Force of reckoning: India bulks up its maritime muscle

Having maintained a broadly defensive posture for many decades, the Indian Navy (IN) has now adopted an aggressively competitive strategy aimed at developing a credible minimum nuclear deterrence, pursuing littoral warfare and dominating the Indian Ocean Region (IOR).

Evolving incrementally as the country's strategic wild card, the IN is extending its blue water deployment and area of responsibility to project India's military-diplomatic power in consonance with its rising economic profile.

By 2020, the navy envisages a force architecture centered around 140-145 vessels, of which more than half will be ocean-going and the remainder assigned to coastal duties.

The IN intends to create a fighting force of missile destroyers, frigates and corvettes around two - if not three - aircraft carrier battle groups, supplemented by submarine and aviation assets equipped with long-range precision-guided weapons capable of anti-ship and land-attack missions.

Network-centric platforms and sensors providing endurance and punch, maritime surveillance, anti-submarine warfare capability via combat aircraft and helicopters, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), mine countermeasure ships and auxiliary forces will complete the navy's emerging structure.

"The IN's force levels are being shaped along a capability-dominant, mission-based approach that seeks to provide for the optimum utilisation of our limited resources," says IN chief Admiral Sureesh Mehta.

At least two nuclear-powered submarines (SSNs) - one built locally and the other leased from Russia - with an additional three locally developed ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs) inducted from 2015-17 onwards, will comprise the crucial third leg of India's strategic deterrence, besides furnishing the IN with extended reach. It would also render India the world's sixth state to operate SSNs after China, France, Russia, the UK and the United States.

Since carrying out multiple nuclear tests in 1998, India has been designing a strategic deterrence capability aimed principally at countering China's formidable nuclear arsenal. This vision comprises a triad of weapons deliverable by aircraft, mobile land platforms and sea-based units.

"We envisage a submarine force that may not be very much larger than our present one [16 boats at present, reducing to around nine by 2015], but one whose propulsion and weapon-and-sensor capabilities would be suitably upgraded to meet future operational requirements," Adm Mehta says.

India is also seeking to dominate IOR sea lanes by controlling choke points and trade routes. The latter are vital, especially with regard to the importation of India's spiralling oil and gas requirements. This demand is expected to more than double by 2010 to fuel its burgeoning economic growth rate, the world's second highest after China.

Image: Commissioned into the UK Royal Navy in 1959, INS Viraat - seen here during Exercise 'Malabar' in September 2007 - will remain in Indian service well past its expected retirement date of 2010-11. (US Navy) 417 of 4,276 words