For several years, maritime domain awareness has been a quiet success story of U.S.-India defense cooperation. It proved that when both countries have similar platforms and share information, they can monitor and deter activity across the oceans and seas.
The next step is harder and more important: to build a distributed sensor network that connects both nations to sense, decide, and act.
Last year’s Malabar exercise, hosted in the Western Pacific near Guam, brought together the four Quad navies in another demonstration of growing operational familiarity. The real opportunity now is to translate this cooperation into a trusted and persistent sensor network.
A sensor network is distributed across platforms like aircraft, ships, satellites, unmanned systems, all connected through secure communications to provide a full operational picture. Each platform, with its array of sensors, is a node in a network collecting information. When these data streams are fused, they create an operational real-time picture that is tough to spoof.
Viewed another way, a sensor network acts like a nervous system, detecting and anticipating threats early enough to guide effective reactions. The Department of War rightly states that “success will go to the side that transforms vast amounts of data from distributed sensors and weapons systems across multiple domains into actionable information for better, faster decision making.”
China already understands the crucial importance of these networks. Its Transparent Ocean program is building a five-layer sensing system from seabed to space using acoustic sensors, coastal radar, surveillance ships, and satellites to track foreign submarines and surface vessels. Chinese sources call it a system to make the western Pacific “visible.”
The People’s Liberation Army is already fusing civilian and military sensors, including commercial ships and drones, to extend coverage into the Indian Ocean. U.S. Naval War College studies show how Beijing’s maritime militia and dual-use vessels relay data for military use using gray zone tactics.
The United States and India already operate capable sensors. U.S. satellites, Indian coastal radars, uncrewed vessels, and maritime patrol aircraft together cover wide areas. What they lack is secure bilateral integration. Data often stays siloed within national systems. To move forward, both sides need to take small, practical steps to connect existing nodes.
The Andaman and Nicobar Islands are the most practical location for the first pilot corridor, with the Bay of Bengal and Arabian Sea serving as natural follow-on regions. India’s Information Fusion Centre–Indian Ocean Region and Information Management and Analysis Centre already aggregate regional data.
Selected encrypted feeds can be shared temporarily during joint patrols or exercises. Even limited data exchange would prove the system works and build confidence for deeper cooperation later. To begin, both sides could focus on low-risk data such as vessel tracking and search-and-rescue alerts before moving to more sensitive operational feeds.
Instead of merging all information into one system, both countries can use a federated model. Where each side retains control of its data while allowing time-limited, query-based access for joint or friendly operations. This maintains sovereign data access while providing a shared picture for missions such as anti-submarine tracking, search and rescue, or disaster relief. Over time, various corridor pilots can be linked through this backbone to create a regional “network of networks.”
Both governments should set certification criteria for radars, sonars, and communication modules that meet security and reliability standards. This ensures interoperability and trusted supply chains. Shared standards also let smaller regional partners join without risking data repositories or missions. A joint working group under INDUS-X or U.S.-India COMPACT could potentially coordinate certification.
These actions are realistic and affordable. They use existing frameworks and agreements. Only modest upgrades and coordination within defense budgets are required—not new institutions or treaties.
A connected sensor network would shorten response time, improve maritime safety, and expose gray-zone tactics such as cable cutting, spoofing, or fishing-militia intrusions. It would also deepen industrial cooperation in software, communications, and secure hardware.
For both countries, this is deterrence by denial in action. It does not depend on dominance or permanent presence. It makes aggression harder and costlier from the start.
A distributed network denies China a permissive environment and forces it to operate under constant visibility. This model also reflects practical burden sharing. India provides reach and geography. The United States provides technology and connectivity. Each contributes to the region’s stability without overextension.
For Washington, such a network expands awareness in the Indian Ocean with an economy of naval presence. For New Delhi, it turns geography into power. For both, it builds a flexible regional framework grounded in cooperation.
The Indo-Pacific’s first real sensor network will live in quiet data links, in satellites that speak the same digital language, and acted on by crews of ships that share the same operational picture. Deterrence in this century will depend less on who has more platforms and more on who can act most effectively fastest, data is an enabler but only by enabling effective action is it decisive. In this, when more navies work together on wider networks of data, the ability to apply naval power where needed is possible.
A focused pilot in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands would allow both countries to connect existing coastal radars, surface and subsurface sensors, and maritime patrol assets in a strategically important chokepoint. Now is the time for the United States and India to translate vision into action: prioritize pilot corridors, rapidly establish joint certification standards, and deploy and exercise the employment of integrated data networks.