recent moves bring it in a direct confrontation with Türkiye, which has, over the decades, heavily invested in Somalia, through infrastructure development, humanitarian aid and military training. 

Geopolitical Implications For India

India’s engagement with the Red Sea is both historic and enduring. Mastery of monsoon winds enabled Indian and Arab sailors to undertake lengthy voyages across the Arabian Sea, reducing reliance on coastal hopping. The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, a Greco-Roman navigational manual dating to the 1st century CE, vividly records this world, noting Indian ports such as Barygaza (modern Bharuch) and Muziris (Kerala) as thriving hubs exporting spices, textiles, gemstones, and aromatics to Red Sea ports like Berenice and Myos Hormos in Roman Egypt. This centuries-old corridor remains vital today: roughly 50% of India’s exports and 30% of its imports flow through the Red Sea, with up to 80% of exports to Europe traversing the Red Sea and Suez Canal. History and contemporary trade alike underscore the corridor’s strategic centrality to India’s economic and maritime interests.

Energy security remains an even more pressing concern for India. The country imports the bulk of its crude oil and an increasing share of its LNG through the Red Sea. Any sustained disruption in Red Sea traffic risks price volatility and supply uncertainty, with cascading effects on inflation and economic growth. It was quite visible during in the aftermath of Houthi attacks which had affected India’s seaborne trade. 

For India, the Horn of Africa presents a convergence of opportunity and calculated risk. It offers strategic opportunity, as deeper engagement with African partners reinforces India’s Africa policy and its long-standing commitment to South–South cooperation. At the same time, intensifying great-power competition could complicate India’s carefully calibrated diplomatic balancing and strategic autonomy. However, the risks are worth taking.

India’s engagement with the Red Sea has so far been driven primarily by maritime security imperatives - ensuring freedom of navigation, protecting sea lanes of communication, and responding to episodic crises, primarily through COSAPH (Committee of Secretaries on Anti-Piracy and Hijacking at Sea) and Inter-Ministerial Group of Officers (IMGO). While these remain essential, they are no longer sufficient to protect India’s long-term strategic and economic interests. The current phase of frantic diplomacy will eventually recede, but the underlying drivers of Red Sea instability will persist. For India, the imperative is to move from reactive crisis management to long-term strategic planning. Limiting engagement to naval patrols risks reducing India to a situational security provider, rather than positioning it as a strategic actor shaping the region’s political and economic trajectory. 

Development Partnerships With Littoral States

The Red Sea has emerged as a geopolitical crossroads where security, diplomacy, development, and influence intersect, making it imperative for India to reposition its engagement as a core pillar of its Global South diplomacy. India’s Red Sea strategy cannot be conceived in isolation from its Africa policy. The Red Sea is not merely a maritime corridor; it is the maritime extension of Africa’s eastern seaboard, linking the Horn of Africa to West Asia and Europe. For India, whose engagement with Africa is anchored in development partnership, capacity-building, and South–South cooperation, aligning Red Sea diplomacy with Africa policy is both strategic necessity and opportunity.

Many Red Sea and Horn of Africa states face structural fragility, economic stress, and debt pressures. India’s experience in capacity-building, digital public infrastructure (DPI), healthcare, education, and port-led development gives it comparative advantage. Initiatives aligned with Sagarmala, Maritime India Vision 2030, and India–Africa cooperation frameworks can transform India’s Red Sea presence from episodic to structural. This requires developing a strategic and long-term development plan with the littoral states. By integrating trade facilitation, port development, logistics cooperation, and digital connectivity into its Red Sea approach, India can align its maritime presence with the aspirations of littoral states, many of which seek development partnerships rather than military alliances. 

Need For A Coherent Red Sea Strategy

From the broader lens of India’s Indo-Pacific vision, the picture remains geographically incomplete without a coherent Red Sea strategy. India had formally articulated its Indo-Pacific vision in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s keynote address at the Shangri-La Dialogue in June 2018, which seeks open sea lanes, inclusive growth, and balanced geopolitics, rather than dominance or confrontation. The Red Sea is the western gateway of the Indo-Pacific, linking the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean. Elevating the Red Sea within India’s diplomatic architecture allows New Delhi to connect its eastern maritime priorities with Africa and Europe, reinforcing the idea of a continuous, rule-based maritime commons.

By embedding the Red Sea within its Global South diplomacy, India can protect its trade routes, preserve strategic autonomy, expand friendly and cooperative influence, and reinforce its role as a non-coercive, trusted partner in an increasingly contested maritime order. In doing so, India moves from being a guardian of sea lanes to a shaper of maritime geopolitics, a transition essential for any country aspiring to Global South leadership.

The intense diplomatic engagements in and around this crucial maritime corridor reflect not just competing interests of global powers, but demands a recalibrated approach from New Delhi to secure its economic future, autonomy, and influence. By leveraging centuries-old maritime legacies while navigating contemporary complexities, India finds itself at a strategic crossroads. How it balances diplomatic agility with economic imperatives will define not only its regional standing, but also its resilience in an era where global power, prosperity, and stability are increasingly shaped at sea.

(The writer is a geopolitical analyst and Director, the African Centre of India. Views are personal.)