In the blue corner stands (or rather sails) the Oceanic alliance, sometimes known as the Quad, which is holding the Malabar 07 naval exercises in the Indian Ocean. Traditionally a joint exercise for the Indian fleet and the U.S. Navy's Pacific command, this time the U.S. task force of two aircraft carriers, the Nimitz and the Kitty Hawk, will be joined by seven Indian warships, an Australian tanker and frigate and by a frigate from Singapore.

The term "the Quad" comes from Tokyo, where Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has launched a Quadrilateral Initiative to forge closer strategic ties among Japan, the United States, Australia and India, and to get their armed forces accustomed to working together.

This week's naval exercises cover the Indian Ocean from the Indian coast to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, which command the approaches to the Straits of Malacca of Singapore. Through these narrow waters pass almost two-thirds of China's foreign trade and more than three-quarters of its oil imports, a reminder -- were China to need one -- that a navy that commands the Indian Ocean has its thumb on China's windpipe.

To anyone who recalls the Cold War and George Orwell's visionary novel "1984" with its dark prophecy of an endless war between Eurasia, Eastasia and Oceania, this putative emergence of two armed camps is deeply troubling. And it comes at a time when China is being accused of hacking into Pentagon computers and when Russia has resumed patrols of its strategic bomber fleet. And bear in mind that the 2005 SCO summit called for a withdrawal of all U.S. military forces from Central Asia.

But despite U.S. and European concerns for Russian rearmament and President Vladimir Putin's much more assertive role in world affairs, this is far from being the cast of characters for a new Cold War. Putin himself publicly dismissed any comparison between the SCO and the old Warsaw Pact military alliance as "improper either in content or form."

And China and Russia have rather different strategic goals, not least because of Russian nervousness that Siberia is rich in raw materials and almost empty of people, while China needs raw materials and has 1.3 billion people.

Moreover, India is far from being a full-heated participant in any grandiose Western geopolitical scheme to lure it into the role of balancing China's rising power in Asia. The current Indian coalition government of Manmohan Singh, which depends on Communist votes, cannot even get its nuclear cooperation agreement with the United States through Parliament because the Communists object.

India's Communists organized a protest against the Malabar naval exercises this week, brandishing banners that read "U.S. Imperialists Go Back," as party stalwart Jyoti Basu told them, "This is an extremely important battle, not only against America but also against the central government in New Delhi, which is handing over our country to imperialist forces."

Australia, while a close and traditional U.S. ally, has its own rather special relationship with China, symbolized this week by the signing of an agreement under which PetroChina will get a million tons of natural gas from Australia's vast Gorgon field. China is also taking the lead in building the $3 billion Oakajee port and rail project in Western Australia. The Australian mining giant BHP Billiton noted this week that China is its biggest customer.

An eminent-persons group convened by the Center for Strategic & International Studies in Washington, by the Confederation of Indian Industry and by the Japan Institute of International Affairs has produced a thoughtful report on the way ahead for trilateral cooperation between the United States, India and Japan. It stresses their cooperation "should not be seen as targeted at China but rather as a stabilizing factor in broader regional dynamics �� a magnet that attracts other like-minded states, rather than a wall that drives them toward neutrality."

It also recommends that this trilateral group should be enlarged to include Australia (thus making the Quad) and that the four governments should start holding regular formal discussions at a higher level than the informal assistant secretary of state discussions held on the margins of other regional meetings. They also propose summits between heads of government on the sidelines of G8 and U.N. meetings.

The Quad is already a strategic reality in the Indian Ocean this week. And Australia has signaled its readiness to join the United States and Japan in building and financing a missile defense system for the Pacific region. Ostensibly aimed against the threat from a rogue state like North Korea, it also serves as both a warning system and as a subtle deterrent against China.

The vogue term for this in Washington is "hedging," or taking out some timely insurance against China becoming a threat in the future, while trying to steer the Beijing leadership towards cooperation and integration into a global security system, much as it has been integrated into the global economy.

But there lies the rub. The global economy is already creaking under the strain of China's growth rates, its hunger for raw materials and commodities, and its massive $1.3 trillion foreign currency and securities reserves. Building a global security system that can absorb China, while not bringing about the same Chinese suspicions and resentments that the "hedging" is supposed to avert, will be tough, particularly as China watches the balancing coalition of the Quad being constructed against it.

Seventh Fleet commander William Crowder was speaking aboard USS Kitty Hawk, the US navy's second largest supercarrier, as the six-day exercises hosted by India that began on Tuesday neared a close.

"There is no connection between these manoeuvres and anything else," Crowder said in reply to reporters' questions over whether the wargames were intended to send signals to Tehran and Beijing.

"The US has been jointly exercising with India since 1994 and the only thing new this time is that India has invited three more countries... This is not aimed against anyone," the fleet commander added.

The movements of US carrier groups are being closely watched amid mounting tensions over Iran's nuclear programme, seen by Washington and its Western allies as a covert atomic weapons drive.

The exercises involved 28 ships, one submarine and 160 warjets from the United States, Australia, Japan, Singapore and India.

The nations staged the wargames 150 kilometres (90 miles) off India's Andaman island chain in the Bay of Bengal.

The exercises, one of the biggest ever peacetime military events, also included super-carriers USS Nimitz, the nuclear-powered submarine USS Chicago and Indian aircraft carrier the INS Viraat.

Crowder said the US Navy was not seeking an Indian Ocean base but was "looking for places to exercise with our allies."

"We're really not in the business of setting up bases but we aim to boost cooperation with navies in areas such as disaster relief such as the tsunami that hit the Indian Ocean region in 2004," the vice admiral said.

The Seventh Fleet is the largest of the forward-deployed US fleets, with some 50 ships, more than 200 of the latest warjets and 20,000 sailors and Marines assigned at any given time.

"We have some close allies in the Asian region and we want to improve our ties," the admiral said on the deck of the 46-year-old Kitty Hawk, due to be decommissioned next year.

India, which was on opposite sides of the fence from the United States during the Cold War, has also denied claims that the games were an attempt to intimidate neighbouring China, with which the country fought a brief, bitter border war in 1962.

"It's completely an apolitical decision to hold the exercises off our eastern coasts in the Bay of Bengal," said Indian Navy rear admiral R.R. Suthan.

"We look at the exercises as a professional interaction between the friendly navies and our allies," the Indian taskforce commander added aboard the US ship.

The nuclear-armed Indian navy, which operates 137 ships, wants its supremacy in the Indian Ocean unchallenged. During the 2004 tsunami it rebuffed US offers of aid and sent out relief ships to ravaged Sri Lanka and Indonesia.

Japan, Australia and Singapore also tried to distance themselves from the controversy, saying the event was just an occasion to sharpen their response to natural disasters that often hit Indian Ocean rim nations.

"The quick response to the tsunami by militaries of the region did not happen by accident and so we want to use this exercise to learn more from each other," said rear admiral Nigel Coates, leading the Australian contingent.

Japan, participating for the first time in a multi-nation wargame, argued the now-controversial drill would strengthen links between Asian and Western militaries.

"We are flexible enough to learn the different ways from the international navies and it is easy for us to become friends on humanitarian issues," said Japan naval chief Yogi Koda on board the Kitty Hawk, as it engaged the other ships in a mock battle.

related report
Navies take stock as Indian Ocean war games end
Port Blair, India (AFP) Sept 9 - A massive peacetime military exercise ended in the Indian Ocean on Sunday as navies from five nations including the United States disengaged from mock battles.

The USS Nimitz, the world's largest supercarrier, had already withdrawn from the Bay of Bengal, where navies from Australia, India Japan and Singapore as well as the United States launched the drill on Tuesday.

The end of the six-day exercises code-named "Operation Malabar" was marked by mock battles involving fighter jets from supercarrier the USS Kitty Hawk and India's aircraft carrier INS Viraat and other strike groups near the strategic Malacca Straits, officials said.

"A debriefing was held to assess the results and now the exercises have ended," said an Indian naval official from a "war-room" monitoring the mid-sea event from Port Blair, capital of India's Andaman archipelago.

"The details will not be revealed," he told AFP, referring to the results of the aerial dogfights and simulated sea battles in the Bay of Bengal.

Nearly 30 ships, 200 fighter jets and a nuclear-powered submarine participated in the event to practice anti-piracy and anti-gun-running drills off the Andaman island chain.

"It was one hell of a bang and a super experience," said the pilot of an US F-16 jet, recalling a low-level "attack" he carried out with one of India's participating Russian-built supersonic fighter jets.

William Crowder, commander of the Seventh Fleet, the largest forward-deployed US naval strike force, has said Malabar's aim was to build "inter-operability" between the navies.

The exercises symbolised a new alliance between the Indian and US militaries, Cold War adversaries less than two decades ago who now say there is a need for global action against rising extremism and nuclear proliferation.

The green light by India -- a Cold War ally of Russia outside the Soviet bloc -- to the first-ever US proposals for common procedures for the drill was also a sign of new bonding between Western and Asian militaries.

Less than a decade ago, the United States slapped a slew of sanctions on India in response to a series of nuclear tests in 1998.

But in 2005 the two nations inked a historic atomic energy deal and embraced each other as strategic partners.

The event was closely watched by nearby China amid mounting tensions over Iran's nuclear programme, seen by Washington and its Western allies as a covert atomic weapons drive.