Worried by an increasingly assertive China, India has ramped up investment in its Navy and Air Force. Will it be enough to protect its own backyard?
Given India’s size and numerous disputed borders, it’s hardly surprising that the country’s army – the third largest in the world – has for decades been central to New Delhi’s military planning. But for the past five years India has also, belatedly, started to focus on strengthening its maritime and aerospace capabilities to counter potential challenges.
The figures speak for themselves. The Indian Defence Ministry spent more than 54,000 crore rupees ($11.6 billion) on capital acquisition for the Navy and the Air Force combined during the 2008-09 and 2009-10 fiscal years. This compared with just 13,539 crore rupees on the Army over the same period, according to figures submitted to the country’s parliament.
The shift in spending shouldn’t, of course, be mistaken as a sign that the Army is diminishing in importance. But it does highlight India’s increasing willingness to broaden its horizons in preparation for a possible future contingency further afield.
The Indian Navy, a seasoned force with a solid track record, is quietly expanding for a larger role in military diplomacy and outreach. Indeed, its near-term plans suggest ambitions to become a three battle carrier group force by 2020.
While its most prestigious acquisition – the Russian aircraft carrier Admiral Gorshkov, which was renamed the INS Vikramaditya – is likely to be inducted into the fleet by March 2013 at the latest, the country is also readying an indigenously built carrier that will most likely join the service by 2015.
At present, India operates a single aircraft carrier, the INS Viraat – a British-vessel from the 1960s that is seeing an extended lease of life thanks to the Navy’s innovative engineers and planners. The INS Vikramaditya, currently at harbour and conducting sea trials in Russia, will therefore give India a much needed edge in its maritime capabilities, not least because it will come equipped with the latest MiG-29 K series of aircraft. Indian naval aviators are already hard at work training with the planes away from the ship.
Traditionally, the Indian navy has sourced most of its ships from the former Soviet Union, but over the past decade, defence planners have leaned hard on Indian shipbuilding yards to deliver a variety of warships for the Indian Navy. For example, two recently commissioned stealth ships – INS Shivalik and INS Satpura – have been designed and built by public sector firm Mazgaon Docks Limited. The order books of India’s oldest government-owned shipbuilders are chock full with orders from the Navy, which is eyeing four more such guided missile frigates over the next five years.
And there are more acquisitions in the pipeline, including: four anti-submarine corvettes, four guided missile destroyers, three stealth frigates, six Scorpene submarines (being built at Mazgaon Docks with French technology and assistance) and two nuclear-powered submarines.
India’s conventional diesel-powered submarine fleet, meanwhile, is down to single digits, but the country is hoping to have the Russian-built Nerpa class nuclear submarine (leased for a decade) join service later this year. But the biggest force accretion in recent years has come in the form of the Boeing Pi-8 long range maritime reconnaissance (LRMR) plane, which gives the Indian Navy a reach and capability to mount surveillance far beyond its traditional areas of influence.
The Air Force isn’t far behind.
Recently retired Indian Air Force Chief Marshal PV Naik told me last month that the Indian Air Force will be transformed over the next five years, with capability enhancements planned across the entire spectrum of war fighting.
Photo Credit: US Navy
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Jeffrey
India has enemies on its western and northern borders. They have been the focus of terrorist acts perpetrated by its enemy to the west Pakistan; China on the other hand has had a shooting war with India not that long ago, and their relations haven’t changed all that much.
Watching the movement of nations and peoples all around the world gives me pause. It will be just a matter of time before Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt move on Israel. This I believe will become a chemical/nuclear conflict. Syria has been practicing putting chemical warheads on missiles.. we know this because they keep failing and killing everyone in the area.
China is moving on every nation in the Indian ocean, including the United States. They are not in the same league as the US, but with their money and the data they stole from us under the Clinton administration, they will be in no time
Sravan
@ari
i havent read this book u say about(first time hearing it ), but let me remind me just when u point fingers it will be easy to see your hands are dirty. India had a perfect deal on border with Tibet, which China have clearly occupied and also Arunachal Pradesh is also called South Tibet as is East Bengal- Bangladesh but it hardly is Indian territry. Tibetian refugees in India, they have their government and also a military contingent that helps India are in massive numbers how come they never had this claim. Dont know about you but i personally met a lot of Tibetians and like you they have many stories sadly everyone of them tell about the horrors Chinese commit on their families.
ari
“India will need to meet such expectations if it is to face its biggest challenge – an increasingly assertive China, which India’s strategic planners believe will increasingly venture into India’s neighbourhood and the Indian Ocean, which has until now been regarded as India’s backyard.”
India has re-occupied land which does not belongs to it such as Southern Tibet where it was evicted in 1962. The facts of New Delhi’s illegal occupation in 1962 are all laid out in Maxwell’s book. Beijing never recognized many of the treaties unilaterally imposed by London during the White Rajah’s rule of India, so that means New Delhi has no business imagining it owns all the land grabbed by the British imperialists from Qing China. So what has New Delhi to defend? Illegal territories it has refused to re-negotiate? Who’s the greedy and unreasonable guy? The baddie? I am just surprised Mr Hu allowed the Indian army to sneak back into Southern Tibet and re-occupy it. That, in my opinion was pretty irresponsible of Mr Hu. Nevertheless, one wrong and one oversight doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be redressed and made right.
New Delhi must realise that criminal possession of territories belonging to other countries will never be supported even by New Delhi if other countries were to take-over its land by force.
imeo
China poses an existential threat to India and Indians can ignore it at their own peril!
belwanth
India has a history of delayed reaction and even slower action. I am afrid China will pose a huge threat to India in the near future and they wont be able to deal with it just like in 1962.
Bhanu Manhas
I agree with you Huang, that some people in India talk unnecessarily and rather like idiots that whatever infrastructure China is developing near the Sino-Indian border is to attack India. But that thing is common in all the militarily weaker countries where insecure people can think of nothing else other than invasion by the militarily stronger neighbour especially when relationships between them have not been cordial in the past. Look at Pakistan, whenever i read articles of Pakistani media on India’s defence modernisation, i am pained to read the same assertions over and over again that India is modernising its armed forces with the sole intent of invading Pakistan.
Huang
There is one completetly out-landish reality(this is no bulls) few people are aware of with regard to Inida’s pattern of groundless China-border threats accusations and hypes repeatedly spreading and re-uttering through several of Indian’s medias patronized by the country’s upper,middle,and schooled groups. This very REAL enemy of the Indian nation and people is the national and political cancer called-graft(corruptions). Some of those behind the many trendy and sensationalized hypes are too deeply imbeded themselves into this national cancer that their only best solution is to actively funding and feeding “China-border-incidents” to deflect any attentions toward their ir-reversable involvements. Of course,there are more than enought people within and outside India understand and confident that the likelihood of China confront India with force is less than being striled by lightning. In short,China will continue to discuss the border disputes with India and NOT building road and railroad for the purpose of attacking India as claimed by the hypes. Infrastructures in the Western and SouthWestern Parts of China are part of the developnmental strategy of China and the purpose is solely for the betterments and improve livelihoods of China citizens in these remote and isolated parts of China. P.S Again,I don’t mind any dis-agreements to my opinion. Just don’t tell me things about your personal life and orientations like some of the emotional-cracked responses I saw from my past posts. Respectfully and many thanks to those able to maintain their composures without going banana over my posts. Bye!
Kumar
@ Huang
How is the development of military infrastructure going to better and improve the livelihood of people in Tibet’s border areas? Time and again the Chinese have kept intruding into Indian territory even where the borders are clearly demarcated. If Chinese are willing to deny this, so be it; India cannot afford to become an ostrich and bury its head in the sand and think that all is quiet on the Chinese front.
ekhindustani
There were 1,80,000 officially declared incidents of disturbance in China last year.Actual figure will be atleast 5 times more.Rather than preaching to the world,China should look inside.The enemy is clearly within.Your buildings and infrastructure and your USD dont fool us.The Americans and Europeans have plenty of them.And look where they are today.We dont need lessons from others.We aernt afraid of our problems because we can deal with them.We talk about them openly and dont hide behind them.Our media is our eyes and ears.Hype is better than being blind and deaf.Sometimes I am baffled that the Chineese believe everything their Govt.is telling them.The day you can talk and listen to your problems openly like we do,you will be truly scared and will have no where to run.Tibet was never a part of China.Why are people there burning themselves if there is so much developement?Whats happening in Xingang?What happened in Wukan? Come down from your ivory towers.Its burning already my friend.Am only trying to save you from yourself.
Naveen
Why we are unable to respond to Chinese intrusions in Arunachal Pradesh and J&K. We could not notice till they come and destroy the bunkers in JK. What our AWACS are doing and is this the capability of our AWACS. Can you please reply my queries?
bharateeya
@Naveen: No Airforce in the world deploys it’s AWACS 24/7. That would be a colossal drain on it’s resources.Plus, AWACS cannot detect small intrusions by the army! The Indian army has not gone for the kind of fencing that it’s carried out along the LOC with Pakistan. The LAC is still porous and scarcely patrolled as there is no threat of terrorism from across the Chinese borders. in this scenario, it’s relatively easy for either army to carry out such guerilla style hit & run aggression. but the Chinese Army, owing to better infrastructure on it’s side, is able to do these with impunity. the Indian side, predictably, has been late in responding to such attacks. It’s high time India improved it’s infrastructure along the LAC.