Bharat Rakshak

Because big powers are bothered if another power places their 7th, 5th, 2nd or whatever fleet in their backyard. If Russia, China etc. were to park their fleet in Cuba, only US will be bothered no other small country around has a need to be bothered, unless these small nations pretend to be bothered to please the unkil.

Who else will be bothered? Myamar, Sri Lanka......... nope too small to bother.

China has been doing exactly the SAME things for years!!!!!

Thats the RuN aircraft carrier Kuznetsov

Thanks Austin! It's funny, took me one glance to lay my suspicion but folks on that forum are convinced it's the Vik because it's put along side actual pictures of the Vik.

People are strange.

Easy way to paint it is the 4 prominent phased array antenna which Vikramaditya does not have ,there are many others but thats the easiest one to see.

Multiple points:
1. You are like my wife, you quote only part of what I tried to make as a point.

Sorry NRao ji, just was quoting the central part of your post, saving bandwidth no ulterior motives.

OK. Granted India should be bothered by this US thinking.

Now, what about the following:



With China relationship is more black & white than with unkil. In case they make a base whole BR would have a consensus that its an enemy action and there is possiblity of war with China but not so much with unkil.

As has been posted before on BR about how unkil is providing porkis with daily update of India Naval movements.
Chinese gave nukes to porkis but unkil provided the delivery platforms initially until the chinese missiles came along.
Unkil has provided porkis with 500 plus BVR missiles for their F 16s.
The thing is relation with US is much into grey area, In the country their anti-India actions have tendency to slip under the radar quite easily and even if something gets highlighted it is shouted down with their supporters in DDM, politicos etc.

With US' much advanced technology/sensors they will be able to spy on us much more effectively than chinese.

In the event of war even with porkis god knows how much more underhand support to porkis they'll provide. I mean world may come to know about it 50 years later when archives are opened that Indian Shishumar Sub was actually torpedoed by US and not by a porki sub.
In case chinese are there at the time of war, Navy and AF would be very clear to take out their radar stations, ships etc. no grey area here.


2. As I stated, combined with a very weak "look East policy", Indian inaction is more bothersome. The US is bothered by Chinese expansionism, but India is not in "India's backyard"?

A topic that is supposed to be us vs. China is being portrayed as one vs. India?

IF India took care of her backyard, why would anyone poke their nose?

3. On Cuba: The US will be bothered. And, they will act. Will India act? I certainly hope so. I hope India asserts and prevents anyone from make decisions in the IOR (without Indian participation?)

Now here you are taking 180 degree turn, your first sentence in previous post was: "Why would India be bothered by this - IF it took place?" as long as their are people with your kind of support for US are there in GoI, media and commoners how could India act? You started your post protesting against the 'protest against US naval base'.

But, like China, the US too seems to be occupying a vacuum created by India. Being bothered is not a policy that one can act on. Nor is griping about it.

IF this has actually taken place, it is to a great extent because of Indian inaction (NOT policy).

Now just like Cubans won't allow US to make a base in their port, there will always be neighbouring countries which won't allow India to make a base. Even if current bangaladeshi govt. allows us to make a base, Khaleda Zia comes back and will ask us to leave.

Why is 'our friend US' so bothered about a vaccum in Bangaladesh? They have all the coverage against panda in Taiwan, what advantage in Bangladesh? If they are so concerned they should provide us with tech and provide ships for free to keep an eye. Anyway why should India make a base in Bangladesh? We are having our own coastline touching them, we can keep an eye from there itself.


4. SL/Myanmar/etc: IF they were bothered they would act.

Just BTW, they all have subscribed to Chinese actions.

However, I welcome this. India wakes up ONLY when there is some cataclysmic event - Kargil. India NEEDS a Kargil every year. Sad, but true.

I would like to know what are your views on China and her pearls. TIA.

As far as the 'pearls' are concerned, I think they are just that 'pearls', can be easily crushed at the start of hostilities. Let's say how many Brahmos/Nirbhays or Tejases can go to take out radar stations and ships they'll be sitting ducks. I guess coco islands radar eye can be called part of these pearls, few brahmos and that's it.

I'll equally be worried about IN ships in Vietnam, not much into basing few ships so near chinese. I'd rather go Karnad way, just provide Vietnamese Prithvis, Brahmos & 4 squadrons of Tejas for free and let panda get the taste of their on medicine.

USN presence in our backyard would be bodyblow to Indias strategic Interest , it would allow them to monitor all IN ship movement from close quarters and worst it would help them keep a tab on IN SSBN patrols in the east , mapping/monitoring of ocean floor for sensitive data for military use.

US presence in this part of the world or its desire to make it at Bangladesh coincides with IN SSBN force coming up and likely to be based in East plus the recent Chakra deployment there ....it would unnerve PLAN for sure but IN will be more harmed by this if the news is true............

Its a pity if being a $2 trillion economy we cant engage our own neighbour and cannot create a confidence in them to depend on us for any help ...something seriously wrong in our foreign and economic policy.

^^Philip how much tonnage this cruiser would be?

Concept of arsenal ship has passed after events of 9-11 simply because it costs too much to arm a vessel with that many missiles' (what are you going to do when it gets taken out in USS cole type incident?) and it is simply a lot easier, cheaper and quicker to deliver that much payload from a air launched platforms.

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta says the United States will shift the bulk of its warships to the Asia-Pacific region in the coming years as part of a new military rebalancing to guarantee a strong and continued U.S. presence in the region. U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Saturday the United States will move 60 percent of its naval fleet to the Asia-Pacific by 2020. Currently, its fleet of 285 cruisers, destroyers, littoral combat ships and submarines is evenly divided between the Atlantic and Pacific theaters.
Panetta laid out the plan in a speech Saturday to regional allies at the 11th International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS) Asia Security Summit: The Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore."Our approach to achieving the long-term goal in the Asia-Pacific is to stay firmly committed to a basic set of shared principles, principles that promote international rules and order to advance peace and security in the region," said Panetta.The country's scaled back defense budget will shrink Pentagon spending by $487 billion over the next decade, but Panetta said the United States will use its resources to enhance the technology of its weapons systems and replace old ships with new, more advanced ones.
No China challenge
He said the U.S. was also committed to building a healthy, stable and reliable military-to-military relationship with China.Beijing has balked at a larger U.S. presence in the rapidly developing region, but Panetta sought to dispel perceptions that the rebalancing is a way of challenging China's increasing power.
"I reject that view entirely. Our effort to renew and intensify our involvement in Asia is fully compatible, fully compatible with the development and growth of China," said Panetta.]
China has been seen as flexing its military muscle in the region in recent years, by among other things, stirring up territorial disputes over the resource-rich South China Sea. Although the Philippines, Vietnam and several other countries stake claims to the area, China claims it as its own.Panetta said China was a key to developing a peaceful, prosperous and secure Asia-Pacific by "respecting" the maritime rules that have governed the region for decades. Among other topics, Panetta underlined a key treaty alliance with South Korea, emphasizing that the U.S. military presence there would not be reduced despite a drop in the overall size of its ground forces in the coming years.On military-to-military ties, the U.S. defense secretary said the United States would enhance its cooperation with Thailand, which hosts an annual military exercise called Cobra Gold. Last year, the U.S. Pacific Command conducted 172 military exercises with more than 20 different countries and plans to increase the number and size of these events in the Asia-Pacific.China respects the presence and interests in the Asia-Pacific and hopes it will play a positive role in this region. We also hope the U.S. will respect China's interests and concerns in this region," said Liu.
The U.S. defense secretary will now go on to Vietnam and India. On the latter stop, he is expected to discuss ways to deepen the defense partnership with New Delhi.

Panetta put his foot in the mouth as he departed from prepared text during a speech at a shipyard in Connecticut, where he said, "we face the threats from rising powers -China, India, others - that we have to always be aware of and try to make sure that we always have sufficient force protection out there in the Pacific to make sure they know we're never going anywhere."

This, of course, is the same hero who made himself famous with:

Hindustan Times: US slips, calls India a ‘threat’

The man puts in too many hours flying. I would not read anything into it. He misspoke not unlike Obama who called Nazi concentration camps in Poland "Polish Death Camps".

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/20 ... secretary/

Washington: For the second time in less than two months, US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta has said that the country is facing challenges from rising powers in Asia - China in particular and also includes India in 21st century.

Navy creates new post to harness space-based capabilities
NEW DELHI: The Navy has created a new post of assistant chief of naval staff (communications, space and network-centric operations) with an eye on the future in which space-based military capabilities will play a critical role in all conflicts.

Rear Admiral Kishan K Pandey has taken over as the first ACNS (CSNCO) at Navy HQs here. The move also comes ahead of the planned launch of India's first military satellite, a naval communications and surveillance satellite, this year.

"Communications technology in tandem with space-based capabilities play a pivotal and transformational role in modern warfare. Recognising the critical need to harness these technological capabilities, the Indian Navy has been taking rapid steps to seamlessly integrate all combat platforms and terrestrial nodes through state-of-the art communications and space systems towards network-centric operations," said an officer.

"In addition to making platforms and infrastructure for network centricity, the Navy has also made organisational changes to create and efficiently manage the transition to seamless network-centric capabilities. The creation of the new post is a step in the process to migrate from a 'Platform Centric Navy' to a ' Network Enabled Navy'," he added.

For nearly five years, Rear Admiral Pandey, a communications and electronic warfare specialist, has been spearheading various prestigious projects at the Directorate of Naval Signals related with building the critical network-centric capabilities.

The arsenal ship envisaged by US analysts would be complementary to a carriers air power.Its size would be around 20000t I imagine.Perhaps smaller than the Kirov class .Given the limitations (combat radius and payload) of naval strike fighters operating from the carrier,arsenal ships packed with long range missiles add to the fleet's firepower.It is more expensive putting such a weaponload into a sub.The Ohio's were a lucky conversion.Perhaps more SSBNs being pensioned off in the future can be similarly converted .New strategic "flying wing" stealth bomber designs are also being contemplated ,so that a variety of delivery platforms are available,not putting all eggs in one basket.

The IN's best option is to lease/buy a couple of Oscar (Kursk) class SSGNs,with their 20 large missile silos,each of which can hold at least 3 K-15s.

Sameer_shelvale, the choice of Darwin in Australia, for positioning upto 3000 troops, the availability of Diego Garcia and finally Bangladesh would provide a triangulation of points for regular US naval traffic.

Nice idea,but the cost of refitting an old warship with a suspect hull is far less cost-effective than designing and bulding a new air defence cruiser which has a considerable weaponload of SAMs of various types,plus some LR SSMs and ASW helos.The vulnerability of carriers in today's world has led some analysts to advoate a return to the "arsenal ship" concept,where a battlecruiser sized surface ship ,stealthily shaped and equipped with hundreds of missiles in VL silos ,would complement both the strike force of a carrier task force,but also fleet air defence and BMD defence as well.

It seems the GSLV is ready!

First satellite for armed forces to be ready in a month | TOI