Australia and India are finally beginning to discover that they have more in common than cricket and curry. The recent uptick in engagement between these countries has long been in the making and is only beginning to scratch the surface of a partnership that has considerable potential. One of the most prominent agendas of cooperation between Australia and India at the bilateral level, and also within the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) grouping, is maritime security. A closely related, yet distinct facet of security that offers significant potential for collaboration, is the protection of critical infrastructure in coastal areas of these countries.

Critical infrastructure spans multiple sectors such as transportation, energy, manufacturing, and social amenities. A number of factors contribute to the relatively higher concentration of critical infrastructure facilities along coastal areas as compared to the hinterland, including:

• proximity to seaports that provide access to global shipping routes
• access to seawater for various processes in manufacturing and energy production
• extraction and processing of mineral resources from the state’s exclusive economic zone, and
• the proximity to major population centres in coastal regions.

While these facilities benefit from their proximity to the coast, they are also rendered vulnerable to a host of threats from sea and landward, both deliberate and natural or accidental.  Measures to provide security to these facilities face complex challenges from the multiplicity of domains (terrestrial, maritime, and cyber), and the significantly greater vulnerability of coastal areas to large-scale damage from threats such as natural disasters. Countries seek to mitigate these risks through measures that are tailored to their unique geopolitical, social and economic circumstances, but which comprise some elements that are common across all such arrangements.

While Australia and India have considerable differences in their respective coastal environments, the infrastructural contexts are comparable and similar in many respects. The value of international trade through maritime shipping for both countries is around USD 400 billion annually. Australia and India have large urban agglomerates along the coast, which create significant ecosystems of critical infrastructure in their vicinity. Both countries identify significant risks to their coastal areas, originating on land, and from the sea. Accordingly, both Australia and India have established mechanisms for the security of critical infrastructure, and while each of these, individually, may be imperfect, they have notable strengths that may be shared, so as to deliver benefits to both countries.

Recent years have witnessed progressively greater engagement between the maritime security agencies of Australia and India. Coastal critical infrastructure, however, requires unique security arrangements that encompass elements of maritime, terrestrial, and cyber security. Moreover, these elements require to operate with seamless synergy, in order to deliver desired security outcomes. Understandably, this entails a multi-agency organisational structure, supported by robust policy and legal frameworks. There exists significant potential for Australia and India to collaborate on developing best practices in the policy and legal realms, which can translate to greater effectiveness of security mechanisms for coastal infrastructure. This will also permit the establishment of a top-down collaborative structure, creating further avenues for operational and technical cooperation in this field.

Australia’s policy framework for the protection of critical assets has strong roots in its threat perceptions, and the post-9/11 homeland security reforms in the United States. Australia’s arrangements, centred on the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) portfolio, with the Australian Border Force and the Maritime Border Command as constituent agencies, have been suitably modified to reflect its primary threat perceptions, which include terrorism, illegal arrivals by sea, criminal activities in its maritime zones, and environment protection. India’s coastal security architecture has been influenced by a series of security incidents along its coastal areas, including the Mumbai bomb blasts of 1993, the terror attack of 2008, and the numerous natural disasters that strike coastal areas each year. Security agencies in both countries have also recognised the increasing complexities surrounding maritime shipping, and the challenges in assuring the security of global supply chains that converge at ports along the coast.

The policy framework in both countries seeks to establish objectives, roles and responsibilities, organisational structures, and operational philosophies of agencies involved in the security of coastal infrastructure. Importantly, the policy frameworks also serve to strengthen the federal political structures in both countries by establishing effective relations between federal, state, and local authorities. There are considerable differences in the manner in which this is achieved in each of these two countries, and consequently, there is much to be gained for both sides in collaborating on their improvement.

The legal framework in support of the security of coastal infrastructure supports operational processes and outcomes. Legal stipulations grant essential authority to relevant agencies to fulfil specific charters in national arrangements. For instance, both Australia and India have legal provisions that allow the identification of certain facilities as critical infrastructure, and permit governments to make special arrangements for their security. However, the manner in which this is achieved is significantly different in India and Australia, and there are considerable deficiencies in both systems, which could gain from focused engagement on this subject.

Creating robust policy and legal frameworks in support of critical infrastructure is a challenging undertaking. It requires harnessing multidisciplinary expertise in niche areas such as national security, cyber security, policy development, and public international law. Organisations such as Anchoram have resident expertise in these domains and can offer significant value to governments in developing essential support frameworks for critical infrastructure security. Anchoram is ideally placed to partner with similar agencies in India, with the aim of providing optimal solutions to respective governments, whilst furthering bilateral collaboration between Australia and India at multiple levels.

As Australia and India look to deepen and broaden the parameters of their engagement, bilaterally, as well as through the Quad grouping, they need to identify areas of common necessity and diverse solutions. Moreover, in order to be sustainable and meaningful, this engagement needs to adopt a top-down approach, with operational efforts emerging as the culmination rather than the initiator of collaborative efforts. Security of critical coastal infrastructure has emerged as an important national consideration in Australia and India, and the numerous similarities in their needs, together with diversity of existing approaches, offers significant potential for collaboration between relevant organisations in both countries.