Indian Navy and the Revolution in Naval Affairs

17 Feb, 2002    ·   700

Atul Bharadwaj comments on the growing role of navy in military operations
Atul Bharadwaj
In February 2001, thirty navies gathered in the Arabian Sea as part of the International Fleet Review (IFR) conducted under the aegis of the Indian navy. Almost nine months after the IFR, the major navies of the world are back in the Arabian Sea . However, their present agenda extends beyond ceremonies. In addition to the US naval forces, there are six other navies operating currently in the Arabian Sea . While the Royal Navy is directly involved in war-fighting, the other navies from Canada , Japan , France Australia and Netherlands are providing logistic and surveillance support to US operations. With its post-Cold War naval doctrine “forward from the sea” which, according to John H Dalton of the Naval War College , is akin to the Soviet and Napoleonic models when navies existed primarily to support land campaigns, the US navy once again employed its carrier-based airpower to strike into Afghan territory.  More than eighty percent of the air sorties were launched from naval platforms and one of the chief weapon systems used in the joint operations against Afghanistan is the Tomahawk land attack cruise missile. 

 

 

There are strong arguments that today’s strategic environment is dictated by the primacy of precision munitions, principally those delivered by missiles. The arrival of the microchip and its use in weapon systems like land attack cruise missiles and UAVs makes land attack from the sea a realistic proposition. This particular development has further blurred the line demarcating sea power from land power and ushered in an era of revolution in naval affairs (RNA). The RNA questions the very foundations of our concept of naval power by shifting its pre-occupation from the command of the sea to joint operations conducted from the sea. That the navies are meant to influence operations on land and not merely fight the Mahanian big battles on the high seas has dawned upon most of the navies now engaged in fighting to support littoral battles ashore. It is believed that the post-Cold War world, any navy that wants to exercise autonomy in its use of the sea would need the power projection associated with land attack cruise missiles. 

 

 

The Indian Navy was much ahead of its contemporaries in adaptive thinking and planning, when it attacked the Karachi harbour in the 1971 war with Soviet Styx (SS-N-2A) missiles. The aggressive use of “Osa” class missile boats enabled it to attack ships and shore facilities around Karachi . The Indian naval leadership in a bold departure from doctrinal shibboleths closed in within 10 miles from Karachi harbour and fired the missiles. Besides, being a decisive attack on Pakistan ’s only naval port, it was also a frontal attack on the Mahanian concept of sea power. 

 

 

The changing nature of naval warfare and naval strategy has given a fresh impetus to the navy’s role in land attack and revived the interest of naval planners in land attack weapon systems. The Indian navy’s enumeration of its formal doctrine, to be brought out shortly, is likely to focus on three aspects of operations – naval diplomacy, rapid reaction maneuverability along with concentration of firepower deep inland from the sea. For this purpose, naval submarines, surface ships and aircraft are increasingly expected to deploy land attack weapons. In a departure from the past, the Indian navy’s latest Kilo class submarine, Sindhushastra, is to be equipped with the tube-launched ‘Klub’ anti-ship missile.  A land attack variant of the missile is to be deployed later. The Indian Navy has already test fired the surface-to-surface missile Dhanush with a range of 250 km. This represents a trend towards the development of more lethal sub-launched missile. India is in the process of developing an indigenous UAV named “Lakshya” with a range of 600 kms. India is actively pursuing negotiations with Israel for the joint production of the “Heron” UAV for the Indian navy. In addition, the development of “Koral”, an Indian version of the SS-N 22 destroyer compatible missile, is also reported.

 

 

Naval operations have metamorphosed from the game of “hide and seek” played on high the seas to the realm of “strike and kill” worked out in the proximity of the enemy coast.  In the post-Cold War world, ‘interventions’ are being justified on humanitarian grounds, and the globalization of security is on the anvil.  The role of medium power navies like the Indian navy has enhanced considerably due to these developments. 

 

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