[iwar] My article, published in Hindustan Times, edit page, Tuesday, 25 November 2003

My article, published in Hindustan Times, edit page,
Tuesday, 25 November 2003

http://www.hindustantimes.com & click on Editorial

By Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad

The holding of joint exercises by the Indian and
Chinese navies caused a
 veteran of 1962 to splutter: “What will Vajpayee’s
next peace
initiative lead to? Joint patrolling of the LoC by the
Lashkar-e-Taiba
and the Indian Army? Joint guarding of Sansad Bhavan
by the Jaish-e-Muhammad
 and the Black Cats?”

Although the port calls and joint search-and-rescue
exercises being
conducted this week in the South China Sea near
Shanghai, in the
aftermath of the visits of George Fernandes and
Vajpayee, are the most
rudimentary form of naval cooperation, both the
Chinese and Indian
governments have heralded them as the dawn of a new
era of peace.

However, South Block would be acutely aware that China
and Pakistan had
conducted an extensive joint naval exercise between
October 18 and 22 in
 the same region just before Pervez Musharraf’s state
visit to China in
the first week of November. A key element of Chinese
naval strategy,
from the days of Admirals Shi Yunsheng and Liu
Huaqing, is a blue-water
presence in the Indian Ocean, concomitant with a
strategic encirclement
of India through naval cooperation with Pakistan,
Bangladesh and Myanmar.
 Significantly for India, Operation Dolphin 0310,
commanded by Vice
Admiral Zhang Deshun, chief of staff of the East China
Sea Fleet, was
the first time ever that either China or Pakistan had
engaged in joint
naval operations with any another nation.

The American naval strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan had
predicted in 1890:
 “Whoever controls the Indian Ocean will dominate
Asia. This ocean is
the key to the seven seas. In the 21st century, the
destiny of the world
 would be decided on its waters.” China’s goal is to
achieve
overwhelming military, geopolitical, diplomatic,
economic and cultural
dominance over all of Asia, as described in its White
Paper on Defence
issued in October 2000. Although the Peoples
Liberation Army Navy
identifies its primary antagonists as Taiwan, USA,
Japan and South Korea,
 it has formulated a long-term strategy to establish a
blue-water
presence in the Indian Ocean, including the Bay of
Bengal and the
Arabian Sea.

China is also acutely aware that India strategically
straddles every one
 of the Sea Lines of Communications (SLOCs) of its oil
imports from the
Middle East. China is importing about 75 million
tonnes of oil this year
 from the Persian Gulf, nearly 30 percent of its
consumption, which is
expected to increase to 140 million tonnes by 2010.
China’s oil imports
would be highly vulnerable to disruption at maritime
choke-points in
West Asia such as the Straits of Hormuz and the
Straits of Bab-El-Mendeb,
 as well as choke-points in East Asia such as the
Straits of Malacca,
Sunda, Lombok, and Makassar. Most ships approach the
East Asian Straits,
 especially the Malacca Straits, through the Ten
Degree Channel, which
lies between India’s Andaman Islands and Great Nicobar
Islands.

Admiral Zhao Nanqi asserted, “We do not accept the
Indian Ocean as India’s
 ocean”. Admirals Liu Huaqing and Zhao Nanqi
formulated China’s naval
doctrines of active offshore defense, a blue-water
navy, and surprise
guerrilla attacks at sea, and sought to contain
India’s influence in the
 Indian Ocean through cooperation with Pakistan,
Bangladesh, and Myanmar.
 China is closely involved with Pakistan’s deep-sea
port of Gawadhar, as
 well as naval bases in Pakistan's western Makran
coast. China has also
offered to develop Chittagong in Bangladesh as a
deep-water port on the
lines of Gawadhar.

China has already established an extensive signals
intelligence facility,
 along with an airstrip and a 100-meter jetty, on
Myanmar’s Great Coco
Island, just a few miles from Andamans. This facility
will enable China
to pose significant ELINT (Electronic Intelligence)
and SIGINT (Signal
Intelligence) threats to India’s missile launches from
Balasore and
Chandipur-on-Sea, as well as to India’s rocket and
satellite launches
from Sriharikota. The Cocos signals intelligence
facility will also
enable China to monitor India’s recently established
tri-services
command in the Andamans. Chinese listening posts in
Sittwe (Aykab) and
Zedetkyi Kyun (St. Luke’s) off the Terrasserim coast
in Southern Myanmar
 enable it to monitor maritime traffic in the Straits
of Malacca and
Phillips Channel prior to entering South China Sea.

China is also associated with Myanmar naval bases at
Munaung, Hainggyi,
Katan Island, and Zadaikyi Island. The naval base at
Hainggyi Island is
designed to support docking of Chinese SSN and SSBN
submarines. Moreover,
 China is constructing road and waterway links from
its southern Yunan
province to Myanmar’s Yangon port, which will provide
it direct access
to the Bay of Bengal, obviating the need to cross the
Malacca-Singapore
straits.

A major item on the agenda during Vajpayee’s current
visit to Russia is
the agreement to purchase the aircraft carrier,
Admiral Gorshkov, to
replace the aging Viraat. But Russia, currently
China’s major arms
supplier, has already sold China naval equipment far
more advanced than
what it is selling to India. Key among these are the
revolutionary
Shkval torpedo which uses supercavitation technology,
and the SS-N-22
Sunburn missile, launched from Sovremenny destroyers.

Shkval, Russian for Squall, has a range of over sixty
miles and an
underwater speed of more than three hundred miles per
hour, more than
five times that of any torpedo deployed by NATO. Even
if a targeted NATO
 aircraft carrier or submarine detected an incoming
Shkval, it would not
 have enough time to evade it or launch a
counterattack. Shkval even has
 the capability to strike the US Navy's Polaris
submarines before they
can launch their intercontinental ballistic missiles.

According to NATO experts, there is no credible
defence against Russia’s
 SS-N-22 Sunburn missile either. In her testimony
before the US House of
 Representatives Armed Services Committee, leading
defence expert June
Teuffel painted the following scenario: “Nine feet
above water,
traveling at twice the
speed of sound, with a 200-kiloton nuclear warhead,
the radar-guided
Sunburn missile can weave its way through smaller
ships until it reaches
 its real target - a US aircraft carrier. At the last
instant, it would
pop up from the ocean's surface, smash into the side
of the carrier and
set off a nuclear explosion six times as powerful as
Hiroshima. The US
Navy has nothing that can stop it.”

Deliveries already made by Russia to China include
forty
Shkvals, four Kilo-class diesel-powered attack
submarines and two
Sovremenny destroyers equipped with SS-N-22 Sunburn
missiles, Sa-17 "Grizzly"
 anti-aircraft missiles and "Helix-A" Ka-28
antisubmarine helicopters.
Grizzly flies at 4,000 feet per second and can hit an
airplane flying 15
 miles high, 35 miles away.

India should immediately formulate a long-term naval
strategy to claim
the Indian Ocean as India’s Ocean, and ensure that its
blue-water
hegemony runs from Cape Town in the west to Darwin and
Perth in the east
 to Antarctica in the south. It should leverage its
strategic position
straddling all the SLOCs from West Asia to East Asia,
and be in a
position to influence the West Asian choke-points of
the Straits of
Hormuz and the Straits of Bab-El-Mendeb, through which
most of the world’s
 oil shipments pass.

India’s integrated command in the Andaman and Nicobar
Islands is
excellently poised to control the East Asian
choke-points of the Straits
 of Malacca, Sunda, Lombok, and Makassar, on which the
economies of
Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, and China are
critically dependent.

To exert its hegemony over the Indian Ocean, India
will need at least
five aircraft carriers, nuclear submarines, and a
formidable naval air
presence, supported by oilers, AWACs and refueling
aircraft. Today,
Russia has some of the most advanced naval equipment
and they would be
available relatively cheaply in view of its ongoing
financial crisis.
During Vajpayee’s current visit to Russia, India
should negotiate for
manufacture under license of advanced equipment such
as Sovremenny
destroyers; Kilo 636 and Victor III submarines; Bars,
Akula, Antyey and
Oscar class submarines; and Shkvals and Sunburns.
Along with the
aircraft carrier Gorshkov, India should immediately
acquire squadrons of
 SU-33 and MIG 29-k aircraft that can take off and
land from it,
especially since our Sea Harriers are nearing the end
of their useful
life.

By Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad

The author is Advisor, Information Warfare and
Revolution in Military
Affairs, Centre for Monitoring Chinese Military
Activities. He also
heads a group on C4ISRT (Command, Control,
Communications and Computers
Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance and
Targetting) in South Asia.
 

Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad

Published in Hindustan Times, Tuesday, 25 November
2003

=====

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Management Consultants in Information Technology, Internet, Telecom, Software
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Received on Tue Nov 25 07:11:10 2003