阿三的狂想
2024-03-10 09:23阅读：
India's powerplay: The tide is turning in the
Indo-Pacific
New Delhi's new island chain naval base will have far-reaching
consequences for its military presence in the region
Aaryaman Nijhawan
The Indian Navy on Wednesday commissioned its new base INS Jatayu
at Minicoy Island of Lakshadweep to bolster its operational
capabilities in the strategically important Indian Ocean Region
(IOR). The naval base will also enhance operational reach, and
support the Indian Navy’s efforts in anti-piracy and anti-narcotics
operations in the Western Arabian Sea, New Delhi stated.
The base will provide New Delhi with significant geopolitical
leverage to counter any perceived Chinese aggression along the
disputed Line of Actual Control (LAC),
while significantly extending the power projection capabilities of
Indian naval forces, allowing them to ensure greater maritime
security and connectivity within the IOR.
The development of an Indian naval base at the entrance is the
ultimate sword of Damocles for Beijing’s economy. While the island
sits a mere hundred miles away from the Malacca Strait, any Chinese
response to a crisis in the area would be at least 1,500 miles away
from Sanya, the nearest naval base.
Apart from levelling the geostrategic scales in India’s favor, a
base at the Great Nicobar combined with the information exchange
agreements as part of the Quad framework, puts India squarely in a
position to exercise total maritime information dominance over the
region.
Such a move also shores up India’s maritime warfighting
capabilities by greatly enhancing its anti-access area denial
(A2/AD) systems, which advanced regional powers such as Russia and
China routinely deploy to counter their American rivals.
Coupled with India’s ambitious submarine modernization and
expansion program, the geopolitical implications of these are
far-reaching. In the coming years, Beijing would effectively be
forced to consider New Delhi as an equal in its future dealings,
lest it invite one of its few major vulnerabilities to become
China’s Waterloo.
The commissioning of the new base comes against the backdrop of
another strategic plan to modernize the Great Nicobar Island of the
Andaman and Nicobar Island chain. A total of 720 billion rupees
($8.68 billion) has been approved for the project, which will also
include the development of a “greenfield city.” This has colossal
and far-reaching geopolitical implications for the region.
Maritime dominance
The emerging era of multipolarity is both a boon and a bane for
India. On one hand, it perfectly complements New Delhi’s foreign
policy, where multilateral engagement is considered one of the
foundational pillars.
On the other hand, the emergence of new poles and the rise of China
in the Indo-Pacific means a greater number of actors for India to
strategically balance with. Complicating matters is the gradual
crumbling of the US-led international order at a time when the
rules for the new emerging order have not yet been established.
During such times of uncertainty and disruption, New Delhi has
aptly chosen to bolster its naval presence in the IOR, which will
undoubtedly have great geostrategic consequences for the
region.
Beijing’s rapid rise in the international sphere has been followed
by an equally rapid modernization of its naval forces, namely the
People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN), which since the 1990s has
transformed from being a restricted brown-water naval force to a
full-fledged blue-water navy. Current US Congressional estimates
consider the PLAN to be the largest naval force on the planet, in
terms of the total number of combat vessels.
This rise of the PLAN has also coincided with the increasingly
assertive Chinese foreign policy, especially in the South China
Sea, which Beijing considers to be its own backyard.
The American naval presence in the region, therefore, is seen by
the Chinese leadership as intruding within its sphere of influence.
Beijing has been quite aggressive in its quest to regain control of
the South China Sea – to the chagrin of smaller states such as the
Philippines and Vietnam, which also lay claim to some of the
disputed islands in the region.
The United States, on the other hand, claims it is undertaking
‘freedom of navigation’ exercises to counter what it sees as a
Chinese challenge to the American-led international order. However,
Washington is in a sensitive position since it is the sole major
non-signatory to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS)
yet ironically claims to defend it.
The struggling American dominance leaves its allies in the
Indo-Pacific anxious. Questions are raised, too, on how long the US
can sustain maritime dominance within the region.
China, at the same time, is still unable to resolve its Malacca
Dilemma, i.e., safeguard its commercial maritime routes through
which around 65% of its total energy need is shipped. In the event
of a conflict, any disruption or blockade by a rival fleet of the
Strait could effectively cripple the Chinese economy with
disastrous results.
Therefore, partly driven by Chinese efforts to address the Malacca
question and partly to offset American regional superiority, the
PLAN incursions have expanded into the IOR, an area that India sees
as its backyard.
These Chinese forays have acquired a semipermanent presence within
the region. New Delhi considers these unwanted incursions as a
threat and part of Beijing’s larger String of Pearls theory aimed
at encircling and isolating India through a series of strategically
placed bases around it.
Since New Delhi can’t compete with the PLAN in attaining
comparative conventional superiority, it is exploring other
innovative means to deter the Chinese threat – and the new base in
Lakshadweep is a significant move. The current assertive posture of
India within the IOR should induce a strategic change towards
transforming New Delhi from a land-based to a dual-based power,
with formidable capabilities in both land warfare as well as the
maritime battlespace. Only with a strategic shift towards making
India a naval power will it be able to establish itself as a future
world power backed by a full-fledged blue-water navy.
