Task Force 74

The US Task Force 74 was a US Navy task force of the United States Seventh Fleet that was deployed to the Bay of Bengal by Nixon administration in December 1971, at the height of the 1971 Indo-Pakistani War. Led by the Aircraft carrier USS Enterprise, the deployment of the task force was seen as a show of force by USA in support of the beleaguered West Pakistani forces, and was claimed by India as an indication of US "tilt" towards Pakistan at a time that Indian forces were close to capturing Dhaka.The Task Force number is now used by the Seventh Fleet's Submarine Force.

The Indian Ocean had, in the post-colonial cold-war situation in the 1960s, a strong British Royal Navy presence which projected Western interests in the region, and carried out peacekeeping and security operations, as well as a deterrence against Soviet overtures in this area. The US navy's role at this time was confined to a limited presence in Bahrain.

By the mid-1960s, with a failing economy, Britain began to roll back her role in the region. In a situation of political instability in the region, the Soviet Union also began a strong diplomatic initiative in the littoral states and initiated limited naval deployments, prompting fears that withdrawal of a western peacekeeping role would allow the Soviet Navy to fulfil its aspirations in the region, threatening western economic and military interests in the region and leading to loss of this area from the western sphere of influence. This lent a strong voice to the proponents of a strong US naval presence in the Indian Ocean, among them Elmo Zumwalt, as a diplomatic as well military deterrence against Soviet moves. US security interests in the Indian Ocean were, however, initially restricted to the countries of Ethiopia, Iran and Saudi Arabia.

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