Geographies of Seapower: Forging Empire in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands

312 pages

Andrew Livsey

The book is available for download via: https://www.republish.uk/services/republish-academic-press

Asked to explain the relationship of geography to sea power the strategist might muse about chokepoints, the logistician about refuelling at sea, the economist about the reducing cost of sea transport and the hydrographer and warfare officer about bathymetry, the water column and the location of submarines. All these areas have been covered many times. This is why it is such a delight to find a book which takes a new approach to geography and sea power, and helps one to think in new ways.

Callum O’Connell’s book Geographies of Seapower does two things. One of them is to give a history of the Western exploration of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands in the Bay of Bengal during the 19th century and the processes by which they were incorporated into the British Indian Empire. The reasons for such developments were not just to keep other European powers out and protect shipping, but also imperial developments such as the Anglo-Burmese wars. The story is clearly told and is based on an impressive range of primary sources from both the UK and India.

At the same time O’Connell’s book is a discussion of how geopolitics and sea power relate. He seeks to broaden our understanding of sea power by bringing from the world of geopolitics an acute sense of both geospatial relationships and how people use narratives to understand, justify and exert control. Fleets can be vital, but so is the naming of sites and the categorising of others, such as the designation of the Nicobar islanders as pirates. He also draws out how centralised national decision making has to work in the context of lower level governmental and operational decisions, changing cultural assumptions and more. This is a challenge to some sea power writing that has focused on sea power as a state-centric concept.

Consequently, this book has a place on your shelf for two reasons. If you want to understand the actions of British (and British Indian) bureaucrats and sailors in the 19th century Indian Ocean, then this is for you. If you want a new approach to sea power then this is for you. Just as the ex-diplomat James Cable highlighted naval diplomacy, an aspect of sea power that had been insufficiently explored, Hezlet emphasised technology and Hughes used maths, so O’Connell has brought modern geography, indeed what has become known as critical geography, to the fore.

So what for today? An emphasis on sea power beyond traditional state use has relevance given what has been called the democratisation of naval weaponry, with missiles and uncrewed craft deployable by non-state organisations such as Hezbollah and semi-states like the Houthis. The Nicobar and Andaman Islands themselves, sometimes called India’s unsinkable aircraft carrier in the Bay of Bengal, have political and military relevance given the rising tensions with China. And sometimes thinking of sea power in terms of who has created the terms of the narrative can help one understand what is happening, and how other people see things. There are echoes here of Lambert’s created identities as a necessary element of being a sea power state. ‘Fire effectively first’ is still a central part of sea power, but there is a lot more to it than that.