The aim of this article is to analyse the development of naval capabilities in the Indian Ocean region. In order to explain and understand this issue we first have to examine the maritime strategies declared and implemented in this area by India, China and the United States. The theoretical instrument used in this case study is offensive realism, which is one of the best defined and structured versions of the theory of realism. The choice of this instrument is determined by its ontological and epistemological principles, which emphasise the significance of active international strategies that states undertake in the anarchic international environment in order to improve their parameters of power as the condition of survival and ensuring security. It is not the purpose of this article to verify the principles of offensive realism by empirically testing the hypotheses inferred from it. It is instead to be used as a heuristic instrument for examining the maritime strategies of major actors in the Indian Ocean region. With the above in mind, the article has been designed as follows. The first part presents the general methodological principle of the analysis. The second part discusses the Indian Ocean region in form of a case study and justifies the choice of this specific area as the subject of the study. The third part analyses the activity of India, China and the United States in the region in terms of important variables concerning material and non-material factors. The last part of the article is a summary and contains the conclusions presented in the form of answers to the research questions at the source of this analysis.