SECOND NMF-DAV DIALOGUE (“ENSURING HOLISTIC MARITIME SECURITY THROUGH THE ‘BLUEING’ OF ECONOMIES”)
CONCEPT NOTE
Maritime security cooperation has emerged as a critical strand of strategic engagement between India and Vietnam in the evolving Indo-Pacific order. During the four rounds of the bilateral “Track One” maritime security dialogue (MSD) conducted thus far, marine scientific research, ocean economy, Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR), Navy and Coast Guard Cooperation, maritime law enforcement, capacity-building, and maritime connectivity, were identified as key areas for cooperation in the maritime domain.
Building on the “Track One” MSD, the National Maritime Foundation (NMF) and the Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam (DAV) signed an MoU on 15 March 2024 and initiated an annual bilateral dialogue series to deliberate on maritime issues of mutual concern and provide meaningful policy recommendations to their respective governments. The inaugural NMF-DAV Dialogue, held on 27 March 2025 in Hanoi, focused on the theme “Promoting Maritime Security and Cooperation in the Indo-Pacific”, with discussions spanning contemporary geopolitical challenges, maritime situational awareness (MSA) and maritime domain awareness (MDA), cooperation in capacity-building in response to grey zone and hybrid challenges, and the regional trend towards green transformation in blue economy and cooperation opportunities for Vietnam and India.
Following-on from the inaugural edition, the Second NMF-DAV Dialogue will focus on the theme “Ensuring Holistic Maritime Security through the ‘Blueing’ of Economies”. The term “‘holistic’ maritime security” encompasses not only traditional and non-traditional maritime security threats but also natural disasters and the threats emanating from the adverse effects of climate change in the maritime domain. Consequently, this edition of the dialogue seeks to foreground the criticality of “blueing” the economy as an essential pillar of fostering holistic maritime security in the Indo-Pacific. It seeks to reframe prevailing understandings of the ‘Blue Economy’ by shifting emphasis from economic competition to ecological interdependence and cooperative transformation. Rather than viewing the ocean merely as a site of resource extraction and national rivalry, the theme underscores the process of “blueing” entire economies—integrating coastal and hinterland systems into a unified sustainability framework. It underscores the interconnectedness of land-based activities, marine environmental health, economic development, and regional stability.
Divided into three interrelated sessions addressing the “triple planetary crisis”, “offshore renewable energy”, and “deep sea mining and resource governance”, respectively, the dialogue seeks to advance the proposition that holistic maritime security is best secured through cooperative, whole-of-nation, and subregional approaches towards “blueing” the economy that align the pursuit of economic development with the sustainable harnessing of ocean resources and ensuring the resilience of critical marine ecosystems, and not through the privileging of the noun ‘economy’ over the qualifying adjective ‘blue’.
In order to explore and identify concrete cooperative and collaborative actions that India and Vietnam could take to ensure holistic maritime security through the ‘blueing’ of their economies, the NMF and the DAV have jointly scheduled a day-long dialogue on Wednesday, 11 March 2026, at the NMF. The outcomes of this dialogue, as also those that would follow, will provide specific recommendations for inclusion in the agenda of future editions of the “Track-One” Maritime Security Dialogue.
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