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New
Delhi, 10 April 2005
Albert
Einstein ,when asked why he was interested in the
future,
answered
simply, "I intend to spend the rest of my life
there."
We
were encouraged by the statement of Craig Barret,
outgoing CEO of Intel, who said he was suffering for
America and he claimed Bill Gates also shared the
sentiment, “Watch out for China and India, they
are out to eat America’s lunch. I lead a
schizophrenic existence worrying for America”.
This
article is not in that vein but revisits India’s
Maritime Doctrine a 135-page glossy document issued
last year by the Indian Navy. It unambiguously
articulated the Navy’s desire and commitment to
become the guardian of the littoral region and match
China in the years to come, and urged the nation to
also do so, mainly to thwart China’s ambitions in
the Indian Ocean.
Considering
that USA had global ‘responsibilities’,
Washington was amenable
to security arrangements involving India to
secure its vital interests in the Indian Ocean
region, which included sea-lane
security and market stability, especially of energy
resources. This change portends long-term benefits
for the Indian Navy. The Indian Maritime Doctrine
published in mid 2004 by the Indian Navy had just
these ambitions inked into its script.
The
world appeared to have recognised that the most
crucial type of warfare evolving today was
‘Littoral Warfare’, so it was interesting to see
how the Indian Navy –– with 20 ships on order
including two aircraft carriers, INS Vikramaditya
and the indigenous one at Kochi –– appeared to
be preparing for the region with its ambitions and
capabilities. India was not trying to prepare for a
Pax Indiana, like Britain and America crafted in the
18th and 20th centuries, with
sea power as their base, but the portends of
ambition for the region were in evidence.
The
need for nations to articulate their short and long
term security strategy was inevitably based on the
appraisal of the prevailing, and the prospective
geo-strategic environment, and India as an emerging
economic and military power in the Indian Ocean
could not be any different. In addition to its
domestic and bureaucratic politics, organizational
inertia, groupthink and psychological barriers, it
was gleaning lessons from history.
Failure
of security strategies may be attributed to
inappropriate assessment of the environment. Since
strategic decision making was influenced by a huge
variety of factors –– cultural, technological,
ethical and other factors –– successful
statecraft required that military, economic,
diplomatic and other forms of power all be used to
attain national goals and to create international
conditions in which polity can thrive. A state’s
security does depend on other states, was
international, and to shape a better environment,
besides its own interests, a state must take
interests of other states into account, and to do
otherwise was bad strategy.
The
central theme was that in the oncoming era of
uncertainty of nuclearism and jihadi
terrorism, despite an increased globally intertwined
geo-strategic environment, the South Asian region
would experience complex integration, previously not
witnessed in the region’s history. In fact the
first coinage of the term ‘Littoral Warfare’
came from USA –– keeping in mind the Middle,
South and East Asia regions, for preemptive defence.
Therefore,
India’s strategic formulations had begun to
consider the landscape as systemic, rather than the
time-old ‘threats–challenges’ approach. Such
methodology allowed for development of national
power, capacities and capabilities in toto,
rather than preparing against threats that may or
may not manifest themselves. It was also imperative,
that a grand strategy was stated –– enunciating
a regional and international outreach in exercise of
national power. The Indian Maritime Doctrine did
just that. The Chief of Naval Staff in the foreword
stated, “If we are to fulfill our maritime
destiny, all of us –– the Government, the armed
forces, the civil services, the media and the public
–– must have a maritime vision and a thorough
understanding of the maritime concepts outlined in
this doctrine”.
The
highlights of the Maritime Doctrine were:
“Spectrums
of Conflict” –– defined with a pictorial
matrix which included internal conflict, terrorism,
insurgency, low intensity maritime operations, and
rose to include conventional and nuclear conflict
while maintaining that the Navy was best suited for
nuclear deterrence from the sea. The doctrine
clearly underscored that nuclear submarines equipped
with nuclear missiles were the ideal platform for
this. It was now reasonably certain if media is to
be believed that the Indian Navy would acquire the
type 971 Akula nuclear submarine by 2007, possibly
from the Amur shipyard on lease for 10 years, for a
speculated $500 million, on the lines that the
Charlie class INS Chakra, was leased in the
late 80s for four years, in a very secret deal,
which took the world by surprise.
There
was also every indication that the indigenous
nuclear submarine ATV would also be at sea by that
time under nuclear power, with a single screw and a
Russian nuclear power plant, with home coming
motors. There was no indication yet that these boats
would be armed with vertical launched ballistic
missiles but indigenous tube launched missiles were
being pursued aggressively by the DRDO in
collaboration with the Indian Navy and civilian
engineering firms like Larsen & Tubro. Trials of
the 250 km Dhanush and Brahmos had thus far been
very successful, including one from under water and
could be harbingers of what could arm India’s
nuclear boats.
The
Principles of War and the chapter on Geo-Strategic
Imperatives for India and India’s Maritime
Interest were extremely well spelt out with a
preamble on geoeconomics, extra regional presence
and energy security, forming important subjects in
which maritime support would be a necessity. Without
spelling out the Malacca, Sunda, Hormuz and Bab El
Mandap Straits per se the document referred to Sea
Lanes Of Communications (SLOCs) as “the life
blood of India for trade and keeping them open would
be a primary national interest, especially as $260
billion worth of oil passes through these straits
and the figures are rising with China and India’s
demands accelerating”. Seabed resources and
the 2.1million sq km of India’s EEZ and interest
in Antarctica also figured, as India was setting up
its third experimental base there. The Navy had
rightly laid stress on energy needs of future India.
Concepts
of maritime power, the attributes of sea control,
sea denial, choke points, exclusion zones, guerre
de course, convoy system, visit board search and
seizure (VBBS) and center of gravity along with the
traditional naval manoeuvre, were very cogently
discussed for both the professional seafarer in
uniform, and interested civilians to appreciate.
Missions
of the Navy and Operational Tasks, laid down the
background to the most interesting chapter in the
Doctrine titled “Planning of Maritime
Operations”. Since the 1971 War in which the India
Navy had adequate time to prepare to attack Karachi
in the east and what is now Bangladesh in the west,
it had gained hands-on experience.
Threats
to India, Pakistan and China figured prominently, as
the steady inflow of military technology and
hardware into these countries was emphasised. The
doctrine stated that the Chinese Navy had the
responsibility to safeguard approx. 2. 6 million sq
km of exclusive economic zone (EEZ), compared to the
Indian EEZ of approx. 2. 01 million sq km. But it
stated that Chinese Naval plans on the anvil were
much more ambitious in comparison, and highlighted
that although China appeared to spend only 3% of its
GDP on defence, the actual expenditure was much
higher. The PLA Navy was allocated a 24% share of
the defence outlay as against 16% in India’s case.
On
Pakistan it highlighted a steady inflow of military
technology of three Agosta 90B submarines
incorporating Air Independent Propulsion (AIP)
technology, with sub-launched missile firing
capability and P3C Orion Maritime Patrol Aircraft (MPA)
capable of firing Harpoon missiles. With the United
States now having granted Pakistan Major Non-NATO
Ally status and sale of F-16 aircraft, a quantum
increase in Pakistan’s naval capability could be
expected. The doctrine went on to state that apart
from Pakistan’s hostile posturing and Chinese
expansion plans, India’s maritime security
environment stood affected with other security
concerns, straddled as India was in the following
manner.
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To
the west was the Gulf oil area, simmering on the
flash point of a global energy crisis
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To
the east was the steadily growing economy of the
ASEAN states coupled with China’s vigorous
exertion that tends to spill over into our
maritime zone
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To
the South, lie the vast majority of the Indian
Ocean Region;s (IOR’s) developing states that
were a potential hotbed for extraregional
intervention
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Sitting
astride the vital waterways of the IOR, India
could not but remain the central focus of
concerns in the Asian arc
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