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Despite its instability, lack of organization, and exposure to a variety of potential conflicts and security threats, the Indian Ocean has become an area of interest for a growing number of regional and extra-regional powers. This profusion of actors and threats raises the question of the necessity of a security architecture aimed at ensuring a certain level of stability in the region. This article questions whether the Indian Ocean powers could build multilateral institutions or mechanisms promoting a cooperative approach to deal with the security challenges in the region. So far, regional cooperation in the Indian Ocean has been a story of repeated failures and unsuccessful projects at the macroregional level, as well as patchy and fragmented ones at the subregional level. Instead of a pan-oceanic regional organization, a complex security architecture is nevertheless emerging in a de facto fashion, mostly on the basis of the military engagement of the United States and its allies or partners, and potentially, with the regional fora in the Asia-Pacific taking into account some of the strategic challenges emerging on their doorsteps, in the Indian Ocean.