The Indian Ocean in the Indo-Pacific framework : How islands shape great power competition

Darshana M. Baruah is an associate fellow with the South Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Baruah is also currently a visiting fellow at the Sasakawa Peace Foundation, Tokyo, where she is working on a book about the significance of strategic islands in the Indian Ocean region. Her primary research focuses on maritime security in Asia and the role of the Indian Navy in a new security architecture. Her work also examines the strategic implications of China’s infrastructure and connectivity projects as well as trilateral partnerships in the Indo-Pacific.

Previously, Baruah was the associate director and a senior research analyst at Carnegie India where she led the center’s initiative on maritime security. As the associate director, Baruah’s institutional responsibilities included coordinating and overseeing the center’s development, outreach, and institutional partnerships. While at Carnegie India, Baruah also coordinated and led various track 1.5 dialogues and seminars. Her research projects included work on the Andaman and Nicobar Islands as well as trilateral partnerships and strategic connectivity projects in the Indo-Pacific.

In 2018, Baruah was also a visiting fellow at the Japan Institute of International Affairs (JIIA) Tokyo. Prior to this, Baruah was a 2016 national parliamentary fellow at the Australian parliament and a visiting fellow at the Australian National University (Canberra) and the Lowy Institute (Sydney), where her research was centered on India-Australia maritime collaboration in the Indo-Pacific.

Baruah was awarded the programme d’invitations de personnalités d’avenir (broadly translates to “personalities of the future”) by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 2018 and was also named as the UK’s next generation foreign and security policy scholar for 2017.

Prior to Carnegie India, Baruah was with the maritime security initiative at the Observer Research Foundation, where she was the associate editor of the South China Sea Monitor.

Tsuneo “Nabe” Watanabe is a senior fellow of the Sasakawa Peace Foundation, an independent policy research organization in Tokyo. In October 2016, Watanabe joined the Sasakawa Peace Foundation after serving a senior fellow and a director of foreign & security policy research at the Tokyo Foundation in 2009 to 2016. He served a senior fellow at the Mitsui Global Strategic Studies Institute in Tokyo in 2005 to 2009. In 1995, Watanabe joined Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C. He served a visiting research scholar, research associate, fellow and senior fellow until 2005. He is currently adjunct fellow of the CSIS.

His publications include “The World Order after 2021: 20 Angles of the International affairs” [in Japanese] (Shinchosha, 2020), “Asia Pacific Countries and the US Rebalancing Strategy” [co-authored with David W.F. Huang et.al.] (Palgrave Macmillan US, 2016), “NATO and Asia Pacific”[co-authored with Alexander Moens and Brooke A. Smith-Windsor et.al.](NATO Defense College, 2016), “Are the US and China Trading Places in 2025: History Tells the Truth of the US-China Relations” [in Japanese] (PHP Research Institute, 2011). Watanabe received his D.D.S. from Tohoku University in Japan and his M.A. in political science from the New School for Social Research in New York.

Junko Chano is the Executive Director at the Sasakawa Peace Foundation (SPF). Prior to joining SPF, Ms. Chano worked at several foundations including the Japan Foundation, Philadelphia Foundation and the Ford Foundation’s New York Office. At the Ford Foundation, she helped strengthening the capacity of community foundations that emerged around the globe. She later joined the Office of the Organizational Services of the Ford Foundation and developed a series of Grant Craft videos that would enhance critical thinking of grant makers for their program development activities. Ms. Chano graduated from Hitotsubashi University in Tokyo with a degree in Social Sciences. She also received her Master of Government Administration from the University of Pennsylvania.