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India's grand strategic vision gets
grander
By Stephen Blank
India
has long considered itself a major global player, or at
least a major Asian power, and it has been deeply
frustrated until now in not being regarded as as a
formidable actor on the international and Asian scene.
Major policy decisions, such as the one to go
overtly nuclear in 1998, can be attributed to this
consuming desire to be seen as a great power. For years
both Indian and foreign analysts have expected that by
the early 21st century India would become a major
projector of power and influence throughout Asia.
Indeed, the most recent evidence suggests that the
Indian government has now opted for a 20-year program to
fulfill that goal and become "a world power with
influence spreading across the Indian Ocean, the Arabian
Gulf and the four corners of Asia".
A major
byproduct of this intended rise to a global status would
be to leave Pakistan trailing behind as a minor regional
power that could no longer threaten India's vital
interests. Thus this program builds on the same
psychological drive that has long animated much of
India's thinking about regional security issues
throughout the Indian Ocean. Accordingly this past
November, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee directed
planners to craft defense strategies that extend beyond
South Asia and transcend past sub-regional mind sets.
India's expanded security perspectives, he claimed,
require such fresh thinking about projecting power and
influence, as well as security in all these directions.
Thus India will seek more defense cooperation
with states in the Persian Gulf, Southeast and Central
Asia, presumably going beyond intelligence-sharing about
terrorist activities. This cooperation will proceed to
more bilateral exchanges, military exercises and greater
sharing of defense advice with friendly nations. In this
context, relations of strategic partnership with
Washington are essential because Russia's once powerful
ties with India are now diluted and tempered by Moscow's
dependence on the West, particularly the United States -
a situation that would, in the absence of partnership
with Washington, severely constrain India's options.
Ten-year military buildup
While India
formally eschews offensive military projections, it is
formally announcing its base in Tajikistan, and hopes to
undertake the following military programs through
2013:
Improving military logistics in Iran, Tajikistan,
Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan;
Increasing military interaction with Malaysia,
Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, Laos, and Vietnam;
Increasing naval interaction with South Africa,
other African states, Iran, Oman, the United Arab
Emirates and other Gulf nations;
Extending infrastructure, logistic and material
support to Myanmar to contain Chinese activities there.
Beyond those policies, all the Indian military
services are currently undertaking a major buildup of
conventional weapons, creating ways of delivering
nuclear weapons and preparing defenses against nuclear
missiles by improving communication and surveillance
systems.
Although all the services will be
augmented, it is significant that the Navy will
construct warships in an effort to make India's presence
in the Indian Ocean "a force to be reckoned with", and
thus one capable of force and power projection if
necessary. For example, in April, the plan prepared for
the Indian military and developed by its Directorate of
Defense Policy and Planning for the Army, Air Force and
Navy advocated a rapid reaction capability for real-time
troop deployment to countries along the rim of the
Indian Ocean in order to create a defense umbrella for
them.
This plan, "India's Strategic Vision",
envisages cooperation with Indonesia, Malaysia,
Maldives, Mauritius and Vietnam. And it comports with
Vajpayee's directives. However it cannot be carried out
given India's lack of fast long-range aircraft with
aerial refueling capabilities, Airborne Early Warning
and Command Aircraft (AWAC), attack helicopters and a
carrier in addition the existing Indian Naval Services
Virat carrier.
These deficiencies, which the
report insists cannot be made up by India's defense
industry, put it at a disadvantage relative to China,
which can project major power into the Indian Ocean
region. Therefore, the only way to acquire these
capabilities is through foreign suppliers. But the
purpose of inviting diverse foreign arms suppliers into
India's defense industries goes beyond merely augmenting
India's force capabilities or diversifying suppliers so
that it is no longer as dependent on Russian weapons -
which in any case have now come in for considerable
criticism.
Foreign suppliers a
spur
Ultimately, the idea is that by inviting
foreign and private competition into this domain the
government will obtain the leverage to compel the Indian
defense industry, a noticeably lagging part of Indian
industry, to become more competitive, able to produce
indigenously made systems, including high-tech systems,
and sell them not only to the Indian military but abroad
as well.
Thus a major part of Indian policy and
of the long-range plans formulated by the government
entail India becoming a major exporter of conventional
arms, something it already is doing in Central Asia.
It is also very clear from the pattern of naval
acquisitions that India has very expansive ambitions for
itself, among which are countering both Pakistan and
China. Again this reflects back to the objective of
making India a naval force to be reckoned with in the
Indian Ocean.
On October 14, navy chief Admiral
Madhavendra Singh said: "Fulfilling India's dream to
have a full-fledged blue-water navy would need at least
three aircraft carriers, 20 more frigates, 20 more
destroyers with helicopters, and large numbers of
missile corvettes and anti-submarine warfare corvettes."
India's new naval acquisition program entails
spending US$20 billion to buy aircraft carriers,
submarines, frigates, maritime surveillance aircraft and
other ships and equipment. The 10 principal combat
vessels would be equipped with anti-missile missiles,
control, command, communications and intelligence(C31)
systems and Cruise missile launchers.
Submarine-launched nukes
Officials
also insist on the need for a submarine-launched nuclear
missile capability, presumably to establish a
second-strike capacity and to counter the naval buildup
by Pakistan's navy - regarded by New Delhi as a
"medium-term" threat to India.
Pakistan's Agosta
90-B diesel submarines can, along with its three Orion
P-3C maritime strike aircraft outfitted with missiles,
conduct effective sea denial operations against India's
coast.
However, it is just as likely if not more
likely that the real threat Indian naval planners
perceive is China, whose fleet they see, rightly or
wrongly, as being increasingly able to project power
into the Indian Ocean. One Indian study states that the
power vacuum in that ocean in this century can only be
filled by India, China or Japan either by "complete
pre-eminence or by a mutual stand-off". While this may
appear a rather fanciful assessment, perceptions often
drive policy, especially in this part of the world.
Consequently India has searched for a submarine that
could launch nuclear missiles, and aircraft carriers, as
well as long-range missiles that could strike targets
over 2,500 kilometers away, clearly a sign that China is
in its sights as well.
Many, if not most
observers, have recently begun to observe China's rising
economic and military capability across East Asia and
its increased ability to shape policy outcomes desirable
to Beijing. India now clearly aspires to a similar
status and capability and apparently is willing to
invest the resources necessary to acquire them.
Moreover, at least in Southeast Asia and in the
waters adjacent to the Straits of Malacca, India is
prepared to assert its interests to counter the rise in
Chinese interest there. All these shifts in the
geopolitical capacity of major actors suggests that not
only is the war on terrorism a central geopolitical and
geostrategic concern of these times, but also the
likelihood of India-China rivalry across much of Asia,
whether it is muted or overt, will be no less of a
dominant story in the years to come.
Moreover,
because of that rivalry and of these two states' rise to
power, few if any of the pervious strategic realities
that have governed Asia in these current times will
remain unchanged or unscathed. However, they manifest
themselves, intriguing developments will soon be
unfolding in Southeast, South and Central Asia.
Stephen Blank is an analyst of
international security affairs residing in Harrisburg,
Pa.
(Copyright 2003 Asia Times Online Ltd.
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