 "navy, territorial, EEZ, us india relations, military indo-pacific, indian ocean")
Just recently, an American Guided Missile Destroyer, the USS John Paul Jones, transited through the waters in India’s Lakshadweep area falling within our Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). The warship was on passage from the Persian Gulf to the Malacca Straits in its normal deployment but its superiors — the 7th Fleet to which it belonged — chose to call it a Freedom of Navigation Operation (FONOPS). It is hardly likely that the Fleet headquarters would make such an articulation on its own and without advice from its own higher authority.
The Indian government formally protested that its prior permission — even
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