Why India needs a strong Navy

1.      Oceans are a large buffer zone inviting control and management for want of which the buffer can be replaced by a direct face off.

2.      India has along coastline of 7516 kms with many littoral islands, which requires to be defended monitored and to undergo surveillance. Only a strong navy will be able to do it.

3.      India has to make necessarily concentrate on Indian Ocean

·         If China were to gain the upper hand in the Indian Ocean region, it will mark the end of India’s great-power ambitions.

·         India’s tactical and strategic disadvantages along its land frontiers are more than compensated by its immense geographic advantage in the Indian Ocean. Such is peninsular India’s vantage location in the Indian Ocean — the world’s premier energy and trade seaway — that the country is positioned dominantly astride vital sea lanes of communication (SLOCs), including China’s emergent Maritime Silk Road.

·         The Indian Ocean promises to shape the wider geopolitics and balance of power in Asia and beyond.

·         To conter The Silk Road of China with the use of aid, investment and other leverage to pull littoral states closer to its orbit, including through the construction of seaports, railroads and highways. Such construction may provide a counterpoint to China’s military assertiveness. Yet it is integral to a strategy that fuses soft and hard tactics to bind countries to China’s economy and security and to convince them that it is in their interest to accept China as Asia’s alpha power.

·         To prevent Chinese military encirclement, India needs to significantly accelerate naval modernization. It must build sufficient naval prowess to potentially interdict Chinese SLOCs in the Indian Ocean and hold the Chinese economy hostage if a Himalayan war were thrust upon it again.

·         The Chinese military keeps Indian ground forces busy in peacetime by staging Himalayan border incursions and other flare-ups, the oil and liquefied gas flowing from the Gulf and Africa to China pass through the Indian Ocean unmolested and unimpeded. Over 80% of China’s oil imports pass through the Malacca Strait chokepoint. Boosting SLOC interdiction capability would allow the Indian Navy to dominate key maritime routes and help improve the Chinese military’s behaviour along the Himalayas.

4.      As India expands its regional influence through trade and commerce, it needs a Navy to protect and defend its interests. Trade with African countries is improving. India is involved in several projects in Africa and a Naval presence is required in the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean to deter the Chinese. Despite superior numbers, the Chinese have a distinct disadvantage in the fact that their Navy has no actual war experience. India, thus is improving its Naval presence there.

5.      The US is friendly, for now. But they have the same Anglo Saxon mentality of their ancestors, the British. They mistake friendliness for weakness. They will always try to ensure their supremacy in the world by making other nations fight among themselves, providing arms to all sides of the conflict. An expanded presence in our own backyard will help us to protect ourselves in cases of National threats coming from outside. Indigenous production in this case becomes more vital. The Soviets protected us from the Americans in the 1971 war against Pakistan. The USSR exists no more. So we need to be stronger to prevent such events from recurring.

6.      India imports 70% of its crude oil from abroad. This passes through the strategically important Strait of Hormuz. The US has its 5th fleet stationed there.

7.      The Chinese are building a port with a nuclear submarine pen in the city of Gwadar in Pakistan. The port will be connected to China via a highway from Gwadar through Pakistan Occupied Kashmir and into China. This will save them the 6000 mile long journey to take the oil through the Sea. India is countering this by building the port in Chabahar in Iran. The actual work was delayed thus far due to sanctions against Iran. Now that they are lifted, the work will hopefully resume. The port will serve 2 purposes:

·         It will outflank the Chinese Pakistani project.

·         It will provide access to the sea for land locked Afghanistan.

India also plans to source raw materials and minerals from Afghanistan through this project.

Challenges to rise of Indian naval power

Naval power had always been technology intensive and most innovative like aerospace power. Waves of technology revolutions have rendered obsolescent the concepts, doctrines, operations and the hardware of the past era.

Four cardinal challenges stand out for India.

1.      The pace of platform buildup outpaces by the platform ageing of the current inventory-therefore the order of battle of the fleet is constantly under flux with falling numbers. Although considerable service-life-extension-programs have gone into the platforms with hybridization of technology, these platforms are now coming to an end of their immensely useful operational life. The imperatives for newer platforms on emerging technology templates require urgency. However, the addition of platforms to the ratio of retirement has- not been sufficient in numbers.

2.      Secondly, the complexity and diversity of missions have been increasing stressing the existing fleets into missions often beyond their capacity.

3.      Thirdly, the pace of Revolution in Military Affairs or even specifically the Revolution in Naval Affairs produces new synergies in technology, doctrines and operations resulting in new templates of naval platforms, organizational and operational complexity.

4.      The operational reputation of a navy is often intact unless challenged by a rising challenger or a new wave of technology and weaponry that may reduce the robustness of an established navy be inflicting a shocking defeat.

5.      The pace of the plan modernization and the strategic alliances that it is building with Pakistan, Bangladesh, Myanmar, and Sri Lanka for access and basing engages the Navy into inevitable regional overdrive to sustain and leverage its power and domain. It demands the Indian Navy the buildup of capacities in organizational, order of battle and operational wherewithal that would be able to develop a strong forward presence in the Strait of Malacca-South China Sea all the way to the East Pacific as a counterpoise to the Chinese maritime access building