From Chokepoint-Dependent to Chokepoint-Controlling: India’s Maritime Strategy After the Hormuz Blockade
Introduction
On February 28, 2026, US and Israel launched several air strikes and coordinated several attacks against Iran, which resulted in Iran closing down the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s biggest trade corridor. The effect of it was catastrophic. Tanker traffic dropped from 70% initially, to 0% later. The Brent crude oil price hiked for the first time in 4 years, passing the threshold of 100$/barrel up to high of 126$/barrel in March-April.
But we are here to talk about India, and in India’s context this closure was not just a distant political event but it became a domestic emergency within days. Here what is interesting is that India has spent years doing and preparing for what is a textbook mitigation during such crisis: It has diversified its suppliers, built bilateral relations with the Gulf states, investing in Chabahar port in Iran, building up the strategic reserves. After doing all these, still India found itself at the hinges of this crisis, it didn’t get the yield what it was hoping to receive. The question here is not, why did India suffer but Why did the preparation not prevent the suffering.
The answer lies in the difference between changing a source and controlling a route. India can buy oil from multiple suppliers such as Russia, Venezuela or Angola. India can change the supplier but India can’t change the route. All these barrels will still have to pass through the checkpoints over which India has no control over and hence they can’t protect them. At the Strait of Hormuz, India is heavily dependent on a waterway which is governed by adverse forces. However, at the Strait of Malacca, the asymmetry runs opposite. India’s Andaman and Nicobar Islands lies around 100 km from the Malacca Strait which has been the unavoidable pressure point for China as it carries 80% of China’s oil which it cannot reroute.
Conversely, here India has a natural geographic leverage. The strategic necessity is to convert this geographical leverage into operational leverage before the next crisis probes this issue again.
Hormuz as Diagnosis: India’s Dependency on the Western Chokepoint
India’s exposure to Hormuz was not a one-time incident but it was structural, caused by decades of procuring energy from the Gulf region. India imports approx. 50% of crude oil and 80 to 85 % of LPG from the Gulf region .The Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kuwait and Qatar have been the major suppliers of India as their proximity kept the freight costs low and the diplomatic relations maintained were stable. What made the problem acute was that The Indian petroleum reserves as of March 2026, had only 5.33 million tonnes, covering only 9.5 days of net import in Phase I. That combined with commercial stock, it was covering roughly 74 days which is way below IEA recommended 90 day buffer. Furthermore, the SPR expansion remains hindered due to delays done by bureaucracies from Phase II expansion projects at Chandi Khol and Padur. So this situation was not just caused by unfortunate global circumstances but also due to treating energy resources as a procurement problem rather than a strategic problem.
When the blockade happened, it compressed all the risks and vulnerabilities into one single rigorous week. With Iran’s broadcasting threats of attacking any ship which entered the passage, the traffic dropped to 0 by March 19. Brent Crude passed over the threshold of 100$ in March 12, and Dubai Crude oil hit the record of $166/barrel in March 19.
The Gulf benchmarks (Dubai/Oman) were blowing above Brent as they were directly impacted by the blockade and since India imports much of its crude off Dubai/Oman, it hit India a lot harder.
Source: Brent Crude oil, Trading Economics
To add into the blow, 2 Indian members died on the Skyline Tanker on March 1. Indian-flagged Haji Ali was struck and sank. India responded with multi-tiered crisis management strategies. The government issued emergency LPG production orders which would cater to the domestic supply of LPG. The production buffed up from 36,000 to 54,000 tonnes/day. Diversification of crude sources: India shifted its inventory towards other suppliers and radically diversified its crude sources. Russia remained its top supplier and Venezuela became the third-largest supply by May. West Africa and Latin America saw increment in Indian purchase and India received first Iranian cargo in seven years under the temporary weaver of US
On the Naval side, India relaunched Operation Sankalp (originally established in 2019) with 6-7 frontline warships including Destroyers and frigates to be deployed at the Gulf of Oman. It expanded into Operation Urja Suraksha, with 5+ additional warships deployed to escort Indian flagged carriers. By 12-24 March they were successful in escorting several LPG carriers out of the Gulf. But again all these are not the Indian maritime defence strategy but rather mitigations for the current problems in hand. Indian Navy could only escort the ships out but it couldn’t control or enter the waterway.
The Failure of the Chabahar Port
Investment in Chabahar was India’s most evident attempt at securing an independent passage for energy transport. The logic of decades-long investment was simple: if Hormuz closes then Chabahar stays on. It was good in theory, but when practicality came, it shattered.
India’s investment in Chabahar port did not help India in the blockade of Hormuz as much as it was expected. It didn’t help much that we had hoped for. Although, India’s 2 decades of investment ($120 million dollars) in the port was fruitful for the initial stages of the war when India was one of the few countries who were allowed to pass through the Strait of Hormuz. However, as the blockade continues the port is ultimately unable to serve as the safety net or the relief value which India hoped for. Cause even though it lies outside the Strait of Hormuz geographically, it still is under the vicinity of US Blockade. Iran has already been under US sanctions long before. Even then, India had special wavier from the US to still continue their commercial work and trade investments in Iran’s Chabahar Port, until Trump’s administration. Simultaneously, this US Sanctioned Waiver expired on April 26, 2026. at the same time the Hormuz Crisis was happening. The timing was imminent and so India was backed up in the corner with 0 to none exit ways. Now any Indian Ship operations with Chabahar port will be prone to US sanctions. Additionally, India had already zeroed out Chabahar’s budget allocation in the Union Budget 2026.
The reason for this collapse is simple. India invested in alternative routes without control of the surrounding maritime environment. Hence, there is no energy security. It was infrastructure being held hostage.
The Lesson: Leverage, Not Stockpiles
What we can synthesize from the Hormuz case is that states with any sort of political, operational or geostrategic leverage over a checkpoint will not faze away from weaponizing it when the situation calls for it. Iran proved that one doesn’t need a strong Navy to shut down a global corridor. It created a zone of extreme danger by introducing unpredictable risks with the use of drones, sea mines and gunboats. They turned the Strait into a Toll-gate by controlling who passes the Strait. Similarly, the US holds latent leverage in Malacca Strait against China by the leverage of a network of alliances in that Indo-Pacific region. China’s string of pearls strategy is the defence strategy to counter this “Malacca Dilemma”, by building multiple port networks to protect its supply chain. The only doable energy security is not just stockpiling it but leveraging over the chokepoint. Either by imposing the relevant risk or mutual assured destruction (just like what countries do with nuclear weapons) on the adversary who controls your chokepoint or to credibly threaten another chokepoint which the adversary values more.
Now, I want to make it clear that India doesn’t harbour feelings of retaliation against Iran for what happened at Hormuz. To put it simply, it takes it as a lesson on leverage-less dependency and this insight can be used to reframe their perspectives on chokepoints all together and can be applied to the structural rivalry with China in Malacca.
India cannot leverage Hormuz as the geography and politics do not allow it. But, on the other hand, in the east the geography favours India where Malacca Strait is located. India should focus its strategic energy and naval power on the east by exerting influence on the region.
Malacca as the Test: India’s Leverage at the Eastern Chokepoint
This narrow 2.7 km wide gap between Malaysia and Indonesia is the world’s busiest Maritime chokepoint. Almost 80% of China’s oil imports and 40% of world trade occurs through this route. As we can see that China is heavily dependent on it and it can’t rearrange its maritime routes without bearing heavy economic costs. Hence, it is more of a challenge for China, popularly known as “The Malacca Dilemma” as coined by Hu Jintao.
Now considering India’s geography: The Andaman and Nicobar Islands (ANI) are a stretch of 550 nautical miles long archipelago islands at the western entrance of Malacca Strait. It’s southernmost point - The Indira Point in the Great Nicobar, is just 90-nautical miles from Indonesia and approximately 100 km from the entrance of Malacca Strait. The island holds 30% of India’s exclusive economic Zones. Over 60,000 commercial ships navigate through the Six Degree Channel and Malacca annually.
To put it simply, India sits at the position where Iran sits in Hormuz, except here the exposed party is China. Hence, making ANI the most valuable and underutilized outpost of India.
What India Has Already Done
The Andaman and Nicobar Command (ANC) is India’s only tri-services command, established in 2001 post-Kargil. Is the only command where the Airforce, Army and the Navy operate under unified commander reporting to the Chief Staff Committee. The ANC has undergone runway extensions to accommodate frontline fighter jets like Tejas, Rafales and P-81 maritime patrols aircraft, jetty upgrades for guided-missile destroyers, and the INS Baaz naval air station enhanced with integrated harbour defence systems. However, the INS Baaz expansion was dropped recently and instead govt. plans on building Rs.13,000Crore airport at Great Nicobar India has been using Sabang Port in Indonesia to monitor the Strait. They have been negotiating under SAGAR (Security and Growth for All in the Region) strategy launched in 2015, to gain access to the port, agreeing to fund 80% of construction costs. In 2025, it has evolved into a more ambitious initiative - MAHASAGAR which frames India as “net security provider” of the Indian Ocean, by building bilateral and multilateral maritime security relations across the regions. India has pursued coordinated patrols with navies of Indonesia and Thailand at the both mouths of Malacca, since the 2000s. The India’s proposal to Join The Malacca Strait patrol made significant progress after Singapore’s formal acknowledgment to it in September 2025.
The Gap
However, we have to keep in mind that the Southeast Asian Countries are not always comfortable with the Indian Navy patrolling the region and growing naval security footprints of India. Although the coordinating patrols with Indonesia and Thailand still operates but it’s terms have still not been refreshed since the 2000s. So the reach of the Indian navy is still only till the mouths of the Strait, they do not enter it as they lack the assets or political authorization to operate inside the channel. Also the littoral states of Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand borders the Strait and possess some sovereignty over the seabed, airspace, water ,subsoils of the Strait ,however their sovereignty is restricted by the international law of “Transit passage”. Under UNCLOS, their jurisdiction is defined as regulatory and administrative. Nevertheless, they are very protective of their sovereignty. They specifically formed Malacca Strait Patrol (MSP) to keep external powers like US and India out of their internal business. Hence, they have repeatedly turned down India’s formal offer to join.
In addition to that, the infrastructural and economic investments are not as developed compared to the military counterpart. No deep-water transshipment hub, no integrated surveillance grid, no Indo-Pacific strategic framing. These islands are administered but not strategized. India currently lacks the forward operational capacity to actually interdict Malacca traffic; the infrastructure exists mainly for surveillance and signalling.
However, the most significant fix to this issue is done in The Great Nicobar Project. Great investments of ₹72,000–81,000 crore have been made in The Great Nicobar Project as cleared by The National Green Tribunal (NGT) in February 2026. The project includes construction of a world class trans-shipment port, a dual use civil/military airport, a modern township and a 450 MVA gas and solar power plant, at the southernmost tip of Nicobar Islands. Once it becomes operational, India can indirectly monitor China’s Naval movement and global energy flows through the Strait from Indian territory.
India is in the mid transition from being chokepoint dependent to controlling the chokepoint and Great Nicobar is an essential step for that shift.
Policy Recommendations
First of all, India should urgently close the SPR (Strategic Petroleum Reserve) gap. Ring-fenced capital (funds separated from the main pool of capital for specific purposes) should be invested to fast-track the expansion of reserves at Chandi Khol and Padur. Our current SPR holds 72 days’ worth of resources including the commercial stocks. The target is to reach the IEA benchmark of 90 days.
Secondly, during the 2026 crisis, India relied heavily on PM Modi’s personal phone call diplomacy to foreign leaders to secure passage for Indian ships. However, this needs institutionalized frameworks and standing protocols such as pre-negotiated passage procedures, war-risk insurance backstops with states like Oman, Iran, UAE to ensure protection of Indian flagged vessels regardless of who is in power or how friendly country leaders are to each other.
Thirdly, India should not wait decades for the Great Nicobar project to finish regarding the ANI’s reciprocal policy against China. They should also prioritize surveillance and military infrastructure now. By setting up radar arrays, maritime patrol aircraft basing, and an intelligence fusion node feeding the data to IFC-IOR at Gurugram , ahead of the full port and airport build. The Sabang Port development agreement and Malacca-patrol coordination talks must be converted into concrete arrangements.
Fourthly, the wariness of member-states of MSP are not irrational. The way around this is not to push harder but to reframe India’s offering. Reframing, “India joining MSP” to “India supporting ASEAN’s MSP.” These states rejected Washington’s 2004 offer to police Malacca precisely because it was framed as external oversight. India should never repeat that framing. That way They will not fear their sovereignty being taken.
Most importantly, India must redefine energy security around route control. The ANC must become the eastern counterweight to western dependency of India, not by merely surveiling but by forward headquarters of India’s checkpoint strategy in the Indo-pacific.
The most probable scenario to stress test this argument is not the extreme case of full frontal Indo-China Naval confrontation but a scenario where the Strait of Hormuz remains perilous and the insurance price of the Gulf transit remains hiked. Also China uses its military to continue to dominate the South China Sea and supply chains are always under threat. In such scenarios if India continues to maintain the status quo, it will continuously repeat operations like Urja Suraksha during such recurring crisis. India needs to use its latent leverage, not by starting a war but simply by creating a capability to shut down Malacca, deterring China. Just by creating knowledge to their adversary that India could. Doing Nothing is not a neutral act. But it is deliberately putting India into the same position as in Hormuz.
Conclusion
The 2026 Hormuz Blockade is showing us how relying heavily on energy procurement and supplier diversification can cause threat to India’s previous energy security. Therefore, to transition from chokepoint-dependency to chokepoint-control ,India must institutionalize its maritime security strategies and convert its natural advantage in the east into credible reciprocal leverage. In this way, India can design a structural parameter which is necessary to deter adversaries like China, ensuring that the country is not structurally vulnerable to next chokepoint crisis. Because true security is not found in quietness of stockpiles but in mastery of the tides that dictate the world’s wealth.
The views expressed are those of the authors and do not represent the views of CNAWS.
Image Source: ChatGPT
