A Green-Water Navy is a naval term that refers to a naval force whose power projection capability is regional in nature.[1] This is a relatively new terminology, as earlier non blue-water navies used to be collectively referred to as brown-water navy.
Green-water navies are usually capable of sending their naval ships overseas on friendly port-visits, participating in joint-exercises with other navies and sustaining short-term regional deployments. But usually they either lack the ability for sustained long-distance combat operations or their naval-doctrine does not envisage deployments far away from their home bases.
In comparison to Green-Water Navy, a Blue-water navy is one which has a capability to project power anywhere across all oceans and is able to sustain itself for long-duration deployment far away from the home base. All Blue-water navy have aircraft carriers in their fleet, to provide air cover for defensive as well as offensive operations.
Until some years back, one main difference between Blue-water Navy and Green-water navies was that Green-Water navies usually lacked aircraft carriers, depending on land-based aircraft for air cover instead. However, in the current scenario, there are some navies which though do not technically qualify as Blue-water navy, but nevertheless can deploy full fledged Carrier battle group centered around an aircraft carrier, such as the Italian Navy and Indian Navy.
Green-water navy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
