The sinking of IRIS Dena: A quiet death of the rules-based order

At 05:08 local time, in international waters 40 nautical miles south of Galle, Sri Lanka, a Mark 48 heavyweight torpedo — one of two fired, with the first missing its mark — struck the IRIS Dena beneath her keel. She was returning from India’s MILAN 2026 multinational naval exercise at Visakhapatnam as an officially invited guest, and was unarmed in accordance with the exercise’s return-voyage protocol.