SPEAKING
FREELY India strengthens eastern naval
flank By Abhijit Singh
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China's standoff
with Philippines over the disputed Scarborough
shoal in the South China Sea in May has brought
the subject of Asian naval rivalry to the
forefront again. Following this incident, Beijing
announced the setting up of a new military
district to assert greater administrative control
over the Spratly and Paracel islands. This
followed a recent move by Hanoi passing a domestic
law declaring the two islands as an inseparable
part of Vietnam.
To intimidate its
adversaries, Beijing has sought to infest the
contested regions in the
South China Sea with its surveillance vessels and
fishing boats, even as Chinese diplomacy works
overtime in scuttling all attempts at resolving
territorial disputes multilaterally. Not
surprisingly, when the foreign ministers of
Association of Southeast Asian Nations members met
in Phnom Penh in June, China made sure no joint
communique was issued. Beijing's assertiveness
makes Asia's eastern states jittery, as they
perceive Chinese bluster as insidious maneuvering
aimed at the appropriation of contested territory.
The unease is not confined to Southeast
Asia. Maritime experts in India and the West,
perturbed by Beijing's truculent posturing in the
South China Sea, now worry about Chinese forays
into the Indian Ocean. As Chinese anti-piracy
maritime contingents deployed off Somalia grow in
size, there is concern in India that China may
soon establish itself as an Indian Ocean power.
India's fear of being surrounded by China in its
own backyard is compounded by the assertive stance
adopted by China's vocal and outspoken strategic
community.
A bulwark in the eastern
Indian Ocean Notwithstanding its
overwhelming military dominance, China's maritime
interests in the Indian Ocean region are
considerably influenced by its perception of the
Indian Navy - the only regional maritime force
believed to be capable enough to counter the
Chinese thrust into the Indian Ocean.
By
all accounts, the trajectory of the Indian Navy's
development has been sharp. After acquiring
top-of-the-line ships and submarines in recent
years - including its latest aircraft carrier,
INS Vikramaditya, the Indian Navy is set to
spend 3,00,000 crores (over US$60 billion) in
further augmenting its capabilities over the next
two decades. These include airborne maritime
surveillance assets, shore-based and carrier-based
aircraft, and unmanned aerial vehicles.
Not wanting to be confined to its near
regions, the Indian Navy now recognizes the need
to project power. It has armed the INS Chakra
(an Akula class submarine from Russia) and
Arihant, the indigenously produced nuclear
powered submarine, with ballistic missiles. Recent
developments suggest that the Indian Navy, which
is constructing seven indigenous frigates at
Mumbai and Kolkata, will also undertake the
development of expeditionary warfare assets.
The first of these will be three
indigenously manufactured landing platform docks.
Plans have also been drawn up for the acquisition
of six new conventional submarines with air
independent propulsion and cruise missile
capability. Two fleet tankers have been acquired
from Italy to give the Indian Navy the "long legs"
that are critical for long-range operational
deployments. Meanwhile, the Indian Navy's quest to
emerge as a global and regional sea power will
receive a major boost with New Delhi and Moscow in
negotiations for the purchase of three additional
frigates, reportedly of the superlative Krivak IV
class.
The new strategic
focus For all the clear-eyed focus on
capacity creation, however, the navy's strategic
posture appears overly moderate. The Indian Navy's
maritime strategy articulates prospective naval
operations in benign - even "benevolent" - terms.
The vision for the future is presented in a
focused, yet "flexible" narrative - concrete
enough to sound purposeful; diffused amply to
preclude being labelled a "containment strategy".
The Indian Navy's future efforts, the
official document states, is aimed at "tackling
the emerging threats in the Indian Ocean Region".
While some believe China is the exogenous catalyst
driving the Indian Navy's growth, others premise
the naval build-up on the need to beef up
all-round naval defenses - a natural ambition for
any nation with expanding economic interests.
The mellow tenor of its official maritime
strategy notwithstanding, the "strategic" bent in
the Indian Navy's current and future plans is too
conspicuous to be missed. Increasingly, the navy
has being seeking to build assets and fortify
strategic defenses. The past six months have seen
the Indian Navy commission a new nuclear
submarine, a stealth frigate, an unmanned aerial
vehicle squadron and a strategic base in the
Lakshadweep islands on its Western Seaboard. While
INS Dweeprakshak, the new base, has primarily been
established for combating piracy, its use will
probably not be limited to policing for pirate
boats, but also extend to long-term strategic
maritime activity.
Building assets,
ramping up capability Reportedly, India is
also due to soon start the process of turning the
Naval Air Station at Campbell Bay - a small
outpost on the southern-most tip of the Andaman
Nicobar Islands - into a full-fledged "forward
operating base". Campbell Bay (commissioned this
month and rechristened Naval Air Station Baaz)
overlooks the Six Degree Channel, a vital shipping
lane for global traffic, and is crucial in
observing the Malacca Strait and the Bay of
Bengal. As a part of the air station's upgrade,
infrastructure and facilities will be improved
substantially to enable operations by heavier
aircraft, including refuelling, maintenance and
repair.
Significantly, the Indian Navy, in
2011, candidly acknowledged that it was in the
process of setting up operational turnaround and
forward operating bases along the Indian coast
with a view to enhancing surveillance efforts in
the region. The new "strategic outposts" will
enable, not just better operational vigilance, but
also greater maritime reach and presence.
The freshly inducted Shivalik and Teg
class ships are another manifestation of the
navy's desire to acquire strategic assets. INS
Sahyadri inducted last week, and INS
Teg, inducted in May this year, are the two
latest multi-purpose frigates to have joined the
navy's arsenal in the past two years. Geared to
undertake a broad spectrum of maritime missions,
the new inductions are not just for "tactical
war-fighting", but also enable "strategic
posturing" and long-term maritime missions.
Finessing the maritime
posture The most noteworthy shift, however,
seems to have come about in India's diplomatic and
maritime posture that is increasingly acquiring a
strategic "heft". In recent days, New Delhi has
displayed a greater willingness to send its naval
ships into the waters of the Western Pacific and
engage with navies of Southeast Asian countries.
In June, the Indian Navy dispatched a
contingent of four warships to East Asia where
they carried out exercises with the Japanese Navy.
En-route to the north-eastern Pacific, the ships
made port calls in Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia
and Philippines - a clear exhibition of India's
intent to remain robustly engaged with Southeast
Asia.
To ensure the exercises did not
provoke Chinese suspicions, the four Indian ships
also made a stop-over at Shanghai during the
return leg of the tour. The bonhomie on display
during the five-day visit served to highlight a
less-touted aspect of India's maritime outreach: a
form of inclusive partnership that does not
enhance engagement with some partners to the
exclusion of others. And yet, India is keen to
send the message home that it has strategic
interests in the Western Pacific and is willing to
do all that it takes to secure assets and
safeguard access into the region.
With its
influence in the Indian Ocean Region growing, the
Indian Navy now aspires for true "blue-water"
status. Urged on by its Western counterparts (in
particular its closest exercise partner, the US
Navy) the Indian Navy is increasingly
demonstrating willingness to shoulder
responsibility in undertaking communal security
tasks and long-term maritime missions. It is also
emphasizing on local capacity building.
As
encouraging as the progress has been so far, its
indigenous production programs suffer from
practical impediments. While local shipyards have
made considerable progress in building hulls and
associated equipment, they still suffer from
capacity woes in the weapons and sensors
department. Manufacture of propulsion machinery
and engine generators is another area of concern.
The navy knows it will need to do more to give
effect to its long-term plans
India's
naval planners are aware that, ultimately,
acquiring dominant maritime power status entails
technological self-sufficiency and a readiness to
accept a leadership role in providing the public
good of maritime security. This would only be
possible if the Indian Navy works proactively with
like-minded partners to establish a new
peace-keeping architecture in the Indo-Pacific -
one that is fair, open, inclusive and sustainable.
Abhijit Singh is a Senior
Research Fellow at the National Maritime
Foundation. He works on littoral security in the
Indian Ocean Region and geopolitical events in
West Asia and South Asia
(Copyright
Abhijit Singh 2012)
Speaking Freely is
an Asia Times Online feature that allows guest
writers to have their say.Please
click hereif you are interested in
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