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Lord of the Water
Strategic Vision vol. 6, no. 31 (February, 2017)
Understanding India’s buildup of naval forces from a theoretical perspective
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Wan Chih-hung
Sailors in the Indian Navy salute on the deck of a warship. India has been eying the development of a blue-water navy to check China’s naval ambitions.
photo: Indian Navy
India is a future world power which is strengthening its military at a rapid pace. This raises the question of what is driving Indian military development. This paper examines the issue utilizing the framework developed by political scientist Scott Sagan to explain why nations seek to develop nuclear weapons. Sagan’s three models include the security model, the norms model, and the domestic-politics model. Together they are instrumental in illuminating India’s motivations for expanding its naval capability, and in particular, ramping up development of aircraft carriers. An emerging question is whether India is simply worried about hostile neighbors, or if it is seeking to become Asia’s biggest military power. Many states around the world, and especially in the region, want to understand India’s real intentions for military expansion because this expansion might lead to international tensions. Taken together, these three models help provide a more comprehensive perspective as to why India is strengthening its naval power.
The security model is one of the most appropriate explanations for India’s sea power expansion for two primary reasons; robust deterrence and sea control. First, the Indian Navy needs powerful deterrence to prevent a hostile state from harming its interests. The Indian Navy could use its robust sea power to discourage neighbors that seek to undermine its interests and use its nuclear second-strike capabilities as a threat of punishment. Second, India relies on sea control to protect its own sea lines of communication (SLOCs). Control of the sea is a fundamental and vital part of maritime strategy that secures trade and resources. This is critical for India, as roughly 90 percent of India’s goods pass through the Indian Ocean. Additionally, about 70 percent of India’s oil and more than 50 percent of its natural gas are received from Saudi Arabia, Iran, Kuwait, and Iraq. As a result of this dependency, India’s maritime strategy explicitly notes that whatever happens in the Indian Ocean littoral region can affect national security and constitutes a national interest.
A US Air Force B-1B Lancer assigned to the 9th Expeditionary Bomb Squadron, deployed from Dyess Air Force Base, Texas, lands at Andersen AFB, Guam.
photo: Richard P. Ebensbeeger
Rising powers
India and China are two future great sea powers that have their own vast strategic needs and maritime interests around Asia. Aircraft carriers are the Indian Navy’s best conventional weapon to deter an unfriendly power—specifically China. Retired US Admiral Bud Zumwalt has described the main mission of an aircraft carrier as “crisis management and deterrence of full-scale war.” Aircraft carriers can do this because they can deliver striking power to any coastal region on Earth. As Robert Jervis’s deterrence model states, “great dangers arise if an aggressor believes that the status quo powers are weak in capability or resolve.” That is to say, a state had better be able to display strong military capabilities to deter a potential threat’s aggressive behavior. According to research from the RAND Corporation, “the Indian Navy hopes to possess three V/STOL carriers … precipitated by Indian fears of regional conflicts spilling over into its security sphere,” citing “the Chinese presence on the Indian Ocean, which Indian policy-makers now trumpet as an inevitable but troublesome possibility.”
In the same vein, in the Journal of Military and Strategic Studies, international relations (IR) expert David Scott argues that India is constructing a bluewater navy as a reaction to the emergence of another blue-water navy emerging in the region—specifically, that of China. Beijing is currently building its first indigenous aircraft carrier to add to the one it purchased from the Ukraine and refurbished. According to Wang Min, a Communist Party secretary in China’s Liaoning province, “the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) needs a total of four carriers by 2020.” Keeping pace, India is not only constructing its third aircraft carrier but is planning to design another indigenous supercarrier, the Vishal, which is scheduled to be commissioned by 2025. India and China will be two robust sea powers that might go headto-head over the Indian Ocean in the next 10 to 15 years. Essentially, a rising China is India’s primary security concern due to its geostrategic significance and economic interests.
Critical missions
Sea control is one of the most significant missions that the Indian Navy undertakes to protect the security of its SLOCs. Prominent naval theorist Geoffrey Till defines sea control as that which “denote[s] a navy’s capacity to use an area of sea for its own purposes for as long as necessary to achieve those purposes and to deny that ability to others.” Additionally, naval historian George Baer believes that “the first job of the fast-carrier task forces was sea control.” The Indian Navy knows sea control is vital and losing sea control is very dangerous because India cannot afford to lose control of sea lanes. The India Maritime Doctrine of 2009 reveals that the country’s maritime strategy is based on “the freedom to use the seas for our national purpose, under all circumstances.” Clearly, the Indian Navy is tasked with controlling the Indian Ocean. Furthermore, the doctrine concludes that “sea control is the central concept around which the Indian Navy is structured.”
Aircraft carriers are ideal weapons systems that can wage war far away from their mainland, and thus support the mission of SLOC protection. Retired Indian Admiral Arun Prakash, former chief of the Naval Staff, has stated that they “aim to exercise selective sea control in the waters of the Indian Ocean by deploying task forces built around the core of aircraft carriers.” India could use aircraft carriers to project power to undertake long-range operations against potential threats from the entire Indian Ocean to the western Pacific Ocean. Accordingly, Indian policymakers may continually expand naval power to compete against rising hostile neighbors and secure sea control.
The Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson and the Indian navy fleet oiler INS Shakti conduct a refueling at sea exercise during Exercise Malabar.
photo: Andrew Haller
The norms model is another driver for India’s maritime expansion because the aircraft carrier symbolizes sea power and sea power projects the image of a powerful state. An emerging China has sharply enhanced its national prestige and image as a great power by purchasing a decommissioned former Soviet aircraft carrier and refurbishing it for active service, rechristening it the Liaoning.
Members of the Indian navy give a tour of Indian Naval Station Hansa to crew members of Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS O’Kane.
photo: Shod Williams
Since acquiring the aircraft carriers INS Viraat and Vikramaditya in 1987 and 2013, respectively, India has embarked on building its first indigenous aircraft carrier, the INS Vikrant. This prestigious undertaking shows that India is one of the few great powers that have the capability to design and manufacture aircraft carriers.
Acquiring aircraft carriers also instills national pride and confidence. Indian Naval expert Uday Bhaskar argues that building aircraft carriers can uproot the image of India as a postcolonial weak state. Displaying an aircraft carrier is an effective way to exhibit a state’s power and to wield influence in the world. India has the option to use its aircraft carriers as a tool for long-range maritime diplomacy by showing its national flag far beyond the region. Furthermore, India is taking advantage of its blue water navy to become a regional power and to apply for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.
Indian domestic political support is critical in supporting its maritime power expansion in the post-Cold War era. The government, led by a coalition of the Indian National Congress (INC) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), claim that India should put more focus on its Navy. Multiple ruling parties support naval modernization, and public support is strong as Indian people are proud of these accomplishments. Jaswant Singh, an Indian politician, views naval development as a national priority, asserting that, “today, the Indian navy faces a crisis in terms of its rapidly declining force levels, lack of sufficient funding, and limited warship construction programs.” Former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, a leader of the BJP, also aimed at building a blue-water naval capacity and decided to increase funding and naval modernization. The Indian government increased the Navy’s defense budget from US$7.5 billion for the years 1997-2001 to US$18.3 billion for 2002-2007. Additionally, the Navy’s share of the defense budget had increased from 11.2 percent in 1992-1993 to 18.26 percent in 2007-2008.
In weighing these three perspectives, it appears that the security model provides the strongest explanation for why India wants to expand its maritime capabilities. India seeks a stronger navy to develop powerful deterrent capability and to maintain sea control. However, the norms model also helps explain how India’s aircraft carriers symbolize its status as a great sea power, and the domestic politics model adds additional insight into what drives India’s naval development.
If current trends continue, India and China could eventually find themselves competing for control and influence in some areas of the Indo-Pacific maritime region. Dependence on foreign oil and gas is a primary driver for naval development in India, as well as China, and this development may steer both countries into turbulent waters. Increased military expansion could result in a security dilemma that provokes an arms race, and an arms race between India and China could become white-hot. Unless both sides develop effective mechanisms for communication and transparency, the two countries could find themselves in an intense struggle for maritime dominance within the next 10 to 15 years.
US Air Force boom operator assigned to the 134th Air Refueling Wing, Tennessee Air National Guard, refuels F-16 Fighting Falcons over Northern Japan.
photo: Deana Heitzman
Commander Wan Chih-hung is a student at the ROC National Defense University in Taipei, Taiwan. He can be reached for comment at jackwan6859@gmail.com
