South Asia
India's grand strategic vision gets grander
By Stephen Blank
India has long considered itself a major global player, or at least a major Asian power, and it has been deeply frustrated until now in not being regarded as as a formidable actor on the international and Asian scene.
Major policy decisions, such as the one to go overtly nuclear in 1998, can be attributed to this consuming desire to be seen as a great power. For years both Indian and foreign analysts have expected that by the early 21st century India would become a major projector of power and influence throughout Asia. Indeed, the most recent evidence suggests that the Indian government has now opted for a 20-year program to fulfill that goal and become "a world power with influence spreading across the Indian Ocean, the Arabian Gulf and the four corners of Asia".
A major byproduct of this intended rise to a global status would be to leave Pakistan trailing behind as a minor regional power that could no longer threaten India's vital interests. Thus this program builds on the same psychological drive that has long animated much of India's thinking about regional security issues throughout the Indian Ocean. Accordingly this past November, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee directed planners to craft defense strategies that extend beyond South Asia and transcend past sub-regional mind sets. India's expanded security perspectives, he claimed, require such fresh thinking about projecting power and influence, as well as security in all these directions.
Thus India will seek more defense cooperation with states in the Persian Gulf, Southeast and Central Asia, presumably going beyond intelligence-sharing about terrorist activities. This cooperation will proceed to more bilateral exchanges, military exercises and greater sharing of defense advice with friendly nations. In this context, relations of strategic partnership with Washington are essential because Russia's once powerful ties with India are now diluted and tempered by Moscow's dependence on the West, particularly the United States - a situation that would, in the absence of partnership with Washington, severely constrain India's options.
Ten-year military buildup
While India formally eschews offensive military projections, it is formally announcing its base in Tajikistan, and hopes to undertake the following military programs through 2013:
# Improving military logistics in Iran, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan;
# Increasing military interaction with Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, Laos, and Vietnam;
# Increasing naval interaction with South Africa, other African states, Iran, Oman, the United Arab Emirates and other Gulf nations;
# Extending infrastructure, logistic and material support to Myanmar to contain Chinese activities there.
Beyond those policies, all the Indian military services are currently undertaking a major buildup of conventional weapons, creating ways of delivering nuclear weapons and preparing defenses against nuclear missiles by improving communication and surveillance systems.
Although all the services will be augmented, it is significant that the Navy will construct warships in an effort to make India's presence in the Indian Ocean "a force to be reckoned with", and thus one capable of force and power projection if necessary. For example, in April, the plan prepared for the Indian military and developed by its Directorate of Defense Policy and Planning for the Army, Air Force and Navy advocated a rapid reaction capability for real-time troop deployment to countries along the rim of the Indian Ocean in order to create a defense umbrella for them.
This plan, "India's Strategic Vision", envisages cooperation with Indonesia, Malaysia, Maldives, Mauritius and Vietnam. And it comports with Vajpayee's directives. However it cannot be carried out given India's lack of fast long-range aircraft with aerial refueling capabilities, Airborne Early Warning and Command Aircraft (AWAC), attack helicopters and a carrier in addition the existing Indian Naval Services Virat carrier.
These deficiencies, which the report insists cannot be made up by India's defense industry, put it at a disadvantage relative to China, which can project major power into the Indian Ocean region. Therefore, the only way to acquire these capabilities is through foreign suppliers. But the purpose of inviting diverse foreign arms suppliers into India's defense industries goes beyond merely augmenting India's force capabilities or diversifying suppliers so that it is no longer as dependent on Russian weapons - which in any case have now come in for considerable criticism.
Foreign suppliers a spur
Ultimately, the idea is that by inviting foreign and private competition into this domain the government will obtain the leverage to compel the Indian defense industry, a noticeably lagging part of Indian industry, to become more competitive, able to produce indigenously made systems, including high-tech systems, and sell them not only to the Indian military but abroad as well.
Thus a major part of Indian policy and of the long-range plans formulated by the government entail India becoming a major exporter of conventional arms, something it already is doing in Central Asia.
It is also very clear from the pattern of naval acquisitions that India has very expansive ambitions for itself, among which are countering both Pakistan and China. Again this reflects back to the objective of making India a naval force to be reckoned with in the Indian Ocean.
On October 14, navy chief Admiral Madhavendra Singh said: "Fulfilling India's dream to have a full-fledged blue-water navy would need at least three aircraft carriers, 20 more frigates, 20 more destroyers with helicopters, and large numbers of missile corvettes and anti-submarine warfare corvettes."
India's new naval acquisition program entails spending US$20 billion to buy aircraft carriers, submarines, frigates, maritime surveillance aircraft and other ships and equipment. The 10 principal combat vessels would be equipped with anti-missile missiles, control, command, communications and intelligence(C31) systems and Cruise missile launchers.
Submarine-launched nukes
Officials also insist on the need for a submarine-launched nuclear missile capability, presumably to establish a second-strike capacity and to counter the naval buildup by Pakistan's navy - regarded by New Delhi as a "medium-term" threat to India.
Pakistan's Agosta 90-B diesel submarines can, along with its three Orion P-3C maritime strike aircraft outfitted with missiles, conduct effective sea denial operations against India's coast.
However, it is just as likely if not more likely that the real threat Indian naval planners perceive is China, whose fleet they see, rightly or wrongly, as being increasingly able to project power into the Indian Ocean. One Indian study states that the power vacuum in that ocean in this century can only be filled by India, China or Japan either by "complete pre-eminence or by a mutual stand-off". While this may appear a rather fanciful assessment, perceptions often drive policy, especially in this part of the world. Consequently India has searched for a submarine that could launch nuclear missiles, and aircraft carriers, as well as long-range missiles that could strike targets over 2,500 kilometers away, clearly a sign that China is in its sights as well.
Many, if not most observers, have recently begun to observe China's rising economic and military capability across East Asia and its increased ability to shape policy outcomes desirable to Beijing. India now clearly aspires to a similar status and capability and apparently is willing to invest the resources necessary to acquire them.
Moreover, at least in Southeast Asia and in the waters adjacent to the Straits of Malacca, India is prepared to assert its interests to counter the rise in Chinese interest there. All these shifts in the geopolitical capacity of major actors suggests that not only is the war on terrorism a central geopolitical and geostrategic concern of these times, but also the likelihood of India-China rivalry across much of Asia, whether it is muted or overt, will be no less of a dominant story in the years to come.
Moreover, because of that rivalry and of these two states' rise to power, few if any of the pervious strategic realities that have governed Asia in these current times will remain unchanged or unscathed. However, they manifest themselves, intriguing developments will soon be unfolding in Southeast, South and Central Asia.
Stephen Blank is an analyst of international security affairs residing in Harrisburg, Pa.
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