Indian Navy Developments & Discussions

[Sridhar]

Indo French exercise-VARUNA 2009
11:40 IST
For the last 7 years, India and France have continually strengthened their bilateral naval relation as a part of which we have conducted an annual bilateral exercise, called VARUNA. This exercise aims at enhancing interoperability between the two navies, with an ever increasing complexity. This year, for the first time VARUNA will occur outside Indian waters, off the coasts of Brittany from 27 June to 04 July as a part of the Indian Task Force’s deployment to Europe from May to Jul 2009.

The exercise will involve many assets from the two nations: on the Indian side, the Task Force will comprise the destroyer Delhi, the frigates Brahmaputra and Beas, and the replenishment ship Aditya and their integral helicopters. The French contribution will consist of assets placed under CECLANT’s command (the Admiral Commanding Atlantic Ocean Zone), notably the destroyer Primauguet with a helicopter, the frigate Lieutenant de Vaisseau Le Hanaff, the nuclear powered attack submarine Emeraude. Several French aircraft will also take part in the exercise, including maritime patrol aircraft and navy’s fighters.

The naval partnership between the two nations is based on a comprehensive defence agreement signed by the Indian Prime Minister and the French President in 2006. India and France both desire to strengthen their naval cooperation which has already proven to be solid and is not restricted to VARUNA series alone, as is evident from ongoing activities in the Indian Ocean, where navies of both sides are coordinating their efforts towards the suppression of piracy off Somalia

PIB Press Release

 

[jackprince]

Napoleon, save India - Post-Mumbai, navy vets French concept

The Telegraph - Calcutta (Kolkata) | Frontpage | Napoleon, save India

New Delhi, June 16: Half a year after the terror attack in Mumbai that was mounted from the sea, India’s quest for a coastal security grid has taken its navy to France to study Napoleon’s fortifications on that country’s Atlantic and Mediterranean shores.

The Indian Navy’s western fleet commander Rear Admiral S.P.S. Cheema is in France to study the “Prefet Maritime” concept of the French navy, dating back to Napoleon’s time, and its current technology backup that uses a network called “Spationav”.

The Indian Navy was designated the nodal agency for maritime security after 26/11. All actions by the state marine police and the coast guard would be co-ordinated by the Indian Navy.

Last month, the director-general of the coast guard, Vice Admiral Anil Chopra, also visited France.

Napoleon’s concept of coastal security involved sea forts on France’s Atlantic and Mediterranean shores. More than two centuries later, these fortifications are a networked entity around the coasts that allow France’s maritime authorities to look deep into the sea and monitor “friend or foe” traffic.

The Indian Navy, in its new role as the nodal agency for maritime security, wants to use the experience of France to evolve a network that will allow it to collate data from civilian and military authorities such as state agencies, ministries of fisheries, shipping, oil and natural gas and customs.

France is understood to have offered the Spationav system, a network developed by EADS, a European defence consortium.

Spationav is a maritime border surveillance system that is marketed particularly for monitoring waters around metropolises — such as Mumbai — and offshore installations.

India is buying surveillance systems for its coast guard and navy. For the navy, it has ordered P8I aircraft from the US.

But before the navy gets into the nitty-gritty of buying a system, it is studying command and control structures that it could need to evolve among multiple authorities. A new Maritime Security Agency has also been formed by India.

A senior Indian Navy official said France’s model was attractive because it had a single-point authority in the “Prefet Maritime” concept.

“We are at first interested in studying the models. 26/11 has taught us many lessons and we are also trying to learn from the best practices of other countries. France has a particularly interesting solution that we are looking at,” he said.

The flotilla of the western fleet commanded by Cheema will engage the French navy in the latest edition of the India-French exercise, Varuna, off the coast of Brittany in the Atlantic from June 27 to July 4. This is the first time Varuna is being held off France.

The Indian naval task force includes the destroyer INS Delhi, frigates INS Brahmaputra and Beas, and fleet tanker INS Aditya with onboard helicopters.

The French will deploy the destroyer Primauguet, the frigate Lieutenant de Vaisseau Le Hanaff, the nuclear-powered attack submarine Emeraude, maritime patrol and naval fighter aircraft under their Admiral Commanding Atlantic Ocean Zone.

Wasn't DRDO working something similar system?

 

[EnlightenedMonk]

I think DRDO was also working, but that was quite sometime ago... and I don't know what came of it...

 

[nitesh]

PARIS AIR SHOW: Sukhoi secretive on PAK-FA programmes

Of its existing contract with Malaysia for MiG-29K fighters, Pogosyan says that the six aircraft it is due to deliver to the nation will arrive by the end of 2009.

 

[I-G]

13 interceptor boats for coastal security

13 interceptor boats for coastal security

Vinay Kumar

NEW DELHI: Thirteen interceptor boats have been despatched to Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Orissa, Goa, Lakshadweep and Puducherry to strengthen coastal security. Six more boats will be despatched soon.

While reviewing the coastal security scheme and the delivery schedule of the interceptor boats, in a meeting on Thursday with the chiefs of Goa Shipyard and Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers, Kolkata, Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram underlined the need to deliver the boats within a timeframe.

The Minister also emphasised the need for deploying trained manpower, police personnel and crew members for proper upkeep and running of the boats. The Centre had undertaken a thorough review of the coastal security apparatus in the wake of the 26/11 terror attacks in Mumbai after it became known that the terrorists had taken the sea route from Karachi via Gujarat to reach Mumbai.

Mr. Chidambaram also met the chief of the Central Public Works Department and other government and public sector undertakings to review issues related to fencing, road building, floodlighting and construction of border outposts along international borders.

The Hindu : National : 13 interceptor boats for coastal security

 

[Sridhar]

X posting

Interview: Chairman and Managing Director, Mazagon Dock Limited, Vice Admiral H.S.Mal
FORCE June 2009
‘We Are Hopeful That We Will be Able to Deliver All Six Submarines by the Contracted Delivery Date of December 2017’
Chairman and Managing Director, Mazagon Dock Limited, Vice Admiral H.S.Malhi AVSM, VSM

When you took over, a few months ago, you had said that modernisation of the shipyard was one of your primary Key Result Areas. Can you please give an update on that?

The modernisation process is in progress. The work on the new wet basin is in full swing, as is the construction of the 300 ton Goliath crane. The crane blocks are now being constructed on site and we expect all this to be completed by 2011. Even as the work on the crane progresses, the modular workshop and cradle assembly shop will also come up alongside for which order is expected to be placed soon.

Who are you collaborating with for the Goliath crane?

We have placed an order with M/s MBE (McNally Bharat Engineering) company, who in turn are collaborating with an Italian firm, Fagioli, and M/s Kone Cranes of Finland for erection and technology of the Goliath crane, which will have a span of 138 metres. It will be able to stretch across two slipways and the modular workshop.

Last time, you mentioned that despite the modernisation work, the biggest constraint at MDL would be space, which is why some part of the work would have to be outsourced. Is this already happening?

No, it is not happening as of now. While space is a constraint, we are trying to optimise whatever we have; for instance, another piece of land, Alcock Yard, where we used to do offshore fabrication for ONGC. That work is over now, so we are building workshops there to carry out some part of the construction for Project 75 (Scorpene submarine). For shipbuilding also, we are going to build another shed alongside so that some work is carried out there. There is another place, Nhava Yard that we are trying to use. It is on the other side of the harbour and is on lease from the ONGC. We are trying to work out an arrangement with the ONGC to see if we can utilise this yard. It is more than 20 acres, which is one-third of our area. The idea is that, when we get future orders, we can store constructed blocks there and bring them over here when required. The idea is that whatever is available to us should be optimised and not lay idle.

In terms of percentage, how much will this optimisation increase your capacity?

One area where we have faced problems is lack of space to put up blocks. With Nhava Yard, we will overcome this constraint. We can store the blocks there, and once we need to put them together, all that we have to do is put them in a barge and tow them here. While it will not be right to quantify the capacity as of now, we will be able to take on more work. At the same time, we are also open to the idea of outsourcing. We have certain sub-contractors who make parts of our vessels on their premises.

But this is a very small level of work.

Yes, at the moment it is. But we are not closed to this idea. As we move along, and have more orders, we will explore the idea of outsourcing more work to the private vendors. I am also open to the idea of getting complete blocks built outside.

Don’t you think that perhaps now you should exclusively do defence work and not take on any commercial activity?

Though it is not written down anywhere, we have more or less decided not to do any more commercial construction. Our primary work is warship-building and we want to ensure that we build quality ships on time.

What is the status of Project 75? There were talks of some slippages earlier?

We have progressed extremely well on Project 75, especially with regards to the fabrication of the hull. We have upgraded our infrastructure and increased our manpower. To accelerate the project, we have also started work on the Alcock Yard, as I mentioned earlier. We are also building extra storage space in a yard in Chembur. As far as the future progress is concerned, we have a few issues regarding some items that we have to procure from various places through our collaborators. There are some issues of overall cost and so on, which we are working on. We are also in touch with the government to give us the necessary sanctions.

But you will stick with the deadline of first submarine?

Although there were initial delays, which is a common feature in such complex and high-end technology products, they have now been resolved and the project is progressing satisfactorily. We are hopeful that we will be able to deliver all six submarines by the contracted delivery date of December 2017. No, the first ship has already slipped by about eight months to one year according to our work chart. But we are hopeful that we will be able to catch up a bit on this if not completely. Our deadline is December 2012. There is time, so let’s see how we move ahead.

The DCNS sounds optimistic that the final deadline would be met?

Yes, the final deadline of December 2017 can be met.

But don’t you think that after the first two ships, your problems will only increase because that is when the process of indigenisation will start and you will be looking for Category B and C material?

The process of identification of the material is already on and we have initiated the procurement process. We are working on three ships at the same time. While in the first ship a lot of progress has been made, for instance, many sub-sections are already made; on the other two we have done some basic work only. Till the equipment comes, we cannot proceed on the first one, so we are going ahead with the next two.

The Indian Navy envisages getting on with the second line of submarines pretty soon. Would MDL be able to take that on as well?

Yes, we would like to do that very much. We have now acquired some expertise in submarine building. Some kind of technology transfer has taken place and our people are very well trained in welding the hull of the submarine. Our skill levels have really gone up. Given all this, I don’t see any reason why we should start ab initio somewhere else. Once the time comes, we will make a case to the government.

But the other side may argue that why should one shipyard have this monopoly? Let others develop these skills also so that there is healthy competition.

I think we must first look at the needs of the Indian Navy. At the moment, the submarine strength of the navy is not as good as it should be. If we are looking to plug this gap as soon as possible, then we must go ahead with the existing upgraded infrastructure and trained manpower. Of course, it is a very laudable goal to diversify and build multiple facilities. But this should be done when we are well off and we have time on our hand. In the present circumstances, the easiest thing to do would be to go ahead with the same shipbuilder, so that the facilities and skills are optimally utilised. Given that the government has invested so much in MDL to create this facility to build submarines, which is a very complex process, just ending on six may not give us the return on the investment, in terms of money, infrastructure, skills, documentation and so on.

The 11th Defence Plan is coming to an end in the next two years. Do you think the navy will take the call on the second line in this plan itself?

I am not the right person to answer this question. But if you ask my assessment, then I would say that the navy would like to pursue for the second line in this plan.

Presuming that your assessment turns out to be correct and the navy goes in for another line of submarines, then with all the learning, investments and so on, will you be able to make the transition to the next line?

Scorpene, that we are building, calls for the highest standard of construction. Making the hull of a submarine demands very stringent tolerances. In a diameter of a few metres, the tolerance is as high as a few millimetres. I feel that if we can take on this type of construction here, we will be able to do anything else as well.

Concurrently?

Yes, maybe not immediately, but certainly in 2012 when pressure hull construction of the sixth submarine will be completed. In fact, in my opinion, the second line is likely to start by that time and, therefore, we are the most appropriate agency to undertake this work.

Indian Navy’s submarine building plan envisages six plus six submarines from foreign vendors, after which 12 indigenous submarines would be made incorporating all the learning that would have happened in these developments. Once we move on to these 12 submarines, how much technology would you have imbibed by then?

Indigenisation is one of the key elements of this project. The first two would be completely made to the DCNS specifications as they will stand guarantee on these, for the subsequent ships, they have a commitment to indigenise equipment and progressively move towards more indigenous components as we go on to the last one. So indigenisation is going to be an ongoing process. In any case, electronics are already being indigenised through BEL. One area where we need to collaborate with the industry in a big way (which may not happen in the current project) is diesel engines. But this apart, there are several areas where indigenisation is not only desirable but possible as well. For instance, cabling, pipes and so on.

What percentage of indigenisation are you confident about when it comes to the series of 12 submarines?

It is very difficult to quantify it as it could be in terms of cost or volume or both. But, if we take the purely the cost aspect, then it could be as high as 60 per cent. On any submarine, the weapons constitute roughly 25 per cent of the cost. Maybe, there could be some indigenisation there as well.

Engines are probably our biggest weakness as you pointed out. Are you in touch with some engine manufacturers for some kind of a joint venture?

No, this will have to be done by the collaborator. They are bound to go to some Indian manufacturer for a tie-up. I think they are already in touch with a few people. If you remember, for our earlier warships, Corvettes and the OPVs, we used to put the Pielstick engine, which was a French engine being built in India by Kirloskar Oil Limited. I think something of this kind should be done. Basically, they’ll like to look at an assured order book of six to seven engines before they commit anything.

Another thing that you had mentioned the last time, was that the shipyards should have the flexibility of doing the technical designing as well, which currently is being done by Directorate General of Naval Design (DGND). What is the progress on that?

A decision was taken in November 2008 that detail designing should be done by the shipyards. Of course, approvals for some of the drawings will still be sought from the DGND. But even then this is a very good decision, both for the shipyards and the navy. Now we have to start work on that and ensure that we deliver on this commitment. There is no point in doing something that does not stand up to any scrutiny. So we have to do a good job there and if we can do that, it will be a big step forward for us. Now when we go ahead with the future ships, for example, Project 17A, where we plan to do modular or integrated construction, the design process will change slightly. Then, instead of designing for the entire ship, we will design for a block, a 300 ton block. This will be a new concept and we will need some handholding for this. Our plan is to tie up with a foreign shipyard that has done this kind of work in the past. We would like to visit their yard to see how they do their detail designing and also invite them to visit us so that they get to see our infrastructure.

Where will this leave the DGND?

They will still do the concept design. The functional design, which is the next phase, can also be done by them. But over the period of time, I think the shipyards should graduate to a stage that they can offer their own designs to the navy. If the maritime capability plan envisages all purpose frigates, then the shipyard should be able to give them a design or two to select. Other shipyards should also do so, so that there are competing designs for the navy to choose from. This is how things are happening all over the world.

Do you think the Indian Navy is moving towards something like this?

The detail design is the first step. I am sure things will progress.

This will give a lot of scope to the foreign shipbuilders to collaborate with Indian shipyards ?

Yes, Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers Ltd (GRSE) is already collaborating with DCNS.

Are you also talking to some foreign yards for collaboration?

We are only talking at this stage. Nothing has been finalised as yet. We are talking to Fincantieri of Italy, which is among the finest yards. They are presently building some ships for the Indian Navy. I don’t mind talking to DCNS, because to move towards modular or integrated construction, we must work with yards with expertise in this area.

Is there any thinking in this direction at all at the highest level?

What I am saying is that this is the way ahead for the shipyards. I am not aware of any decisions being taken on this by the Navy as yet.

How will DCNS’ opening of an Indian entity, DCNS India, help in Project 75?

DCNS India is a separate entity altogether. It has nothing to do with Project 75, but it may help in a certain way. DCNS India is looking at Indian partners to make equipment for them, which could be used for their other projects worldwide. They have a number of ongoing submarine projects, for which if they source equipment from India, it will lower the overall cost of the project. Since they will identify and qualify the vendors, even we can use the same equipment in our submarines.

How confident are you that the order for Project 15B will come to MDL?

Since we are the only shipyard that has the capacity to build ships of that size (6,000 to 7,000 tons), the order will have to come to us.

When are you expecting the order to come through?

By the end of the year. I think a decision has been taken to build four more destroyers.

How will Project 15B be an improvement on 15A?

All the lessons that we learnt while working on Project 15A will be incorporated in the second line. But there will not be any major changes. The idea is not to keep changing your design as this will ensure faster built period at lower cost.

One of the major criticisms of the shipyards is the delay in projects. Of course, several factors are responsible for that. What steps are you taking to ensure on time performance?

The first step is optimising our space. And even with the augmented space if we feel that we are not able to do justice to the orders that we have, we will outsource our work. There are plenty of private yards on the western coast which we can make part of the blocks for us. However, what will ensure that we deliver ships on time is a change in mindset. All the modernisation that we are doing is geared towards modular construction. But modular construction will only work if we enforce self-discipline, which means that there will be very little room to carry out constant changes and modifications. Since we will not be designing the entire ship in one go, but blocks, we will need to finalise and freeze the design before we commence production.

What you are saying is that the Indian Navy will need to change its mindset?

What I am saying is that both the customer and the yard will need to change their mindset. At our end also, we cannot have the attitude that we will do something now and change it later, because that will be a setback to the entire process. However, there are other issues also which lead to delays. A case in point is maturity of technology. For instance, if you are carrying out development of the systems (which will be onboard the ship) concurrently with the ship construction, it will be very difficult to complete the project on time. The systems that go in the ship should be already developed. But this is only possible when the nation already has a range of developed technology. Then it can have the luxury of choosing one system over another. In our country, we are still developing technologies. Hence we do not have this luxury; so willy-nilly we have to go ahead with this concurrent development. After all, when the ship is commissioned, it should have systems that are modern.

Moreover, when we talk of modernisation, it is not only the Goliath crane or workshops, we also need to modernise our equipment. But, I must say that we have an excellent workforce. It is second to none. Led properly and given the right tools, they will deliver. I think it is a misconceived notion that the output of our men is less that what it should be. Sure, at the moment, it is less. But with the right tools and incentives, they can deliver. We need to bring in labour-saving devices to increase productivity.

How much merit is there in the idea that each shipyard should specialise in one kind of shipbuilding so that there is no duplication of work or resources?

This is how it happens in the West. In India also, there is division of work even if by default. Because of the limitations of space and resources, the kind of work each shipyard can do is determined. For instance, only MDL can make big vessels like destroyers.

When FORCE met you in November, you had just taken over. Then you had listed out your KRAs. Now you have been in office for some time. What are the challenges ahead?

The biggest challenge is that we meet the navy’s requirement of delivering on time. I think that is the only way to improve the credibility of the yard. And for this, both the navy and the shipyard will have to work closely with one another. The other challenge for me is the upgradation of our skills because that will enhance productivity.

 

[nitesh]

First naval air squadron 'the flying fish' celebrates golden jubilee - Yahoo! India News

 

[Singh]

Indian Navy on extensive western deployment

Ships from the Indian Navy’s western fleet are on a four-month long deployment, with engagements planned with navies of countries on the route to and from the Baltic Sea.

The advance ship the Indian guided missile frigate INS (Indian Naval Ship) Beas left Mumbai on April 27, 2009 and reached Djibouti on May 4, leaving port on May 7, after conducting with their navy what is known as a Passage Exercise (PassEx) It reached Port Suez on May 10, and Port Said on May, 11.

It then headed west in the Mediterranean Sea, reaching Algiers on May 17, and conducted a PassEx with the Algerian Navy till May 20, where it conducted logistics training exercises at sea.

It then headed straight to the North Sea, reaching Rotterdam on May 26 and conducted a PassEx with the Royal Dutch Navy, departing on May 29.

The INS Beas is scheduled to reach St. Petersburg on Wednesday, June 3 and will stay till Sunday, June 7 conducting exercises with the Russian Navy. The Indo-Russian naval exercise INDRA-2009 was cut short in January this year due to unavailability of the full complement of the Russian Navy. The Indian Navy has earlier conducted combined anti-piracy operations with the Russian and French navies in the Gulf of Aden, which included the participation of the Russian destroyer Admiral Vinogradov that has since been replaced in the region by the Admiral Panteleyev, which is also an Udaloy Class Anti Submarine Destroyer.

“Engagement with the Russian Navy is considered significant as it has recommenced naval procurement. During the days of the Soviet Union, the Soviet Navy was seen as the filter of procurement choice for the Indian Navy, as their procurement was robust and of high quality. Now since they have started buying again, we want to know what they’re buying, how it works and how well it performs,” one senior naval officer told StratPost.

It will then reach Bremerhaven on the following Friday, June 12 and participate in a PassEx with the German Navy till June 15, then arriving at Portsmouth on June 17 when it will rendezvous with the rest of the deployment that will reach there the same day.

“Being in touch with the German Navy is important too. Germany is a major manufacturer of naval platforms and equipment. They make submarines, torpedoes, gyros etc. It’s smart to see what others have, especially since this could be of interest to us,” says the officer.

The other three ships include the guided missile destroyer INS Delhi, the guided missile frigate INS Brahmaputra of which the INS Beas is a sister ship and the supply tanker INS Aditya.

These three ships slipped their moorings in Mumbai on May 13, 2009 and reached Jeddah on May 22, leaving on May 25 after conducting joint exercises with the Royal Saudi Navy.

The ships then sailed to Massawa in Eritrea were berthed there from May 21 to May 24. “This is part of a well-thought out plan of balancing maritime interests in the region. The Saudis, Yemenis, Ethiopians and Eritreans don’t really like each other that much. Tensions could lead to a vacuum in the area. So the Indian Navy visits Eritrea and the Indian Army visits Ethiopia,” says the senior naval source

After reaching Port Said on May 28, the deployment split up with the INS Brahmaputra reaching Haifa in Israel on May 30 and conducting a PassEx with the Israeli Navy. “Israel has obviously become quite important to us in recent times. The INS Brahmaputra also carries the Israeli Barak system,” the source tells StratPost.

The INS Delhi and INS Aditya, on their part, reached the Turkish Naval Base at Aksaz on Sunday, May 31 to conduct a PassEx with the Turkish Navy till Wednesday, June 3. “Engagement with the Turks has become significant because of their strong ties with Pakistan. We’re just there to see if we like each other and want to engage. If not, well, nice meeting you,” he says.

The three ships will rendezvous on June 4 and again splitting up will head towards Tripoli (June 7-June 10) and Naples (June 8-June 11). “Fincantieri is building a couple of our tankers. We’ll be engaging with the Cavour AC,” says the officer.

They will then rendezvous on June 12 and then head to the UK reaching Portsmouth on June 17 staying till June 20.

The four ships will then participate in the joint Indo-UK naval exercise Konkan from June 20 to June 25, to be held south of the British Isles in the Atlantic. The British Royal Navy will field two guided missile frigates, the HMS Westminster and the HMS Lancaster, a nuclear-powered submarine (SSN) HMS Trafalgar, two Royal Fleet Auxiliaries (RFAs) (supply ships) the RFA Fort Rosalie and RFA Mounts Bay. The Royal Navy will also field ship-borne rotary wing aircraft, the Merlin and Lynx in addition to assets of the Royal Air Force (RAF) and the Fleet Air Arm, which will include the Nimrod, and Hawk aircraft.

“The Royal Navy has this interesting concept of RFAs. These ships are not part of the navy and are manned by a mixture of civilian and naval personnel,” points out the naval officer.

Konkan 2009 will include drills involving special operations, especially focusing on EOD (Explosive Ordinance Disposal) diving, surface warfare and Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) operations. “The British are very, very good at ASW operations. They’re probably better at it than the US Navy. So it’s always good to be part of an exercise where you can see them do their thing. Also, those seas have different waters, different hydrologies and different shipping densities. So it’s a good learning experience practicing our own tactics there as well as engaging with the British,” he says.

The Indian Naval Ships will then head to Brest in France, docking there from the June 27 to June 30, after which the four ships will participate in the joint Indo-French naval exercise Varuna, which will end on July 4.

The French Navy will field the Primauguet, the Le Henaff, the nuclear-powered submarine (SSN) Emeraude, Atlantique, Nimrod, Lynx, Super Etendard and Rafale aircraft.

The squadron will then split up heading to Lisbon (July 8-July 11) and conducting a PassEx with the Portuguese Navy, to Tangier (July 9-July 12) and conducting a PassEx with the Moroccan Navy, and to Malaga (July 9-July 12) holding a PassEx with the Spanish Navy.

The squadron will rendezvous on July 12 to split up again and visit Athens (July 18- July 21), Alexandria (July 19-July 22) and rendezvousing again at Port Said on July 22 after a PassEx with the Egyptian Navy. After Port Suez on July 23, the squadron will reach Salalah in Oman on July 30 and conduct a PassEx with Oman, heading for Mumbai on August 2 to reach their home port on August 6.

 

[Singh]

India, France to hold joint naval exercise off Brittany ​

New Delhi (IANS): The Indian and French navies, which have been conducting the "Varuna" joint exercise for the past seven years, will engage outside Indian waters for the first time when the war game is conducted off the coast of Brittany June 27-July 4.

“For the last seven years, India and France have continually strengthened their bilateral naval relation as a part of which we have conducted an annual bilateral exercise, called Varuna. This exercise aims at enhancing interoperability between the two navies, with an ever increasing complexity,” a defence ministry statement said on Monday.

“This year, for the first time, Varuna will be conducted outside Indian waters, off the coast of Brittany from June 27-July 4 as a part of the Indian task force’s deployment to Europe from May to July 2009,” the statement added.

The Indian component for the exercise comprises the indigenously-built guided missile destroyer INS Delhi, the guided missile frigates INS Brahmaputra and INS Beas and the replenishment vessel INS Aditya and their integral helicopters.

The French Navy will field the destroyer Primauguet, the frigate Lieutenant de Vaisseau Le Hanaff and the nuclear-powered attack submarine Emeraude. Several maritime patrol aircraft and navy fighters, will also participate in the exercise, the statement said.

The naval partnership between the two nations is based on a defence agreement signed by them in 2006.

The Hindu News Update Service

 

[Daredevil]

India’s ‘Blue Water’ Doctrine

Journal of Military and Strategic Studies, Winter 2007-08, Vol. 10, Issue 2.

INDIA’S DRIVE FOR A ‘BLUE WATER’ NAVY


Dr. David Scott, International Relations, Brunel University


Introduction

Since the late 1990s India’s attempt to strengthen its maritime status has gathered decisive pace. This all involves India’s drive, seen in its 2006 Navy Day of “transforming itself from a ‘brown water’ coastal defense force to a formidable ‘blue water’ fleet.”1 It reflects the Indian Navy’s own 2003 slogan, and play on words, of Tacking to the Blue Waters.2 Technically, a ‘blue water’ navy is taken as one able to operate over 200 miles (320 kilometres) from shore, in other words long range, deep water, oceanic maritime projection bringing with it seapower.

Politically, a ‘blue water’ navy is long range extension of the state’s presence. As Admiral Jayant Nadkarni, Chief of Naval Staff 1987-90, once put it “legitimate use…of a Blue Water navy is power projection which is necessary” for a “power like India.”3 In doing so, India’s own ‘blue water’ drive is coming up against the similar ‘blue water’ drive by another rising power, the People’s Republic of China. China’s “turn to Mahan” is similar to India’s, as is Japan’s.4 This brings the Chinese Navy out into the Indian Ocean, with China’s ‘string of pearls’ strategy across the Indian Ocean causing concern for Indian strategists and leading to further deployments by the Indian Navy. Indeed, such China-related factors further push India’s ‘blue water’ drive. This maritime drive by India for a ‘blue water’ navy can be considered in terms of her strategic intentions, her naval capability-capacity, and her actual naval deployments.

Strategic Intentions

India’s maritime needs have long been stressed in some quarters. Here, there many echoes with Alfred Mahan’s advocacy and stress, at the end of the nineteenth century, on the potential efficacy of ‘seapower’. Mahan viewed the sea, and in particular the Pacific Ocean, as the domain for America to stride forth. His vision of the Pacific Ocean was geo-political, but also geo-economic, where “the convergence there of so many ships…will constitute a centre of commerce, inter-oceanic encounters” between states.5 It was “one whose approaches will be watched jealously, and whose relations to the other centres of the Pacific by the [maritime] lines joining it to them must be examined carefully.”6 All one has to do is change ‘Pacific Ocean’ for the ‘Indian Ocean’ and one has India’s naval setting. Consequently, Mahan strongly advocated the construction of long range ships, “the modern monsters of the deep.”7 For India’s naval advocates, their ‘deep’ is the Indian Ocean and its extensions, ocean ranges to be similarly traversed and molded by modern day equivalents of Mahan’s blue water ‘monsters’.

Mahan was an influential geo-political figure, a confidant of President Theodore Roosevelt, and involved in America’s push across the Pacific. State interests were prominent for Mahan; his naval advocacy buttressed state policy, “a sober recognition of what our reasonable sphere of influence is, and a candid justice in dealing with foreign interests within that sphere.”8 Such types of sentiments are recognizable in India’s current ‘blue water’ drive for an appropriate de facto sphere of influence, with the Indian Ocean considered as a zone of natural preeminence, for India and with India candidly dealing with other foreign interests within such a maritime sphere of influence. America’s rise as a Great Power at the start of the twentieth century is echoed by India’s rise as a Great Power at the start of this twenty-first century. Mahan’s ‘seapower’ tenets have a continuing potency for Indian horizons, “our [American] interest and dignity require that our rights should depend upon the will of no other state, but upon our own power to enforce them…freedom of inter-oceanic transit depends upon predominance in a maritime region.”9 Mahan’s “control of a maritime region is insured primarily by a navy; secondarily, by positions, suitably chosen and spaced one from the other, upon which as bases the navy rests, and from which it can exert its strength.”10 India’s control of a maritime region was to focus on the Indian Ocean. India’s “Grand Strategy” has indeed involved such “Mahanian visions” for India’s place in the Indian Ocean.11 A ‘blue water’ navy serves as India’s primary instrument to achieve Mahanist ‘seapower.’

On the eve of Indian independence Kavalam Panikkar was advocating such far reaching naval power projection for India in his India and the Indian Ocean: An Essay on the Influence of Sea Power on Indian History (1945).12 This book was a deliberate echo of Mahan’s earlier 1890 opus The Influence of Seapower on History. Panikkar’s treatise left a strong legacy in “the ‘blue water’ thinking of Indian officers, who in training still [2005] read Panikkar’s book”.13 Another contemporary, Keshav Vaidya was also advocating ‘blue water’ naval projection for a newly-independent India in his The Naval Defence of India (1949). Vaidya explicitly acknowledged Mahan's Influence of Sea Power Upon History, as well as Tunstall's Ocean Power Wins (1944).14 Thus, for Vaidya, India’s strategic needs in 1949 meant “developing an invincible navy…to defend not only her coast but her distant oceanic frontiers with her own navy…the points which must be within India's control are not merely coastal, but oceanic, and far from the coast itself…our ocean frontiers are stretched far and wide in all directions”.15 However in strategic terms a ‘continental mind-set’ held sway until the late 1990s, with a consequent neglect and languishing of the Indian Navy.
Nevertheless, a strong maritime strategic drive has been evident since the late 1990s, underpinned since 1998 by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Congress-led administrations, and facilitated by India’s stronger economic performance in recent years. The BJP domestic input was with regards to its generally more assertive nationalism and readiness to engage in power politics. Strong criticism were posed by them of India’s preceding military neglect, and naval forces in particular; Jaswant Singh arguing “today, the Indian navy faces a crisis in terms of its rapidly declining force levels, lack of sufficient funding, and limited warship construction programmes” a “deplorable state of affairs.”16 The Vajpayee government, with Jaswant Singh as Minister for External Affairs, made a conscious decision to start increasing funding and warship construction, all in order to shape ‘blue water’ capacity for India. The Congress-led administration of Manmohan Singh, which came into office in May 2004, has maintained this naval support. The importance of India’s Navy was clearly expressed by her External Affairs Minister, Pranab Mukherjee in June 2007. In a wide ranging speech International Relations and Maritime Affairs – Strategic Imperatives, he stressed: “within the larger maritime canvas, it is our nation’s military maritime power - as embodied by the Indian Navy…that is the enabling instrument that allows all the other components of maritime power to be exercised.”17 It was “these ‘enabling’ functions that provide centrality to the Indian Navy within the country’s overall maritime strategy and allow it to act as a versatile and effective instrument of our foreign policy.” 18 India’s economic surge not only provides more sustainable funding for the Indian Navy but also strengthens concerns for long range defense of Indian economic interests on the high sea. This push for a ‘blue water’ navy by India is connected to its own growing economic needs for trade and access to energy resource which necessitate protecting energy sea-lanes across the deep waters. All in all, such developments means there is now a much more overt military and political readiness to establish ‘blue water’ capability.

The Indian Navy has been given the domestic go ahead to develop ‘blue water’ capacity. In the Indian Navy’s own words, “it is vital, not just for India's security but also for her continued prosperity, that we posses a Navy which will protect the nation's vast and varied maritime interests…and underpin India's status.”19 Long range military operative capability and deployment was seen as reflecting equally long range political purposes; Indian officers commenting in the wake of tsunami operations in 2004-5 that “we have proved the Navy can be used as a diplomatic instrument in support of our political and geo-strategic objectives. Unlike the Army and Air Force, the Navy is a trans-national force, not circumscribed by a country's international boundaries or airspace.”20 As Chief of Naval Staff, Arun Prakash was explicit enough, 2 December 2005, “India aspires to a certain position in the world and so we must have a navy commensurate to our needs,” able to project that position and safeguard those needs, far and wide.21 In terms of strategic intentions, clear signals were given by Admiral Sureesh Mehta who took over as Chief of Naval Staff on 31 October 2006. Immediately he was telling the media “we want our Navy to operate in waters far away from home. Our ships have to be placed at distant places. If our ships are present far away from home, we can do something to raise the prestige of the nation,” a widely recognized ‘blue water’ conceptualization.22 Indeed, the Indian Navy’s ‘blue water’ capability was seen as his “mantra”.23 Three weeks later, and Mehta was reported asserting with some justification “our ships now operate across the oceans…the Navy now plays a worldrole. Especially so since the country's economy has been growing at the rate of over eight per cent during the past three years.”24

 

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The reasons for this strategic emphasis are several. Internal dynamics, ‘bureaucratic politics’, are one. India’s own indigenous shipbuilding and defence industries are now more able to provide, but also more able to push for, greater naval orders.25 To some extent there has been the growth of Indian institutions with vested bureaucratic interests in maintaining and expanding India’s naval programme. However on its own such bureaucratic factors are insufficient to account for why it is only in the last decade that India has successfully initiated a drive for a ‘blue water’ navy. It is not so much the bureaucratic factors, but the politics factors that are crucial. At the broadest level, one political factor is that national prestige has also become a lever for the Indian Navy, a sense of the need for a suitable great navy to reflect a Great Power. India’s push for maritime projection is also connected to its nuclear deterrent, itself an aspect of India’s rise as a Great Power.
The Indian Navy itself seems to have made its voice more heard amongst India’s political elite. As such, the Indian Navy has been able to make itself seen as a particularly useful instrument of the state and foreign policy establishment. Consequently Vice Admiral Madanjit Singh, Chief of Western Naval Command, was arguing in 2004 that in the “last few years, we have been showing our presence in most parts of the Indian Ocean and beyond. We are also doing bilateral exercises with many other navies…Naval diplomacy has always been there. For the last so many years, among the three services, the navy has had a larger role in diplomacy and will continue to have so.”26 Naval deployments are a readily available and particularly public demonstration of diplomacy, of showing the flag, of showing support, more dramatically and more visually showing India’s presence in an immediate, flexible, and readily redeployable manner. Sleek stealth destroyers like INS Talwar lend themselves to long range diplomatic deployments, explicitly highlighting India’s naval capability and implicitly showcasing India itself as an advanced high tech power in the world. Soft power prestige and credibility is something that naval deployments can facilitate. Port calls can bring in a rapid range of countries within a matter of days and weeks, as shown by India’s naval odyssey around the Pacific Asia Rim during Spring 2007. Such naval deployment remains swathed in general talk of ‘win-win’ situations that are not aimed at any third party. Yet in reality, “the exquisiteness of India's naval diplomacy is that the objective of balancing [China] is being undertaken” not through direct confrontation with China, but through fostering cooperative ‘blue water’ frameworks with nations far and wide in the Indian Ocean and beyond.27 It is no coincidence that stress has been laid by the Indian Navy on ‘naval diplomacy’, a refrain picked up in turn by Indian’s Ministry for External Affairs.28

However, the trend towards India’s naval voices being more readily heard is also due to wider external factors concerning India’s various strategic needs and perceived threats that it faces. Threats are also a lever for India’s ‘blue water’ naval expansion.

Islamist jihadi groups operating across the Indian Ocean, the Gulf and Southeast Asia are one such threat. Last, but certainly not least, comes the question of competition with other states. This is not so much to do with Pakistan, where a local ‘brown water’ fleet would suffice for maintaining India’s security. Rather, state competition is all to do with China, the other Asian giant, where geography brings clearly overlapping, indeed conflicting, geo-political imperatives. This China dimension was raised in The Indian Maritime Doctrine (2004). Interestingly enough, Panikkar in his own tract back in 1945 had also commented on a future rise of China posing a maritime challenge to India. By 2005 Prakash was raising the issue of China’s “determined drive to build a powerful blue water maritime force” and of the “imperative for India, therefore, to retain a strong maritime capability in order to maintain a balance of maritime power in the Indian Ocean, as well as the larger Asia-Pacific region”.29 In short, India’s own naval rise has also been in part a reaction by India to China’s own ‘blue water’ aspirations and appearance in the Indian Ocean. China has triggered India’s concerns over being encircled in and around the Indian Ocean. To some extent India has responded to China’s appearance in the Indian Ocean, not only by augmenting its own power in the Indian Ocean, but also by projecting Indian maritime presence further eastwards into China’s own maritime backyard of the South China Sea and beyond, for which it needs a ‘blue water’ navy. This China dimension remains an ongoing factor in Indian maritime thinking. Not surprisingly, it will be encountered at various points in this study.

All of these reasons converged during this past decade. As Chief of Naval Staff, Admiral Arun Prakash had been eloquent during 2005-6 over the Indian Navy’s maritime potentiality. For him, in Emerging India: Security and Foreign Policy Perspective, “a self-confident and vibrant India looks towards achieving its manifest destiny in the years ahead.”30 Prakash felt, in his Future Strategy speech, that “an economically resurgent India has vast and varied maritime interests” necessitating “sea control in all three dimensions in the distant reaches.”31 Prakash frequently emphasized this theme of distant reaches, “the will to project our power overseas...to safeguard our emerging vital interests overseas…to build adequate sealift and airlift capability to have a credible and sustainable trans-national capability…vital interest to us lies in the expanse of the seas.”32 To safeguard these oceanic interests, an oceanic-going navy was needed. This ‘blue water’ capability was central to what Arun Prakash described as “this bigger picture…of making India a great maritime power.”33

Such naval aspirations have become reflected in naval and government policy formulations, such as the The Strategic Defence Review: The Maritime Dimension - A Naval Vision (May 1998), The Indian Maritime Doctrine (April 2004), the Indian Navy’s Vision Statement (May 2006), Roadmap to Transformation (October 2006), and Freedom to Use the Seas: India’s Maritime Military Strategy (IMMS) (September 2007). The Indian Maritime Doctrine was a particularly substantive 148-page document, with a suitably appropriate subtitle of The Maritime Dimension - A Naval Vision. It was drafted by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government and re-affirmed by the new Congress government that came into office in May 2004. Prakash’s ‘Forward’ on India’s “maritime destiny” was developed in its sections on ‘Geo-Strategic Imperatives for India’ and ‘India’s Maritime Interest.’34 The review set the benchmark for India’s current “Mahanian vision” of maritime strength.35 For Prakash, The Indian Maritime Doctrine was an attempt to set out India’s “three-dimensional blue water force,” a navy able to play an important role on the surface, underwater, and in the air.36 A proactive role was envisaged for the Indian Navy, enabling it to counter distant emerging threats and protect extended ‘Sea Lines of Communication’ SLOC through and from the Indian Ocean, “an exposition of power projection beyond the Indian shores.”37 In classic Mahan style, the The Indian Maritime Doctrine highlighted the need to control choke points, important islands and vital trade routes. Consequently, ‘naval diplomacy’ was pinpointed as one of the primary tasks of the Indian Navy during peacetime. Geographically, it also pinpointed ‘blue water’ horizons, “the Indian maritime vision for the first quarter of the 21st century must look at the arc from the Persian Gulf to the Straits of Malacca as a legitimate area of interest.”38

Central to India’s current strategic thinking is the Indian Ocean, the thrust to make the Indian Ocean ‘India’s ocean’. The Indian Ocean is currently described as part of India’s ‘extended neighbourhood’; and as such somewhere for India’s diplomatic, security and economic interests to be safeguarded by the Indian Navy. In doing so, the earlier but premature speculations of Kavalam Panikkar’s India and the Indian Ocean. An Essay on the Influence of Sea Power on Indian History (1945) are now being realized; with his sense of “the primary responsibility lying on the Indian Navy to guard the steel ring created by Singapore, Ceylon, Mauritius and Socotra…the Indian Ocean must therefore remain truly Indian.”39 Thus, the Indian Navy Vision Statement (2006) starts by emphasizing the Indian Navy’s role “of safeguarding our maritime interests on the high seas and projecting combat power across [and around] the [Indian Ocean] littoral.”40 It is in this vein that India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh talks of how “our strategic footprint covers…to the far reaches of the Indian Ocean. Awareness of this reality should inform and animate our strategic thinking and defence planning.”41 Such a wide-ranging role around the ‘far reaches’ of the Indian Ocean implies an oceanic ranging navy.

Further strategic directions are forming around India’s energy needs, ever more important within India’s burgeoning economic drive; itself the underpinning for India’s sense of itself as a Great Power for the coming century and for the economics-driven approach taken to international politics by Manmohan Singh.42 Within that setting, secure extended SLOCs, Sea Lines of Communications, are crucial for India’s imports from the Gulf and from Southeast Asia, and with it the naval maintenance of secure access and passage. Her new Chief of Naval Staff, Sureesh Mehta, considers “we are not only looking at countering threats but to protect the country's economic and energy interests. This task has extended our area of operations. This might necessitate our operating in distant waters.”43 This, Mehta said, was necessary for protecting New Delhi’s interests in its 2.02 million square km EEZ, Exclusive Economic Zone, in the Indian Ocean; as well as also guarding new offshore oil blocks that Indian companies had acquired in areas like the Sakhalin Islands and off the Venezuelan coast! Venezuela might be far away for naval deployment, but the sea lines between India and Sakhalin are not; with the first consignment of Sakhalin oil arriving at Port Mangalore in December 2006. Thus, “as the Indian economy grows, the country is making increasing investments in distant places to ensure the availability of energy flow to maintain this growth. This is gradually defining what may be called our secondary area of maritime interest,” alongside her primary area of maritime interest in and across the Indian Ocean.44 Such ‘blue water’ oceanic interests raise the question of how far India has got the naval capability, the capacity, to match such strategic intentions?

 

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Capability-capacity

A serious building and purchasing program has reshaped the Indian Navy. The results have been what the Indian Navy now officially claims are “its bluewater capabilities.”45 This buildup was started by the BJP administration of Atal Behari Vajpayee (1998-2004) and maintained under the Congress administration of Manmohan Singh (2004 onwards). Mahan’s maritime flame is indeed “alive” as India exemplifies Pugh’s role for “state naval power in the international system,” with New Delhi mobilizing resources and priorities for its navy.46 The Indian Navy’s allocation of the Defence Budget rose from $7.5 billion for the years 1997-2001 to $18.3 billion for 2002-2007. Its service-share of the Defence budget, having fallen to 11.2 per cent in 1992-93, saw its first real increase in 1998-99 to 14.5 per cent. A clear “momentum” had been established by 2004, in terms of increasing naval expenditure.47 This has been maintained with the Indian Navy allocated 17.3 per cent in the 2005-2006 and 2006-7 Defence budgets. The 2007-8 Defence Budget saw another increase; the Indian Navy allocated 18.26 per cent.48 Twenty per cent seems achievable.

India has certainly shaped an image of naval power. Consequently, the Indian Navy’s first-ever International Fleet Review in Mumbai (February 2001) was seen as “the Indian Navy’s coming out party.”49 The large Indian contingent of 55 ships was headed by its aircraft carrier INS Viraat. The then Chief of Naval Staff, Shushil Kumar, considered it “an opportunity to showcase India’s maritime potential.”50 His successor, Arun Prakash, was able to state with some real confidence in Shaping India’s Maritime Strategy (2005) that “today the IN [Indian Navy] has weapons of formidable range and our naval forces are deployed across vast distances from the Arabian Sea to the Bay of Bengal and the farthest reaches of the Indian Ocean.”51 The Indian Fleet Review of 2006 proudly unfurled the world’s fourth biggest navy; showcasing over 50 naval vessels, including her aircraft carrier (with 55 aircraft), submarines and advanced stealth frigates, “an emphatic and stylised bout of power projection.”52 For India’s Ministry of Defence, this was “blue water capabilities” on show by its navy.53 The TROPEX ‘Theatre-level Readiness Operational Exercises’ carried out during February 2007 saw India’s biggest ever naval war game. It involved 50 Indian warships, including its aircraft carrier INS Viraat, stealth Talwar class frigates, Rajput class missile destroyers and indigenous Delhi and Brahmaputra and Ganga class warships. Drawn from both Western and Eastern Fleets, operating across the Arabian Sea, and centred on the theme of ‘Maritime Manoeuvre From the Sea’. It was a clear signal of India’s ability to operate and project power around the Indian Ocean littoral. Currently, autumn 2007, the Indian Navy fleet strength stands at 156 ships; part of “the naval arms race in Asia” currently carried out by China, Japan as well as India.54

Specific elements of the Indian Navy have been strengthened in order to augment long range power projection. As former Chief of Naval Staff Admiral Madhvendra Singh noted in summer 2006, “the Indian Navy of 2010-20 is already being built.”55 The pace of India’s acquisitions and construction program continues to advance, with its revamp on “full throttle.”56 Arun Prakash’s stint as Chief of Naval Staff saw major augmentation of India’s naval forces, and orders, in his words, “fulfilling India's dream to have a full-fledged blue-water navy”.57 Thus, in March 2006, Prakash had been proud to announce “currently, the Indian Navy has on order, 27 ships which include fast attack craft, landing ships (tank), frigates, destroyers, submarines and an aircraft carrier; and there are more in the pipeline…I doubt if the ship-building industry of any other country can look forward to such an attractive and ‘mouth-watering’ prospect.”58 Further announcements of new acquisitions and building programs brought the comment from Sakhuja that “a cursory glance at the contours of the naval shipbuilding programmes” of India “suggest that these vessels and aircraft are certainly not for littoral operations, but rather power projection, designed to undertake long-range operations that could stretch the entire maritime swath from western Pacific Ocean through the Straits of Malacca into the Indian Ocean.”59 India’s navy can be divided into three elements, its presence on water, under the water, and over the air - evoking the Indian Navy’s description of itself as a ‘three-dimensional’ force.

On water, India’s aircraft carrier program has been a particularly important high profile element in India’s drive to ‘blue water’ maritime status. For a long time India was the only Asian state with an aircraft carrier, INS Vikrant (formerly HMS Hercules) commissioned in 1961 and joined by INS Viraat (formerly HMS Hermes) in 1987. There is now a drive to expand her aircraft carrier numbers to three. As India’s Chief of Naval Staff, Admiral Shishil Kumar, had explained in 1999, three new aircraft carriers would establish the Indian Navy as a true “bluewater Navy, with fleets in the Arabian Sea, Bay of Bengal, and Indian Ocean, on the same lines as the US Pacific, Atlantic, and Mediterranean fleets.”60

An aircraft carrier program has become one potent symbol of India’s naval drive. Despite some critics of aircraft carrier programs, India’s drive for aircraft carriers is correctly envisaged “as a priceless tool of power projection.”61 No other Asian state, including China, has aircraft carrier capability. In such a vein, India’s existing aircraft carrier INS Viraat (INS Vikrant having been phased out in 1997) is being extended in service until 2012. In turn she is being joined by another aircraft carrier, the ‘Admiral Gorshkov’ brought from Russia in 2004 and renamed as INS Vikramaditya. Under refit in Russia, she was due to be handed over to the Indian navy by the end of 2008, but with some slippage of completion dates subsequently pushing this back to 2009/2010.62 Vice Admiral Kailash Kohli’s judgment remains valid, “Gorshkov will represent a quantum jump for our maritime capability.”63 It has a sea endurance of 30 days, and its range of nearly 22,530 km (14,000 nautical miles), in contrast to the 8,050 km (5,000 miles) range of INS Viraat, indeed represents “a massive boost in reach.”64 Moreover, its complement of Mig-29K aircraft have a range of 2,300 km (1,430 miles). With these sorts of features, analysts see it as a “real force projector for the country…the Indian Navy's blue water aspirations have received a boost as it now has the capacity to put a carrier task force as far as the South China Sea and the Persian Gulf”.65 Certainly, the importance of the purchase was widely accepted in the Indian media, typified in Bhattacharyya’s “India must rule the waves,” where “India’s carrier force gives the country both its flag and force, to show the former and use the latter, should the need arise…the carrier’s role as a force-multiplier in a turbulent ocean” for India.66 Even more forcefully, the Janipura Daily Excelsior felt “clearly the aircraft carrier is a weapons system for those with imperial ambitions, who wish to wage war far away from their mainland,” deep in the oceanic reaches.67 Prakash was clear enough on their role, “we aim to exercise selective sea control in the waters of the Indian Ocean by deploying task forces built around the core of aircraft carriers”.68

Meanwhile India’s ‘Project 71’ envisages a complete new generation of indigenous aircraft carriers, Prakash’s “quest”.69 In doing so, India would join an elite club of nations able to construct their own aircraft carriers, hitherto the preserve of only US, UK, Russia and France. Here, the keel of the ‘Indigenous Aircraft Carrier’ (IAC, formerly known as Air Defense Ship ADS) was cut at Cochin Shipyard in 2005, for launching in autumn 2010, and delivery to the Indian navy by 2012, a development followed in the Chinese media.70 Like Gorshkov, there may be some slippage in delivery, but not of final outcome.71 Not only will the IAC be still bigger and much more advanced than INS Viraat, but her range of endurance of 12,070 km (7,500 nautical miles) is also truly oceanic. A further second IAC carrier construction is envisaged, to be commenced at Cochin shipyard in 2010, as the first IAC comes out the shipyard, with service by 2017.72 With a two-carrier projection scheduled by 2009/10, and a three-carrier projection by 2017, India’s maritime presence will be noticeable for the Indian Ocean and beyond.73

Other elements of India’s strength on water are coming into place. Her warship range is particularly credible, especially with its growing indigenous production.74 At the destroyer level, her indigenously produced Delhi-class destroyers include INS Delhi (commissioned 1997), INS Mysore (1999) and INS Mumbai (2001). The next generation Kolkata-class ‘Project 15a’ destroyers are underway; INS Kolkata launched in March 2006 (for commissioning 2010), to be followed by two more sister ships in 2011 and 2012 respectively. At the frigate level, India has obtained highly advanced ships. In 2003, the navy took delivery from Russia of INS Talwar and INS Trishul, ships armed with sophisticated 200 km range missile systems, followed in 2004 by INS Tabar. These three Talwar-class high-tech stealth frigates constitute a task force centred on the aircraft carrier INS Vikramaditya. The then Chief of Staff, Madhvendra Singh stressed concerning INS Talwar’s longer range, that “this ship has much larger range and sensor capability than any ship of the Indian Navy has today. It will enable India to target more further away.”75 His comment on inspecting INS Talwar was that “we are a blue water navy and we operate like a blue water navy.”76 In turn, Indian comments on INS Trishul were emphatic, “the Navy is poised to extend its Blue Water battle space capability” through its acquisition, “an ideal symbol of the Navy's leanness and meanness” where “India is getting a destroyer for the price of a frigate.”77 May 2006 saw the Indian Navy, at the cost of $665 million, “racing” to purchase three more similar stealth frigates from Russia, to be armed with supersonic BrahMos cruise missiles, and to join the existing Talwar-class trio.78

Maritime missile technology further increases the Indian navy’s punch. The BrahMos medium range cruise missile, with a 250-300 km (155-186 miles) range, has been a particularly successful addition to India’s armoury. It is also supplemented by the Dhanush ballistic (Project ‘K-15’ Prithvi-II adapted) missile, successfully tested in 2004.79 This was inducted into the Indian Navy in summer 2006, generally for the Sukanya-class large patrol crafts with immediate installation on INS Subhadra and INS Sukanya.80 It has a 300-350 km (186-217 miles) range, and can carry a 750-1000 kgs warhead (conventional or nuclear-tipped).

Meanwhile ‘Project 17’ has seen indigenous adaptations, bigger versions of INS Talwar, carried out by India in the shape of the Nilgiri-class stealth vessels, INS Shivalik (launched 2003, commissioned into service September 2007), INS Satpura (launched June 2004, for commission into service December 2007) and INS Sahyadri (launched May 2005, for commission into service March 2008). Tenders were invited for the purchase of seven more of these types of vessels at the end of 2006, ‘Project 17A’. India’s own indigenously constructed Brahmaputra-class guided missile frigate, INS Brahmaputra, was joined by INS Betwa in 2004 and INS Beas in 2005. It was significant that Defence Minister George Fernandes asserted, 14 April 2000 at the launching of INS Brahmaputra, that India’s maritime “area of interest …extends from the north of the Arabian Sea to the South China Sea.”81 These warships have been used for long range maritime diplomacy, as India has shown her flag far and wide in the Indian Ocean and beyond.
Other elements of the Indian Navy have been strengthened with oceanic capabilities in mind. Thus, in April 2000, the Indian Navy commissioned a 24,000 ton fleet replenishment tanker, INS Aditya. A low profile acquisition, INS Aditya can double as a command platform, and is a necessary component for a naval force to operate for long periods of time at sea, that is to say, into the Indian Ocean and beyond. The purchase in April 2006 of a Landing Platform Deck, the USS Trenton, recommissioned into the Indian Navy in June 2007 as INS Jalashwa, “represents a quantum jump in the Navy’s integral sealift and airlift capabilities;” a significant ‘blue water’ addition since “the Jalashwa will increase India’s power projection capabilities well into the Indian Ocean and beyond.”82 At 17,000-tonnes it is India’s second-largest warship, second only to her 28,000-tonne aircraft carrier INS Viraat. India’s interest in purchasing the Trenton’s sister ship, USS Nashville was also made public in July 2007. A Magar-class landing ship, INS Shardul, was also commissioned in January 2007, to be based at the Southern Command at Kawar.

 

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Underwater, various elements have been overhauled. 2004 saw the Indian Navy upgrading its Russian Kilo Class submarines “as part of measures to give punch to its undersea fighting arm” and arming them with Klub-S cruise missiles; cruise missiles with strike capability to hit warships as well as surface targets from a standoff distance of up to 65 km (40 miles) from ocean bed. The longer-range Dhanush ballistic (Project ‘K-15’ Prithvi-II adapted) missile, with a range of 300-350 km (185-220 miles), is also capable of being fired from submarine depth. India’s navy is also involved in developing India’s nuclear deterrence capability. In Madhvendra Singh’s words (2002) “we have a triad of weapons for a second strike and one of the triad is at sea. The most powerful leg of the triad is in the navy and is hidden underwater and moving.”83 The Indian Naval Doctrine (2004) put forward the need for a sea-based nuclear deterrent.84 This was further stressed in Freedom to Use the Seas: India’s Maritime Military Strategy (2007). This deterrence capability is centered around the more powerful Sagarika ‘Oceanic’ missile, which finished successful test flights in September 2007, for installation on India’s ATV nuclear submarine in 2008, and which is capable of delivering a 500-kg nuclear warhead some 1,500 km (932 miles). 85 This brings a secure “credible” sea-based second strike nuclear capability against Pakistan and China within India’s reach, and completes India’s triad of nuclear delivery systems.86 The successful testing in April 2007 of India’s Agni III missile, with some 3,500 km (2174 miles) range, puts China still more firmly within India’s nuclear sights, and was coupled with news of Agni III’s future development for submarine launch.87

More widely, in 2006 the government cleared a 30-year submarine building program, necessitated by India’s current older submarine units mostly dating back to the 1980s. This renewal has been kick started by the agreement reached with France in February 2006 for the construction at Mazagoan docks in Mumbai of six advanced, state of the art, Scorpene attack submarines for India. Construction started in December 2006, with the first one due to be delivered to the Indian Navy by December 2012, with annual completions envisaged through to 2017. A second range of submarines is envisaged with international bids, ‘Request for Proposals’ (RFP), floated in Spring 2007 to acquire and build six new range of submarines. The Russian fourth generation Amur class submarines armed with vertically launched KLUB-S Missiles and new generation of German HDW submarines with their air-independent propulsion systems are the leading contenders. June 2008, should have the Indian Navy commissioning INS Chakra, a 12,000-tonne Akula-II class nuclear-powered attack submarine, started in Russia, completed with Indian finance and ready for leasing for around ten years.88 The leasing of a second Akula-II class nuclear submarine was seemingly agreed on Manmohan Singh’s trip to Russia in November 2007. Meanwhile there is India’s own indigenous nuclear submarine project, the ATV ‘Advanced Technology Vessel’. The ATV is due to be launched from Vishakapatnam during 2008, with subsequent sea trials in 2009 and induction into the Indian navy. The government gave the green signal in 2006 to the Navy and Defence Research and Development Organisation DRDO to build two more indigenous nuclear submarines, around 2009, after the first ATV is inducted. As Sakhuja noticed back in 2001, “Indian naval strategists and naval planners are convinced that acquisition of a nuclear submarine will provide the most reliable deterrence,” will “give the navy a true blue water status” and will “add to great power status” for India.89

In the air, the Indian Navy has pushed for longer range capacities in its surveillance and communications program. Already, the Indian Navy is also raising three squadrons of Israeli-built Heron II unmanned aerial vehicles, UAVs, with a 300 km (185 miles) range. In addition, discussions for the purchase in 2008-9 by the Indian Navy of advanced long range maritime surveillance aircraft, some eight-ten Boeing P-8A or Airbus spy planes to replace its eight Tupolev Tu-142s at the cost of $800 million and due to serve for 15 years, are also set to augment the reach of the Indian Navy. The plans announced in April 2007 for an expanded naval air station near Rameshwaram was significant, “a naval air station will enable us to make our presence more felt and we can cover the entire Indian Ocean” according to Commodore P.E. Van Haltren, naval officer-in-charge, Tamil Nadu.90 India has had long range surveillance and reconnaissance capacity for some time, as with the purchase of TU-142m aircraft from the Soviet Union in 1988; with a range of over 12,000 km (7460 miles), capable of flying from Mumbai to Johannesburg and back without mid-air refuelling. Mehta’s take, as new Chief of Naval Staff, was that their replacements would be important for ensuring India’s “long-range surveillance capability to keep track of goings-on in the region between the horn of Africa and Malacca Straits and even beyond in South China Sea.”91 It was for this reason that a “staggering” Rs 1,965 crore was allocated to the Navy to buy aircraft in the 2007-8 Defence Budget, up from its allotted Rs 1,172 crore in the 2006-7 Defence Budget.92 Meanwhile, there is the Indian Navy’s drive for a satellite networked-force with maritime surveillance capabilities to keep tabs on the entire Indian Ocean.

A summation of the whole capability-capacity question can be seen in Gaurang Bhatt’s 2005 “blueprint for a future Indian Navy” in which ‘blue water’ projection was central.93 For Bhatt, “the top priority is a buildup of blue water ships, quiet submarines and a substantial and independent air-arm for the Indian Navy.”94 Within that, “the big bucks spending should be for a nuclear powered submarine with sea-based ballistic nuclear missiles of long ranges to serve as retaliatory deterrent” from under the water. All in all, “twenty-four modern submarines, thirty blue water navy frigates and destroyers armed with missiles, helicopters and ABMs, about 100 land based naval aircraft for reconnaissance, rescue, Anti-Submarine Warfare and equipped to attack ships and submarines, and two nuclear powered submarines with nuclear missiles would ensure India’s safety.”95 Such under water, on water and above water additions to the Indian Navy are where India’s accelerating acquisition and construction programme is taking her; as well as her aircraft carrier programme, which Bhatt questioned on grounds of expense cost-benefit ration and of vulnerability, but which has been pushed by India over the last decade for the future.

The final aspect of India’s capability is its infrastructure, in other words naval bases and berthing facilities. Traditionally its main command centres have faced outwards from its two coastlines - Mumbai for the Western Command and Visakhapatnam for the Eastern Command, both more geared up for local operations. However India’s strategic reach has been significantly augmented by new bases. Summer 2005 saw the final initiation of India’s new naval base at Kawar on the Kanatka coast, officially termed INS Kadamba. This is the biggest deep water anchorage east of Suez, can hold India’s aircraft carrier (unlike the problems encountered at Mumbai and Visakhapatnam), is dedicated solely for Indian Navy use, and indeed is “a base for a blue-water navy.”96 As the Southern Command, INS Kadamba’s location at Kawar opens up the Indian Ocean depths. This is buttressed by the news in April 2007 of the development of the naval air base at Uchipulli, near Rameshwaram, from which Commodore P.E. Van Haltren, naval officer-in-charge, Tamil Nadu, felt “a naval air station will enable us to make our presence more felt and we can cover the entire Indian Ocean”.97 In these southern oceanic depths, the activation by the Indian navy of a monitoring station, with some anchoring facilities, on the northern tip of Madagascar in July 2007 was another sign of India’s infrastructural reach.98 The current discussion on developing maritime infrastructure for the Indian Navy on the Mauritian island of Agalega is a further recent development.99
Meanwhile, the current setting up of FENC, the Far Eastern Naval Command at Port Blair in the Andaman islands, was correctly seen as a move by the Indian Navy “to give it ‘blue water’ status;” since it enables enabling longer range operations in the Bay of Bengal, Malacca Straits and further eastward.100 Plans were also announced in autumn 2006 for the construction of another deep water base, 50 kilometres south of Visakhapatnam, to house India’s two new aircraft carriers. Its construction was “designed to help protect the country’s trade with Southeast Asia,” will “contribute to increasing India’s naval presence in the Bay of Bengal and the Indian Ocean,” and “is intended to balance China’s influence there and to facilitate ongoing Indian naval exercises in the South China Sea.”101 Delicate explorations have taken place with Vietnam on naval berthing rights for Indian Ships at Cam Ranh deep water bay.

Naval Deployments

On the basis of growing capability-capacity, “India’s blue water reach” has been shown through active deployments of such assets.102 Through such deployments “India’s blue water reach is reflected in the recent [summer 2007], unprecedented programme of fleet exercises and visits throughout Asia” and the Indian Ocean.103 This has been an increasing tempo, as the Indian Navy (IN) put it 2003 “tacking to the blue waters…with naval activities throughout the oceanic areas of our interests.”104 The Indian Navy stresses such deployments, for 2005 arguing that “the Indian Navy’s vision of ‘Tacking to the Blue Waters’ has resulted in increasing deployments both, within and Indian Ocean Region, as well as beyond it;” so that “over the past few years, the outlines of this policy have sharpened significantly, with IN ships and aircraft becoming increasingly visible at sea and in ports and harbours near and far.”105 Such deployments “showcases to the world the maritime, economic and technological prowess of the nation…the ships have projected a brilliant picture of a military strong, vibrant and confident India.”106 Such deployments represented “adroit naval diplomacy” in which “the growing blue water assets of India” enabled a “revved up military diplomacy, with the Indian Navy at the cutting edge’;” and with “the country finally acquiring the wherewithal and showing the willingness to box in its correct weight.”107

India’s naval “footprints” have been well established in and around the Indian Ocean in the past few years.108 Quite simply, for Rear Admiral Rakesh Chopra “the Indian Navy today has tacked to ‘the blue waters’ and seeks a dominating role in the Indian Ocean”.109 Alongside tangible economic issues of energy resource access and competition with China, there is a wider intangible sense of this region being seen as India’s particular zone. If not a sphere of influence then at least India’s own neighbourhood, within which her preeminence and central location should make it ‘India’s Ocean’, a suitable backyard for a rising Great Power. India’s naval projection has already taken the Indian Navy from its earlier coastal and localized setting to a ‘blue water’ deep sea status, in particular to the west, south and eastern reaches of the Indian Ocean. This “new naval activism far from its own shores reflects the nation’s growing economic interests in distant lands and the navy’s determination to defend them by transforming itself from a ‘brown water’ coastal defense force to a formidable ‘blue water’ fleet;” in other words “a blue water navy that is plugged firmly into the security politics of the Indian Ocean.”110 In terms of naval deployments, the Indian Ocean has seen long range Indian surveillance and operations established during the past decade to its extremities, from the Gulf of Aden and the Gulf to the Straits of Malacca, and deep southwards to the Mozambique Channel.

In the western reaches of the Indian Ocean, Indian ships now regularly operate in the Arabian Sea, for example the TROPEX 2007 exercise, and further beyond. The visit of her aircraft carrier INS Viraat and two other ships to the United Arab Emirates in March 1999 set the scene. Within the Gulf, INS Mysore and INS Godavari, on a goodwill visit to Saudi Arabia in March 2002, conducted exercises with Saudi vessels in waters off Jubail. A more substantial three-week seven-ship deployment by the Indian Navy took place in September 2004, involving two destroyers INS Mumbai and INS Delhi, the advanced missile frigate INS Talwar; as well as INS Kulish, INS Pralaya, INS Sindhuraj and the support tanker INS Aditya. Visiting Oman, Bahrain, Iran and the United Arab Emirates, this flotilla could indeed be interpreted by China as Indian “efforts to use its navy to project power” outside its own coastal waters.111 This naval presence is an essential part of India’s new ‘Look West’ policy announced in 2005. It was in this vein that when Suresh Mehta took over as India’s Chief of Naval Staff, his first trip overseas was to Abu Dubai in the United Arab Emirates in February 2007, and with it talk of further Indian naval projection into the region.112 A flotilla of frontline missile corvettes and guided-missile cruisers, made up of INS Rajput, Beas, Betwa, Delhi and Jyoti, was dispatched to the Gulf in August-September 2007, a major long-range 48-day deployment where they made port calls and took part in bilateral naval exercises at Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, and Kuwait.
The Gulf of Aden has also seen ongoing Indian naval surveillance and joint exercises carried out with friendly Russian and French flotillas. Naval exercises, INDRA 2003, with Russian ships took place off Socotra in 2003. May 2004 saw INS Dunagiri deployed in the Gulf of Aden on an official ‘Presence-***-Surveillance Mission’, and concluding with a port-call at Djibouti. November 2005 witnessed VARUNA 05, joint exercises with the French navy carried out in the Gulf of Aden, near the Bab-el-Mandeb entrance to the Red Sea. Indian forces were substantial, five units of the Western Fleet, led by aircraft carrier INS Viraat, with advanced guided missile destroyer INS Mysore, advanced guided missile frigate INS Talwar, INS Godavari, and a submarine. India’s presence around that choke point was demonstrated again by maritime patrols picking up and tracking incoming Chinese destroyer/tanker combination as soon as it emerged from the Red Sea and was passing Socotra in March 2006, India keeping a vigilant eye some 2300 kms away from its own mainland.113 Indian units were deployed again in the Gulf of Aden, following their Gulf deployment, during September 2007 for the VARUNA 07 exercises with France, the destroyer INS Rajput, the guided missile frigate Beas and the supply tanker INS Jyoti taking place in anti-submarine exercises.

Further naval projection, into the distant Mediterranean, has also taken place in recent years. During 2004, the advanced guided missile destroyer INS Mysore, INS Godavari, INS Ganga and fleet replenishment tanker INS Shakti were deployed to the Gulf of Aden and Mediterranean Sea, where they visited ports in Israel, Cyprus, Egypt and Turkey. The summer of 2006 saw four Indian vessels dispatched across the Indian Ocean, the guided missile destroyer INS Mumbai accompanied by advanced missile frigates INS Betwa and INS Brahmaputra and the fleet replenishment tanker INS Shakti. Initially on general tour of the eastern Mediterranean, they were then sent to Beirut on ‘Operation Sukoon’, to evacuate over 1,770 Indian nationals caught up in the Lebanon fighting. Prakash’s retrospective analysis of the Beirut operation was to stress how it had been conducted simultaneously with relief operations to Fiji, far flung ‘blue water’ deployments to the far West and far East, and both outside the Indian Ocean.114

In the southern reaches of the Indian Ocean, India’s “quiet sea power” has become noticeable through ongoing and accelerating deployments.115 Noticeable maritime links are apparent with Mauritius. Indian warships have been regular visitors there in recent years, INS Savitri in September 2004, her advanced missile frigate INS Tabar in July 2004, and INS Sharda in April 2005.116 Survey work carried out by INS Sarvekshak around Mauritius in April 2006 gave rise to talk, already mentioned, of possible basing rights at Mauritius’ Agalega Island. Apart from general port call flag waving, these visits have also been part of the Mauritius-Indian agreement drawn up in 2003, whereby the Indian Navy would henceforth monitor Mauritius’ Exclusive Economic Zone. Assistant Chief of Naval Staff (Operations) Rear Admiral R Contractor considered this “an acknowledgement of our reach and capability’” and “in keeping with the Indian Navy’s guiding principles of ‘Tacking to the Blue Waters’.”117 Consequently, the warship INS Suvarna as well as INS Gaj and INS Sharda carried out this operation in 2003. Similar arrangements were made in 2004 and 2005.118

This distant south-westwards quadrant has taken Indian ships along the African coast, INS Ranjit and INS Suvarna were deployed in June-July 2003 for training and security purposes in and off Maputo, including providing protection to the African Union Summit taking place in Mozambique. INS Sujata and INS Savitri provided security cover to the three-day World Economic Forum in Mozambique during June 2004. Links with Mozambique have been strengthened, the two countries signing a Memorandum of Understanding in March 2006, whereby India agreed to mount maritime patrols off the Mozambique coast. South Africa has been the scene for further naval outreach. June 2005 saw INS Trishul and INS Aditya docking at Durban, followed by the arrival of INS Delhi and INS Ganga at Cape Town, and combined naval drills with the South African navy - events followed by the official Chinese media.119 Indian Naval units are also due to be dispatched, probably to the waters around Cape Town in May 2008, in order to take part in tri-lateral exercises with the navies of Brazil and South Africa.

In the eastern reaches of the Indian Ocean, deployments have taken Indian vessels far and wide. Her Far Eastern Naval Command on the Andaman Islands has been the springboard for ‘blue water’ deployments in the eastern quadrant of the Indian Ocean. In part this has been through multilateral exercises. Thus, MILAN 2003 saw naval units from Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand, Sri Lanka and Singapore exercise with the Indian navy. The substantive naval exercises Malabar 07-2 saw Indian ship arrayed around the Andaman islands during September 2007; her aircraft carrier INS Viraat and six other warships joining American, Japanese, Australian and Singaporean vessels. Typical of India’s emerging maritime power projection in these eastern reaches of the Indian Ocean was the dispatch of a powerful naval group, consisting of INS Viraat, accompanied by the guided missile destroyers INS Rajput and INS Ranjit, the indigenously built missile corvette INS Khukri and the replenishment tanker INS Shakti. These were deployed to Singapore, Port Kelang-Malaysia and Jakarta-Indonesia during July and August 2005.

 

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India’s naval deployment has gone particularly further eastwards, out of the Indian Ocean into other seas and oceans. The immediate gateway is the Malacca Straits, where the question raised by Gaurang Bhatt was “in the event of a war with China, there must be sufficient [Indian] naval power and assets to blockade the Straits of Malacca, the bottleneck of oil transit to China.”120 The answer to the question was that India has sufficient power and assets to do this, hence its increasing deployments into this area and beyond. As Prakash noted more widely, “for India, the Asia-Pacific region holds immense promise for political, economic and military cooperation, and the key role that maritime forces can play, makes the Indian Navy a key component of any national strategy towards this region.”121 The navy enables a Pacific “presence” for India.122 Economic trade and energy access play their part in India’s eastward naval projection, but a significant part is played in giving clear signals to China of India’s presence. Whether this increased Indian naval presence also increases regional stability through a balancing of China, or whether it destabilizes the situation by fostering increased Chinese suspicions and ‘security dilemma’ reactions is a wider question for elsewhere.

Certainly, the South China Sea, waters claimed by China, has been one emerging field for deliberate, significant and maintained long range Indian naval appearances. One milestone was reached in 2000, when a powerful naval flotilla of five capital ships (INS Delhi, INS Kora, INS Sindhuvir, INS Rajput, and INS Kuthar), one submarine and a tanker (INS Aditya) entered and operated in the South China Sea; with elements of it also making port calls in Singapore, Vietnam, South Korea, Japan and Indonesia. Indian naval officers described it as part of a “detailed plan to expand the horizons of our maritime diplomacy.”123 This deployment lasted over one month, and was rightly judged by Mehta to be “a quiet show of strategic reach” by the Indian Navy.124 It was also seen as a “challenge” to China in China’s backyard and in an area claimed by China; with China raising a “diplomatic furore” when the plans were first released, but then allowing a friendly enough port call at Shanghai.125

India’s presence in these far eastern waters has been maintained since then. Three separate appearances by Indian units into the South China Sea were seen in 2004. In May INS Rana, INS Khukri, INS Ranvir, INS Kora and INS Udaygiri were deployed for ‘Presence-***-Surveillance Missions’ through the Malacca and Sunda Straits into the South China Sea. Similar ‘Presence-***-Surveillance Operations’ were carried out by INS Savitri in the Malacca Straits and South China Sea during August. Finally, October-November saw another substantial entry of India into the South China Sea, “to further project its blue water capability.”126 Again, this was not just one lone vessel. Instead the Indian Navy deployed five of its frontline warships - two Kashin-class destroyers INS Ranjit and INS Ranvijay, the frigate INS Godavari, the missile corvette INS Kirch, and the offshore patrol vessel INS Sukanya, as well as its fleet tanker INS Jyoti. Indian commentators saw this as “in line with the larger objective of carving out a greater role for itself in the strategically important South China Sea…to enhance India’s maritime security requirements…an exercise in power projection.”127 Donald Berlin reckoned that they were being deployed specifically in order “to familiarize the navy with a potential theater of operations - the South China Sea - that probably would be important in any contingency involving conflict with China;” and that generally “as stated by an Indian Navy spokesperson, the deployment would also demonstrate the navy's ability to operate far from home.”128 Naval diplomacy was in evidence as bilateral exercises and port calls were carried out with the Philippines, Vietnam and Indonesia, as well as South Korea and Japan.

India’s naval presence in these sensitive waters has been maintained since 2004. February-March 2005 saw more Indian units appearing in the South China Sea, “blue water bound.”129 Here the Kashin-class destroyers INS Rajput and INS Ranvijay, the frigate INS Gomati, the Indian-built corvettes INS Kora and INS Karmuk and the fleet tanker INS Jyoti made up a strong Indian flotilla operating with Singaporean units in their SIMBEX 2005 exercises. A similar strength flotilla, INS Rana, Rajput, Jyoti, Kirpan and Kulish operated in the South China Sea during June 2006. April 2007 saw India’s five-ship flotilla steaming through the South China Sea on its way to exercises further afield in the Far East. Vietnam has long been a strategic partner for India. They have common concerns over restraining Chinese expansionism, and both have fought wars with China - India in 1962 and Vietnam in 1979. Defense agreements drawn up in 1994 and 2000 have strengthened their naval links. August 2005 saw India’s dispatch of INS Magar, an amphibious ship, with 900 boxes weighing 150 tons of Petya and missile boat spares for Vietnam’s navy. Such naval deployments and discussions lie behind Karnad’s sense in 2005 of India’s “strategic and theatre level reach and punch…east of Malacca Straits, including Vietnam.”130 Joint exercises with the Vietnamese navy took place in May 2007.

India’s naval presence has been creeping further and further around the Pacific Asian littoral. Consequently, India’s naval strength and its reach now make it a factor in the current maritime balance of power in the Taiwan Straits.131 Still further along, bilateral defense links have been established with South Korea and Japan, with bilateral exercises by Indian ships in these distant waters. A four-ship flotilla from the Indian Navy participated in the International Fleet Review in South Korea in October 1998, sent by India “as part of its policy to raise its profile in the Asia Pacific.”132 Bilateral naval exercises were carried out in 2000, 2004 and 2006. An even bigger Pacific splash was caused by the four-month dispatch of a powerful Indian flotilla deep into the Asia-Pacific in Spring 2007, made up of the frontline advanced guided missile destroyers INS Mysore, INS Rana and INS Ranjit, as well as the guided-missile corvette INS Kuthar and fleet tanker INS Jyoti. Joint exercises, SIMBEX 2007, were carried out with the Singapore navy, before the Indian flotilla made its way through the South China Sea, to carry out joint war game exercises with American ships off Okinawa for the MALABAR 07-1 exercises in April 2007. Trilateral exercises with American and Japanese units were then carried out by INS Mysore, INS Kuthar and INS Jyoti off Yokosuka; with INS Rana and Ranjit exercising with the Chinese Navy off Qingdao. The whole Indian flotilla subsequently reunited to go northwards for the INDRA 2007 exercises, rendezvousing with elements of the Russian Pacific Fleet off Vladivostok, and near to the oilfields of Sakhalin. On their return from INDRA 2007, further maritime exercises were carried out with Vietnam and the Philippines during May. Altogether, Spring 2007 witnessed a particularly significant ‘blue water’ deployment by the Indian Navy in terms of size, distance and length of time.

The Pacific Basin has been increasingly visited by Indian naval units. India has strengthened its involvement in WPNS, the Western Pacific Naval Symposium. Though still an ‘observer’, her destroyers INS Mysore and INS Tarasa (having participated in the inaugural maritime security exercise at Singapore in May 2005) were dispatched to the 10th WPNS held 29 October- 2 November 2006 at Hawaii. Long range Indian naval deployment into the South Pacific has also been part of India’s maritime diplomacy. INS Tabar - India’s advanced Talwar-class missile frigate was sent deep into the Pacific during summer 2006, as “India showcases maritime capability.”133 She left the Indian waters and headed eastwards towards Indonesia and then Australia in June 2006. From there she went outwards to New Zealand, a visit picked up by PRC sources, who considered INS Tabar having “an impressive range of weapons.”134 At a reception in New Zealand for INS Tabar, the Indian Commissioner Kadakath Ernest stressed how “as India emerges steadfastly as a major global economy, it is important that the country establishes itself as a maritime nation;” in which “the oceans of the world, their wealth and the maritime lines of communication are all central not only to trade and commerce but also the security and integrity of India.”135 From New Zealand, INS Tabar then went further into the Pacific, to Tonga and Fiji, before returning to the Indian Ocean via Papua New Guinea and Singapore. May 2007 saw Indian ships working with New Zealand naval forces, on their way back from exercises with various other navies in East Asia.

Conclusions

Is the Indian Navy a ‘blue water’ navy? The answer remains ambiguous in some senses, though a substantive and tangible trend is clear enough. It is ambiguous in comparative terms, where the Indian Navy remains overshadowed by American naval strength, replete for example with its dozen aircraft carriers and deployment in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. On the other hand Indian-American naval cooperation throughout the Indian Ocean has become firmly established in recent years, with India being given the space to strengthen and project its own ‘blue water’ capacity. Potentially a future American re-emphasis on the Pacific dovetails with India’s growing presence in the Indian Ocean, and the prospects of India’s growing naval projection enabling it to become ‘India’s ocean’. Meanwhile, in Asian terms, the Indian Navy has already got a leading long range position in terms of capability-capacity and deployment. In terms of military comparisons with China, the PRC may have the advantage in land and nuclear forces, but India has the edge at sea. This is of continuing significance for wider Asian capabilities and perceptions. Lee Kuan Yew has noted “India would be a useful balance to China's heft” in Southeast Asia, a role for which a ‘blue water’ Indian Navy presence is the visible security component.136 Sino-Indian maneuverings on the high seas and in terms of naval diplomacy is set to continue for the foreseeable future, as they both continue to expand their ‘blue water’ capabilities.

Admittedly some elements, of India’s navy are weaker than others, its submarine components in particular. Earlier neglect is still making its effects felt. Former Chief of Naval Staff Arun Prakash pointed out that “while we currently have government approval to maintain certain force levels, they will steadily keep reducing till 2012, because the ships being de-commissioned will outnumber new entrants. This has resulted because of very few new orders placed with our shipyards in the period, 1985 to 1995.”137 Moreover, he reckoned “we also have a force imbalance, because a large proportion of the force level comprises ‘brown-water’ units or smaller ships of limited capability. This imbalance needs to be rectified with the addition of more ‘blue water’ capability.”138 There is also some potential slippage of time in the delivery of the Gorshkov aircraft carrier, and in the completion of the first IAC Indigenous Aircraft Carrier and Scorpene submarines.139

However, the trend is clear for India; sustained and long term projects put in place and now delivering the required elements. For the moment, India’s total number of naval vessels may still be going down in quantity, but they are becoming more and more modern; the Indian Navy is much leaner and meaner. It is also becoming more fit for its strategic purpose, ‘blue water’ projection. Such purchases and constructions are giving India more and more tangible ‘blue water’ capacity. Former Chief of Staff Madhvendra Singh’s judgement is that, “starting off as a “Brown Water” Navy, our Navy is today [summer 2006] a “Regional Blue Water” Navy. We must work towards becoming an ‘Oceanic Blue Water’ Navy.”140

This ‘blue water’ build up is precisely where India’s work has lain. Her maritime ‘footprints’ are already clear enough at long range in and around the Indian Ocean, its extensions (the Gulf and Red Sea) and littorals. Moreover, India has already shown the ability to deploy multi-task force flotillas outside the Indian Ocean, in one direction into the Mediterranean, and in another direction into the South China Sea and Western Pacific. Her ‘naval diplomacy’ has seen similar oceanic missions to the Indian Ocean, Mediterranean, South and West Pacific. The technological elements for a ‘blue water’ navy are already in place, and able to be deployed, with more on the way over the decade. Consequently, India is set to be a significant player in the global maritime pecking order for the coming century, with a substantive ‘blue water’ navy now operating in various long range deep water settings.

Vaidya and Panikkar would be happy that their ‘blue water’ aspirations for India, of half a century ago, now seem being realized. Mahan would recognize how his injunctions, a century ago, on maritime ‘seapower’ are being translated into ‘blue water’ reality for India. Of course some of Mahan’s precepts are questionable. Mahan’s focus on coal bunker depots is anachronistic in the 21st century, with India’s mobile oil tanker naval units like INS Aditya now enabling long range ongoing deployment. Mahan’s emphasis on large-gun battleships predated the development of the aircraft carrier and the submarine, let alone the Talwar-class high-tech stealth frigates deployed by the Indian Navy. Mahan reflected his times, “it is imperative to take possession, when it can be done righteously, of such maritime positions as contribute to secure command” of the high seas.141 However, whereas Mahan could envisage unfettered territorial annexation of Pacific islands like Hawaii and Guam, India does not have that luxury, or indeed particular intention, with regard to Indian Ocean islands. However India has the same imperatives for securing berthing rights and general access to Sea Lines of Communication, SLOCs. Above all it has the same imperatives for constructing a long range ‘blue water’ fleet, reflecting the technologies of the 21st century. That is what India is now doing.

In maritime terms, it is indeed clear that “India will be a significant player for the first time in its history, sitting astride key sea lines of communication for energy security and projecting power” and in which “India’s rapidly growing [naval] capabilities and new intentions in the coming decade” are significant structural trends as India emerges as a “maritime power.”142 The Indian leadership seems well aware of the potential for development of India’s seapower. The External Affairs Minister Shri Pranab Mukherjee stressed in June 2007, “we are once again turning our gaze outwards and seawards, which is the natural direction of view for a nation seeking to re-establish itself not simply as a continental power, but even more so as a ‘maritime’ power - and, consequently, as one that is of significance upon the global stage.”143 Such a stage demands a ‘blue water’ fleet capable of deployment outside India’s immediate neighbourhood. Mahan’s words remain essential here, in his discussion on The Future in Relation to American Sea Power, that ultimately the oceans “must be traversed in the last resort by a navy, the indispensable instrument by which, when emergencies arise, the nation can project its power beyond its own shore-line.”144 If one looks at the future in relation to Indian seapower, ultimately a ‘blue water’ navy enables long distance power projection, ‘hard’ and ‘soft’, a role for which the Indian navy is being consciously shaped for now.

 

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References

1 “From Brown Water to Blue,” India Express, 5 December 2006.
2 Indian Navy, Tacking to the Blue Waters. Indian Navy - The Year That Was, http://indiannavy.nic.in/events2003.pdf. ‘Tacking’ is a deliberate play on words, between ‘taking’ and ‘tacking’, the latter the term for sailing with the wind and a euphemism for policy in general.
3 “The Admiral J G Nadkarni Chat,” Rediff on the Net, 30 December 1996, Rediff On The NeT: Transcript of the Admiral J G Nadkarni Chat.
4 Toshi Yoshihara and James Holmes, Chinese Naval Strategy in the 21st Century : the Turn to Mahan (London: Routledge, 2007); Toshi Yoshihara, ‘Japanese Maritime Thought: If Not Mahan, Who?’ Naval War College Review, 59:3 (2006), pp. 23-51.
5 Alfred Mahan, The Interest of America in Sea-Power, Present and Future (London: Sampson Low, Marston & Company, 1898), p. 44.
6 Ibid., p. 44.
7 Ibid., p. 27.
8 Ibid., p. 55.
9 Ibid., p. 102.
10 Ibid., p. 102.
11 David Scott, “India’s ‘Grand Strategy’ for the Indian Ocean: Mahanian Visions,” Asia-Pacific Review, 13:2 (2006), pp. 97-129.
12 Kavalam Panikkar, India and the Indian Ocean: An Essay on the Influence of Sea Power on Indian History (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1945).
13 Peter Brobst, The Future of the Great Game. Sir Olaf Caroe, India's Independence, and the Defense of Asia (Akron: The University of Akron Press, 2005), pp. 26 and 30.
14 Both cited Keshav Vaidya, The Naval Defence of India (Bombay: Thacker, 1949), 95. Also ch. 8, “India as a Sea Power,” pp. 91-100.
15 Vaidya, The Naval Defence of India, pp. 9 and 29.
16 Jaswant Singh, Defending India (London: Macmillan, 1999), p. 127.
17 Pranab Mukherjee, “International Relations and Maritime Affairs - Strategic Imperatives,” 30 June 2007, 12961.
18 Ibid.
19 Arun Prakash, “At a Seminar on Warship Building,” 22 March 2006, Indian Navy.
20 Rajat Pandit, “Navy Makes a ‘Blue Water’ Mark,” Times of India, 7 January 2005.
21 S. Hali, “INs Force Projection,” The Nation, 28 December 2005.
22 “New Chief Calls for Expansion of Navy,” Indian Express, 1 November 2006. Also “Indian Navy Will Reach Far Beyond Indian Waters,” India Daily, 1 November 2006.
23 Pandit, “Blue Water Navy is the Aim,” Times of India, 1 November 2006.
24 “Navy Readying for Requirements in Extended Battlefield: Admiral Mehta,” The Hindu, 24 November 2006; “Indian Navy Chief Says the Country Needs to Project Power Across the World’s Oceans,” International Herald Tribune, 24 November 2006.
25 Amit Gupta, “Determining India's Force Structure and Military Doctrine: I Want My MiG,” Asian Survey, 35:5 (1995), pp. 441-58, esp. pp. 442-4 for early 1990s discussion of ‘bureaucratic pressures’ and ‘threats’.

26 Madanjit Singh, “Interview with Vice Admiral Madanjit Singh,” Force, 2:3 (November 2004), Interview with Commanding-in-chief (Western Naval Command) - Key Publishing Ltd Aviation Forums.
27 Amit Kumar, “A New Balance of Power Game in The Indian Ocean,” Strategic Comments (IDSA), 24 November 2006, ::IDSA Strategic Comments:: A New Balance of Power Game in The Indian Ocean: India gears up to tackle Chinese influence in Maldives and Sri Lanka ::
28 Vijay Sakhuja, “Naval Diplomacy: Indian Initiatives,” Bharat Rakshak Monitor, 6:1 (July-August 2003), BHARAT RAKSHAK MONITOR - Volume 6(1) Jul-Aug 2003
29 Prakash “Shaping India’s Maritime Strategy,” November 2005, Indian Navy.
30 Prakash, “Emerging India: Security and Foreign Policy Perspectives,” 1September 2005, Indian Navy. Also Prakash, India, Maritime Destiny (New Delhi: Lancer Publishers, 2007) for speeches and articles.
31 Prakash, “Future Strategy and Challenges for the Indian Navy,” RUSI Defence Systems, Autumn 2005, pp. 31-33, 31-32.
32 Prakash, “Future Strategy and Challenges for the Indian Navy.”
33 Prakash, “Sailing into Future,” Sainik Samachar (Ministry of Defence), 53:6 (16–31 August 2006), http://mod.nic.in/samachar/aug15-06/h2.htm#l2.
34 Tariq Ashraf, “Doctrinal Reawakening of the Indian Armed Forces,” Military Review, 84:6 (2004), 53-62, 61; Sayan Majumdar, “Naval Doctrine - an Analysis,” IDC Analysis, 4 July 2004. http://www.indiadefence.com/navaldoct.htm; Rahul Bedi, “A New Doctrine for the Navy,” Frontline, 21:14 (3-16 July 2004), 46-8; Reshmi Kazi, “India’s Naval Aspirations,” Peace & Conflict, 7:9 (2004), pp. 4-5.
35 Varun Sahni, “India and the Asian Security Architecture,” Current History (April 2006), pp. 1-6, 4.
36 Prakash “Shaping India’s Maritime Strategy,” November 2005. Indian Navy.
37 Huma Siddiqui, “Towards a Nuclear Deterrence Capability,” Sainik Samachar, 51:23 (1-15 December 2004), http://mod.nic.in/samachar/dec01-04/body.html.
38 Indian Navy, The Indian Maritime Doctrine (New Delhi: Ministry of Defence, 2004), p. 56.
39 Panikkar, India and the Indian Ocean, pp. 95 and 84.
40 Indian Navy, Vision Statement, 25 May 2006, http://www.indiannavy.gov.in/vision.pdf. Signed by A. Prakash.
41 Manmohan Singh, “PM's Address at the Combined Commanders Conference,” 24 October 2004, Prime Minister's Office.
42 Clearly outlined by Manmohan Singh, “Speech by Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh at India Today Conclave, New Delhi,” 25 February 2005, 9055
43 Cited in “Indian Navy Gears Up for Energy Security Role,” Times of India, 2 December 2006
44 Cited in ibid.
45 Vinay Garg, “PM’s Day at Sea. Indian Navy Displays its Blue-Water Capabilities,” Sainik Samachar, 53:10 (16-31 May 2006), http://mod.nic.in/samachar/may15-06/h1.htm.
46 Michael Pugh, “Is Mahan Still Alive? State Naval Power in the International System,” Conflict Studies Journal, 16:2 (1996), pp. 109-23.
47 “Building a Modern Navy,” The Hindu, 19 November 2004.
48 Though still considered too small by some naval advocates like N.V. Subramanian “Oceanic Insecurity - I . India Faces a Strategic Dead-end by Failing the Navy,” NewsInsight, 18 April 2007, The Public Affairs Magazine- Newsinsight.net, including his call there for a still greater still “tearaway expansion programme.”
49 Thomas Barnett, “India’s 12 Steps to a World-Class Navy,” Proceedings. U.S Naval Institute, 127:7 (2001), pp. 41-5, 41.
50 Cited in Josy Joseph, “At Sea. Welcome to the Navy’s Big Splash,” Rediff on the Net, 2 February 2001, Rediff On The NeT: At sea, Bombay... welcome to navy's big bash!.
51 Prakash, “Shaping India’s Maritime Strategy – Opportunities and Challenges.”
52 Balaji Reddy, “Indian Navy Eyes China in the East - Plans to Go Global to Make its Presence Felt,” India Daily, 12 February 2006.
53 Cited in Garg, “PM’s Day at Sea. Indian Navy Displays its Blue-Water Capabilities”.
54 Paul Kennedy, “The Rise and Fall of Navies,” International Herald Tribune, 5 April 2007. He is famous for his book The Rise and Fall of Great Powers (1989), with India being on a Great Power rise now. Also see his The Rise and Fall of British Naval Mastery (2001).
55 Madhvenra Singh, “The Indian Navy in 2020, Security Research Review, 2:2 (July 2006), Bharat-Rakshak.com :: Security Research Review - The Indian Navy in 2020
56 Shiv Kumar, “Navy Revamp on Full Throttle,” The Tribune, 16 February 2006.
57 Prakash, 2 December 2005, cited in Hali, ‘INs Force Projection.’
58 Prakash, “At a Seminar on Warship Building,” 22 March 22006, Indian Navy.
59 Vijay Sakhuja, “Emerging Contours of Asian Naval Power,” Opinion Asia, 5 February 2007, Emerging Contours of Asian Naval Power | Opinion Asia.
60 Cited in Nick Smith, “Grand Delusions. The Psychology of Aircraft Carriers,” Harvard International Review, 24:3 (Fall 2002), Harvard International Review: Grand Delusions.
61 Dean Matthew, “Aircraft Carriers: An Indian Introspection,” Strategic Analysis, 23:12 (March 2000), 2135-58, 2135.
62 Pandit, ‘India demands answers on Gorshkov’, Times of India, 2 November 2007
63 Kailash Kohli, “Naval Gazing Into The Future,” Indian Express, 13 December 2003; Alok Gupta, “An Aircraft Carrier for Strategic Advantage,” 12 February 2004, WHAT.
64 Abhijit Bhattacharyya, “India Must Rule the Waves,” The Pioneer, 10 June 2004.
65 John Cherian, “The Gorshkov Deal,” Frontline, 21:3 (31 January-13 February 2004), 21-3, 22. Cf. G. Raghuvanshi, “Will Gorshkov Propel India into a ‘Blue Water Navy’?,” Business Line (The Hindu), 22 January 2004.
66 Bhattacharyya, “India Must Rule the Waves”.
67 N.S. Kohli, “Naval Expansion,” Daily Excelsior, 24 July 2005.
68 Prakash, “A Vision of India’s Maritime Power in the 21st Century,” Journal (USI), July-September 2006, 454-63, Subject wise list of USI Journals.
69 Prakash, “India’s Quest for an Indigenous Aircraft Carrier, RUSI Defence Systems, Summer 2006, pp. 50-2.
70 “Indian Navy to Have Two Aircraft Carriers by 2011,” People’s Daily, 9 March 2004; “India Begins Construction of Aircraft Carrier,” China Daily, 12 April 2005.
71 Pandit ‘After Gorshkov, another Navy project hit by delay’, Times of India, 10 August 2007.
72 “Navy to Project Three Carrier Force From 2008,” Reports (India Defence), 2673 (14 November 2006), Navy to project Three Carrier Force from 2008 | India Defence.
73 “Indian Navy Three Aircraft Carrier Force By 2017,” Reports (India Defence), 32094, 17 May 2007 Indian Navy: Three Aircraft Carrier Force By 2017; INS Vikramaditya Delayed Till 2010 | India Defence.
74 “Indian Navy Capable of Developing Nuclear Powered Warships,” Reports (India Defence), 2670 (11 November 2006), http://www.india-defence.com/reports/2670.
75 Vinay Shukla, “INS Talwar to Add Punch to Indian Navy,” Rediff on the Net, 18 June 2003, INS Talwar to add punch to Indian Navy.
76 V. Mohan Narayan, “Navy Acquires Stealth Frigates,” The Tribune, 13 August 2003.
77 Kapil Chandni, “INS Trishul: the Trident Arrives Home,” Autumn 2003, INS Trishul: The Trident Arrives Home.
78 “Indian Navy Seeks Approval for More ‘Stealth’ Warships,” Agence France-Presse, 10 May 2006.
79 “Prithvi's Naval Variant is Successfully Test-Fired,” Times of India, 28 October 2004.
80 Rajat Pandi, “Navy, IAF Inducts Prithvi,” Times of India, 22 August 2006.
81 Fernandes cited in “India Challenges China in South China Sea,” Asia Times, 27 April 2000.
82 Gurpreet Khurana, “Indian Navy’s Amphibious Leap: A Little Help From America,” Reports (India Defence), 1703, 7 April 2006, http://www.idsa.in/publications/stra...ana030406.htm; Raeefa Shams, “Indian Navy Takes Big Strides Towards Blue Water Capability,” JINSA Online, The Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, 24 July 2007.
83 Robert Norris, William Arkin, Hans Kristensen and Joshua Handler, “India’s Nuclear Forces, 2002,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 58:2 (2002), pp. 70-72, 72; also “Indian Navy Chief Claims Preparedness,” Dawn, 17 January 2002.
84 Rahul Bedi, “India Outlines Vision of Future Nuclear Navy,” Jane’s Weekly, 41:25 (23 June 2004), pp. 30-2.
85 Vivek Raguvanshi, ‘‘India Working on Sea-Based Nuclear Missiles,” Defence News, 15 October 2007.
86 Pandit, “N-submarines Will Make India’s Nuclear Deterrent Credible,” Times of India, 24 September 2007.
87 “Agni III Submarine Launched Version To Be Developed: DRDO,” Reports (India Defence), 13 April 2007, http://www.india-defence.com/reports/3035.
88 Sandeep Unnithan, "The Secret Nuke Sub Deal: How a Stealthy Agreement with Russia Gives India an Undersea Platform to Launch Nuclear Weapons,’ India Today, 3 September 2007.
89 Sakhuja, “Sea-based Deterrence and Indian Security,” Strategic Analysis, 25:1 (April 2001), pp. 21-32, 31.
90 “Indian Navy To Set Up Air Station Near Rameshwaram,” Reports (India Defence), 3027 (11 April 2007), http://www.india-defence.com/reports/3027.
91 “Navy to Go in For Long-Range Spy Planes,” The Hindu, 3 December 2006.
92 “Defence Budget up 11.6% to Rs 96,000cr,” Business Standard, 28 February 2007.
93 Gaurang Bhatt, “A Blueprint For a Future Indian Navy,” 3 July 2005, A blueprint for a future Indian Navy by Gaurang Bhatt, MD
94 Ibid.
95 Ibid.
96 Ravi Sharma, “A Base for a Blue Water Navy,” Frontline, 22:11 (21 May - 3 June 2005), 90-4. Also Adam Wolfe, Yevgeny Bendersky, and Federico Bordonaro, “India’s Project Seabird and the Indian Ocean’s Balance of Power,” Power and Interest News Report, 20 July 2005; Sudha Ramachandran, “Indian Navy on the Crest of a Wave,” Asia Times, 18 June 2005.
97 Cited in ‘Indian Navy to Set Up Air Station Near Rameshwaram,’ Reports (Indian Defence), 3027, 11 April 2007.
98 Ramachandran, “Delhi All Ears in the Indian Ocean,” Asia Times, 3 March 2006; “Indian Navy Activates Listening Post, Monitoring Station in Madagascar, Indian Ocean,” Reports (India Defence), 3466, 18 July 2007.
99 Steven Forsberg, “India Stretches Its Sea Legs,” Proceedings (U.S. Naval Institute), 133:3 (March 2007), pp. 38-42.
100 Ramtanu, “India Bids to Rule the Waves,” Asia Times, 19 October 2005.
101 Ramachandran, “India Navy Drops Another Anchor,” Asia Times, 17 October 2006.
102 “India’s Blue Water Reach: Naval Strategic Issues in South Asia,” Asian Analysis Newsletter (ANU), September 2007, Asian Analysis / Newsletter / Latest.
103 Ibid.
104 Indian Navy, Tacking to the Blue Waters. Indian Navy - the Year That Was, http://indiannavy.nic.in/events2003.pdf. Also “Navy Tacking to the Blue Waters, The Tribune, 6 August 2003.
105 Indian Navy, Reaching Out to Maritime Neighbours. 2005. The Year That Was, http://indiannavy.nic.in/events2005.pdf, 6.
106 Ibid., 7.
107 Bharat Karnad, “Indian Nuclear Paradigm,” South Asian Journal, 3 (January-March 2004), http://www.southasianmedia.net/Magaz...learadigm.html.
108 Scott, “Indian ‘Footprints’ in the Indian Ocean: Power Projection for the 21st Century,” Indian Ocean Survey, 2:2 (2006), pp. 1-26; also Donald Berlin, “India in the Indian Ocean,” Naval War College Review, 59:1 (2006), pp. 58-89.
109 Rakesh Chopra, ‘The Maritime Dimension of Energy Security,” Journal (USI), July-September 2004, Subject wise list of USI Journals.
110 Amit Kumar, “From Brown Water to Blue,” Indian Express, 5 December 2006.
111 “India Deploys Warships in Gulf Region,” Xinhuanet, 12 September 2004. Also “India Positions Naval Fleet in Persian Gulf Area,” Pakistan Times, 13 September 2004; Vimala Vasan, “Navy for Expanding Ties With Gulf States,” Business Line (The Hindu), 20 September 2004
112 “Navy Chief For Enhanced Ties with UAE,” The Hindu, 8 February 2007; B. Raman, “Indian Navy Begins to Look West,” Papers (South Asia Research Group), 2128 (9 February 2007), INDIAN NAVY BEGINS TO LOOK WEST - INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR--PAPER NO.186.
113 Pandit, “Indian Navy “Spooks” New Chinese Destroyer,” Times of India, 9 February 2006.
114 Prakash, ‘Sailing into Future’.
115 Ramachandran, “India’s Quiet Sea Power,” Asia Times, 2 August 2007.
116 Mohammed Alam, “India and Mauritius: Maritime Cooperation on the Upswing,” Conflict & Analysis, 7:9 (September 2004), pp. 6-7
117 Cited in “Indian Navy to Guard Mauritian Waters,” Hindustan Times, 3 July 2003.
118 Sudhir Chadda, “India Start Showing Signs of a Budding Superpower - India, Mauritius to Jointly Survey for Hydrocarbons,” India Daily, 31 March 2005.
119 “Indian Naval Ships Visit South Africa,” People’s Daily, 7 June 2005.
120 Bhatt, “Blueprint For a Future Indian Navy.”
121 Prakash, “We Have a Long Way to Go,” Rediff on the Net, 23 February 2005, Print Article - 'We have a long way to go'. Also Lawrence Prabhakar, Joshua Ho and Sam Bateman (eds), The Evolving Maritime Balance of Power in the Asia-Pacific: Maritime Doctrines and Nuclear Weapons at Sea (Singapore: World Scientific Publishing, 2006), for India’s maritime role in the Asia-Pacific.
122 Scott, “Strategic Imperatives of India as an Emerging Player in Pacific Asia,” International Studies, 44: 2 (April-June 2007), pp. 123-40.
123 Cited in Joseph, “Navy Hails Successful South China Sea Visit,” Rediff on the Net, 17 October 2000, rediff.com: Navy hails successful South China Sea visit.
124 Ashok Mehta, “India’s National Interest had Been Made Coterminous with Maritime Security,” Rediff on the Net, 4 December 2000, rediff.com: Major General Ashok K Mehta (retd) on the India Navy.
125 “India Challenges China in the South China Seas,” Asia Times, 27 April 2000; Joseph, “Navy Hails Successful South China Sea Visit.”
126 Vishal Thapar, “Navy Deploys Warships in South China Sea,” Hindustan Times, 18 October 2004.
127 “To Improve Ties, Navy Takes South China Sea Course,” Indian Express, 14 October 2004.
128 Berlin, “Navy Reflects India’s Strategic Ambitions,” Asia Times, 6 November 2004.
129 “Indian Navy - Blue Water Bound,” Analysis (India Defence Consultants), 28 February 2005, WHAT.
130 Karnad, “India’s Future Plans and Defence Requirements,” in N. Sisodia and C. Bhaskar (eds), Emerging India. Sehcurity and Foreign Policy Perspectives (New Delhi: Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, 2005), pp. 61-76, 63.
131 John Daly, “Can the Dragon Swim? The Naval Balance in the Taiwan Strait,” China Brief, 20 January 2004, The Jamestown Foundation.
132 G.V.C. Naidu, “Whither the Look East Policy: India and Southeast Asia,” Strategic Analysis, 28: 2 (2004), pp. 331-46, 346 fn. 21.
133 Venkat Raman, “India Showcases Maritime Capability,” 15 July 2006, :: Indian NewsLink:: The Community News Paper of New Zealand.
134 “India Navy Vessel Visits NZ,” People’s Daily, 3 July 2006. Also Sandeep Chandra, “India-NZ Defence Co-operation to Grow,” The Global Indian, 21 July 2006
135 Cited Raman, “India Showcases Maritime Capability”.
136 Simon Elegant and Michael Elliot, “Lee Kuan Yew Reflects” (interview), Time Asia, 5 December 2005. See also Anindya Batabyal, “Balancing China in Asia. A Realist Assessment of India’s Look East Strategy,” China Report, 42:2 (2006), pp. 179-97; Scott, “The Great Power ‘Great Game’ Between India and China - ‘The Logic of Geography’,” forthcoming, Geopolitics, 13:1 (2008).
137 Prakash, “Time is Running Out,” Rediff on the Net, 24 February 2005, 'Time is running out'.
138 Prakash, “Time is Running Out.”
139 Ramachandran, “India’s Blue Water Dreams May Have to Wait,” Asia Times, 21 August 2007.
140 Singh, “The Indian Navy in 2020.”
141 Mahan, The Interest of America in Sea-Power, p. 53.
142 Andrew Winner, “India as a Maritime Power?,” Paper, Annual Meeting of the International Studies Association, San Diego, 22 March 2006, India as a Maritime Power?.
143 Mukherjee, “International Relations and Maritime Affairs - Strategic Imperatives.”
144 Mahan, “The Future in Relation to American Naval Power,” Harper's New Monthly Magazine, 91 (September 1895), pp. 767-76, 770.

 

[Ray]

To be vey candid, India's naval presence is more of a brown water navy.

The strategic threats are many - China, the US, Paksitan mongst others.

Pakistan's free access beyond Karachi has to be checked.

China's foray into the Indian Ocean and the oil countries have to be checked. It might be added that the land offensive if China contemplates will not give much results in her favour.

Bangladesh and Myamar have to be told that we are watching.

The US supremacy in naval power in the Indian Ocean requires monitoring and given a message that we are also there.

Without a blue water navy it is not feasible.

Indian Ocean is our backyard and so it must be signatured as ours!!

 

[p2prada]

To be vey candid, India's naval presence is more of a brown water navy.

The strategic threats are many - China, the US, Paksitan mongst others.

Pakistan's free access beyond Karachi has to be checked.

China's foray into the Indian Ocean and the oil countries have to be checked. It might be added that the land offensive if China contemplates will not give much results in her favour.

Bangladesh and Myamar have to be told that we are watching.

The US supremacy in naval power in the Indian Ocean requires monitoring and given a message that we are also there.

Without a blue water navy it is not feasible.

Indian Ocean is our backyard and so it must be signatured as ours!!

Sir IN has been operating in the Chinese backyard(South China Sea) since 2000.

 

[Sridhar]

Navy seals 45,000-cr deal: seven warships
New Delhi:

India has cleared its largest ever indigenous defence contract worth Rs 45,000 crore to manufacture seven advanced stealth frigates for the Navy at shipyards in Kolkata and Mumbai.

The P17A warship project, which will be India’s most advanced and stealthy frigates, has been cleared by the Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) on Friday.

Sources said that brushing aside a request by the Navy that two of the indigenously designed frigates may be manufactured abroad, the DAC has decided that all seven warships will be manufactured in India by the Mazagon Dock Limited, Mumbai (MDL) and the Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers (GRSE), Kolkata.

The Defence Ministry has allocated a budget of Rs 45,000 crore for the project and the work will be divided between the two shipyards. The P17A frigates will be even more advanced than the P17 Shivalik class warships that are currently being inducted by the Navy.

This will also be the first time that the two shipyards will construct warships in the modern way of modular manufacturing. The frigates will be put together using 300-ton blocks that will be fitted together, similar to the construction style being used to manufacture the Indigenous Aircraft Carrier (IAC) in Kochi.

This very concept of modular manufacturing had caused a divide between the Navy and the two shipyards with the former insisting that two ships be manufactured abroad so that Indian ship workers could absorb the required technology.

In 2006, the Navy had even issued a Request for Information (RFI) ¿ a prerequisite to a tender ¿ to international ship manufacturers including French DCNS, Italian Fincantieri, American firms Lockheed Martin and Northrop Gruman besides shipyards in Russia and Korea to manufacture the frigates.

Navy seals 45,000-cr deal: seven warships

 

[luckyy]

Russia will lease only one nuclear submarine to India: Official

Russia will lease only one nuclear submarine to India: Official - India - The Times of India

"We will lease only one submarine. In my opinion, India needs the sub more for enhancing its prestige rather than for accomplishing specific goals," deputy head of the Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation, Vyacheslav Dzirkaln, was quoted as saying by RIA Novosti.

 

[Daredevil]

US firm to provide maintenance for weapons on board Navy ship

US firm to provide maintenance for weapons on board Navy ship

Press Trust of India / Paris June 22, 2009, 12:30 IST
US Defence firm Raytheon has signed an agreement with India's Elcom Marine Company to provide spare support for the maintenance of Phalanx close-in weapon system on board Indian Navy's INS Jalashwa amphibious warship.

"We have signed an agreement with Elcom Marine to provide them the spares and other systems with which they can support the two Phalanx systems on the INS Jalashwa," Raytheon Vice President Denny Carroll said during the Paris Air show.

India had procured the INS Jalashwa (formerly known as USS Trenton) from the US in 2007 for around $50 million and the ship has two Phalanx systems on it along with six helicopters.

Raytheon is also close to signing another agreement with Elcom which will help the company to do the annual maintenance of the close-in weapon system for the Indian Navy.

Carroll said that Raytheon has also offered to upgrade the two systems of the Navy with the latest configuration.

"We have already offered to upgrade the systems on board the Jalashwa to Phalanx 1B configuration, which is the latest version of the system," he informed.

He added that Raytheon is ready to offer the system for other ships of Indian Navy also. The weapon system on board the ship protects it against the threat from incoming missiles and other airborne threats.

Raytheon has signed 13 different MoUs with various Indian companies, including Tata Advance Systems Ltd, to expand its presence in the country's defence market.