Darshana M. Baruah is Director of Security & Geopolitics at the Australia India Institute. She was formerly a fellow with the South Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace where she directed the Indian Ocean Initiative. She is also a nonresident scholar at the Sasakawa Peace Foundation, Tokyo, where she is working on a book about the significance of the Indian Ocean in the 21st Century. Darshana’s primary research focuses on maritime security in the Indo-Pacific and the role of islands in shaping great power competition.