Category Archives: South Asia

The Elephant and the Dilemma of Nuclear Force Planning

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By

Vice Admiral (Retd.) Vijay Shankar

This article was first published by the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies in April 2013.

Keywords: South Asia Nuclearization, Sino-Pak relations, India’s Nuclear Doctrine, Deterrence Stability, Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program

One of the open secrets of the Indian security establishment is the evolution of its nuclear weapons capability. The process did not follow any established norms that guide the discernment of theory into a security strategy or the rendition of technology into a nuclear stockpile. Rather, its development was driven by a single-point politico-scientific coterie stirred by the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) and Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) combine. The leadership neither saw strategic significance in a more eclectic approach nor clarity that a theory did not endanger political ideology or scientific savvy, but was an instrument to fertilise both.

From Indian folklore, a story is told of six blind men and an elephant. The allegory underscores the limits of individual perceptions when left in stove pipes without an integrating hypothesis. Viewed in perspective of the enormous destructive power of the nuclear weapon, now in the hands of the new “destroyer of worlds”, it presented a terrifying and unspeakable nature of the truth, much as the elephant to the blind. To marry political issues and technological capabilities with military operational practices was the unheeded scream of the previous quarter of a century.

It was only after Pokhran II in 1998 and the Kargil episode that the real nature of nuclear weapons was emphasized and the imperative of military involvement dawned on the establishment. This realisation took the form of a declared nuclear doctrine with a classified section that drew a roadmap for enabling and operationalizing a ‘No First Use’ doctrine. Born of the desire not to repeat the Cold War experience, and a belief in Brodie’s maxim that nuclear weapons had changed the nature of warfare; nuclear war avoidance became primary to the political objective. While this critical discernment was slow in the offing and the product of a tangled approach, there can be no denying its rational strength and its progression.

A deterrent relationship is a balance founded on rationality. On the part of the ‘deterree’, there is rationality in the conviction of disproportionate risks of hostile action; and on the part of the ‘deterrer’, there is rationality of purpose and transparency in confirming the reality of the risks involved in a manner that strategic miscalculations are avoided. The exceptional feature of this transaction is that the roles are reversible, provided it is in the common interest to maintain stability, and this is where the sub-continental rub lies when the search for equilibrium is one-sided.

Pakistan’s quest for nuclear weapons is visceral in urge, India-specific in intent and ‘at-any-cost’ in motivation. It serves to explicate (and vindicate) the bizarre extent of the AQ Khan network’s exertions, and its clandestine nuclear links with China and North Korea. Therefore, unique and intriguing to the nuclear cauldron is the tri-polar nature of the playing field, with China and Pakistan in a collusive arrangement. Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program was conceived, designed, and tested by Beijing from the mid-1970s onwards. In conjunction with all this is the rapid pace at which the Khushab reactors (II and III in particular) have come on-line and weapon grade plutonium is being extracted with active and persistent Chinese aid. Collaboration, technological updates, the breakneck build-up of fissile material and production and extraction facilities may even suggest a doctrinal co-relation, which any deterrent relationship overlooks at the peril of its constancy.

No meaningful scrutiny of the sub-continental nuclear situation can avoid looking at the internal workings of Pakistan. What has caused this situation is the fixation with achieving military parity with India, and the precarious cocktail that the establishment has brewed in nurturing fundamentalist and terrorist organisations as instruments of their policies in Afghanistan and Kashmir. This policy has blown back to the extent that it is more than plausible that elements of the nuclear arsenal could well fall into extremist hands, aided by sympathetic rogue elements in the military. The recent happenings at Abbottabad, the Plutonium rush, the assault on PNS Mehran, the conventionalising of the Hatf-9 missile, the descent to tactical nuclear weapons, and the continued opacity of strategic underpinnings of their nuclear programme defies rationality and does not in any way engender confidence in the prospects for stability. Added to all this is US Secretary of State Kerry’s recent insinuation in Beijing of Pakistan’s nuclear links with North Korea (while oddly down playing China’s role) that attached nuclear perfidy to an already vexed situation. Such ‘hare’ like nimbleness in nuclear matters, as Michael Krepon has termed it, could also suggest an incredulous belief on the part of Pakistani leadership in being able to control the escalatory nuclear ladder. This they must know is a fallacy, given the yawning power asymmetry that exists.

We stand today on the cusp of a ‘Strangelovesque’ situation caused in part by the reluctance to control the manner in which technology and political events are driving the direction in which arsenals are headed, and in part due to lack of transparency. This is the predicament that is faced by nuclear force planners. There does not appear to be any other answer than to readjust nuclear postures, turn back the clock on tactical nuclear weapons, and retune doctrines with the aim of bringing about balance in posture. Policy must accommodate the reality of the tri-polar situation and the need for ‘convincing reassurances’ on the matter of rogue players.

(Written as part of a collection of commentaries by various scholars on Nuclearization in South Asia, hosted by the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies. To follow the rest of the debate, visit: http://www.ipcs.org/article/india/india-pakistan-and-the-nuclear-race-the-elephant-and-the-3881.html)

Warship Building and the Professional Patron

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“…all carpenters, blacksmiths and other artificers are prohibited being employed in the building of boats…” [1]

By

Vice Admiral (Retd.) Vijay Shankar

Keywords: Indian Warship building, Indigenous Shipbuilding, Higher Defence Management and Shipbuilding, Indian Maritime Doctrine, Naval Design Bureau

This article was first published in the April 2013 issue of Geopolitics Magazine

Death of Private Indian Shipbuilding—An Improbable Preamble
In November 1788 an intriguing order was passed by the Select Committee of the House of Commons on the Affairs of the East India Company. On the one hand it sounded the death knell for private shipbuilding activities in Bengal; while on the other, it underscored the strategic linkage between economic power as a function of British colonial venture, and the challenges that an opposing maritime capability may pose to it.[2] Specifically, it prohibited ship construction of any nature on pain of physical punishment and forfeiture of properties; but far more insidious was the systematic obliteration of a vocation and the skills intrinsic to it by targeting blacksmiths, carpenters and artificers who were singled out for special retribution.[3] The shipbuilding industry, through this instrument passed into the hands of the colonists, worked to its bidding and grew under its decree. Whether it was the shipyard at Bombay or Calcutta, their purpose was to service The Company’s enterprise, and in time the Crown’s imperial ambitions.

Ancient India was one of the leading maritime nations of the day. The tidal dock at Lothal which dates to 2300 BCE stands in testimony to the vibrancy of the tradition. It had colonies in Cambodia, Java, Sumatra, Borneo and Socotra. Indian traders had established settlements in Southern China, in the Malayan Peninsula, in Arabia and in Egypt. Through the Persians and Arabs, India had cultivated trade relations with the Roman Empire. There is also a treatise named Yukti Kalpa Taru,[4] offering a technocratic exposition on the art of shipbuilding. It sets forth minute details about the various types of ships, their sizes and the materials from which they were built. Such a vast undertaking could never have occurred without a close union between a deliberate imperial policy and a nautical strategy to realise it.[5]

Significant to early Indian maritime endeavour was the mercantile pursuit that drove shipbuilding. The nature of hulls—deep and bulkhead free—was designed for carriage of cargo rather than for survival in action damage. Even the colonisation of South East Asia was more on account of a migratory stimulus than one urged by conquest. This outlook changed with the coming of Vasco da Gama and his fleet of four small vessels. The difference was the Papal Bull that he carried and the cannons onboard that sought to enforce the edict that it proclaimed. [6]

Linkage between Policy and Strategy
The events mentioned above (The Papal Bull and the Regulation of 1788) are sinister in intent. But, from the colonizer’s perspective the first event articulates the critical prerequisite to link and formulate Strategy around Policy; while the second is symptomatic of strategic suppression of a potential adversary. Nations develop power in all its dimensions to assure the well being of the State, security of the Nation and the development of its people. If this be, in the broadest of terms, the existential theory of a State, then national strategies are formulated to chart a long term course in order to seize and exploit (peacefully in the main) the opportunities that the global environment offers and, where perceived distortions to their concept of sovereignty exists, to iron out and bring about a favourable outcome. In this context the nation’s strategic posture is a declaration, more by deed than words, of its orientation, will and intent. The strategic posture purports to mould and shape a future that would benefit its larger objectives of development. The process is always fraught with the hazards of conflicting interests and therefore it demands the weight of the nation’s comprehensive power, both soft and hard, to uphold posture.

It was Clausewitz who first noted an area of darkness when it came to characterizing the complex relationship between national strategy and the military resources that were needed to muscle and enable that strategy. He perceived this region of obscurity as one caused by a lack of an understanding of the nature of power and the need to sculpt it in a manner that it promoted national strategy. Specifically within the framework of the military as a tool he identified this as a failure to distinguish between the maintenance of armed forces and their use in pursuit of larger objectives.[7] This quandary was not unique to Clausewitz’s period as the dilemma continues to contemporary times when the momentum that propels the development of armed forces builds logic of growth that defies purpose and is often self fulfilling.

The absence of a cogent theory which integrates the promotion, nurturing and maintenance of force (and indeed naval forces) with a convincing contract for use is one of the first imperatives that the State must seek to reconcile. From this resolution emerges the concept of ‘Strategic Poise’. India’s armed forces have traditionally evolved to cope with operational scenarios. At genesis this may have been attributed to the military’s role in creation and upholding colonial empire, however post independence to have deliberately brought about a separation between the armed forces and the strategic decision making process was a paradox that defied norms of nation building progression. The operational canvas (inexplicable not to have been apparent), is a transient that abhors futuristic force planning. So it was year-after-every-five-year the planner was condemned to an exercise that perceived possible threats and acquiring/building force structures that attempted to cope with those threats. It was, therefore, the immediate intimidation of the changing global scenario that drove plans and consequently resulted in the accretion of forces. Unfortunately, this inspiration of the instantaneous intimidation was the pretender that served to fill the strategic space. The significant pitfall that plagued the operational perspective was the continuous struggle to catch up and keep pace with a future that the planner neither sought to shape nor forecast and contend with. The malaise of our current strategic situation is the emerging time, technology and planning gap in the materialization of appropriate force structures that work to shape the future. The case of our strategic maritime posture and the resources needed to promote it as a function of declared policy is the study in point. Such a strategic approach, primarily, derives from two critical characteristics of the international system. The first of these is the endemic instability of protagonists involved in the system; whether it is their politics, national interests, alliances or even their historical antagonisms which when interacts with the larger global settings causes’ friction, a sense of deprivation and generates a chemistry of volatility. The second is the function of a state as a sovereign entity that is charged with guardianship of certain specific and at times unique set of values sometimes contrary and at others in opposition to the macro system.

In bringing this section of our debate to a conclusion, the words of the Admiral of the Russian Fleet, S.G. Gorshkov, when addressing the issue of linking Policy with Strategy of building a powerful oceanic fleet, are particularly significant. “A most important factor that was taken into consideration was a firm recognition of the alignment of forces in the world arena, the strategic situation existing in the oceanic theatres… the prospects of developing naval technology and weapons and also the economic potential of our country.”[8]

 Maritime Orientation
Strategic maritime orientation derives from policy and encompasses a theory of naval war, force planning and warship production, consistent with both policy and theory. From the maritime perspective the overarching policies that would drive both planning and construction ought to be the ‘Look East Policy’, ‘The India-Africa Forum Summit’, a yet to be articulated maritime energy security policy and a potential maritime security concord with Japan and the USA. The common thread in all these security compacts will be the ability to control far flung oceanic spaces and, should the need arise, deny access to these very spaces driven by a collaborative logic.

A fourfold classification of maritime forces has dominated naval thought since the Second World War. The grouping is largely functional and task oriented. The differentiation comprises of aircraft carriers, strike units, escorts and scouts, denial forces and auxiliaries (the last include logistic and other support and coastal security ships such as patrol vessels, seaward defence boats, mine layers, sweepers, tenders etc). In addition contemporary thought has given strategic nuclear forces a restraining role to define and demarcate the limits within which conventional forces operate. The constitution of fleets must logically be a material articulation of the strategic concepts and ideas that prevail. The principal demand of the theory of naval war, as deliberated earlier, is to attain a strategic position that would permit control of oceanic spaces or deny these spaces depending on circumstances and the correlation of forces. Against this frame of reference the fundamental obligation is therefore to provide the means to seize and exercise that control. Pursuing this line of argument, the rational formulation that remains consistent with our theory of naval warfare is that upon the escorts and scouts depends our ability to exercise control over  sea area; while on the aircraft carrier group assisted by strike and denial forces depends the security of control. Control and Security of Control is the relationship that operationally links all maritime forces and therefore must lie at the heart of the force generation programme.

Higher Defence Management and Shipbuilding
Higher defence management in India suffers from two critical flaws that impact unfavorably on the ability to adopt a strategic approach to maritime force planning and naval ship construction. The first of these is the lack of sincere integration of Naval Headquarters (actually Service Headquarters) with the Ministry of Defence (MoD) such that it would be a part of the Government apex decision making structure. This condition exists despite recommendations of the Group of Ministers report for reforming the National Security Apparatus submitted in February 2001. The disjoint has led to establishments such as the Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO, a part of the MoD) failing in their primary task of attaining self reliance in weapon systems without being answerable or indeed accountable to Service Headquarters and, downstream, to the shipbuilding programmes. The Navy on its part has no say in the matter other than to propose continued reliance on imported systems, the adjudication of which is presided over by the most unlikely and ill suited of agents—the bureaucracy in the MoD headed by the Defence Secretary. Consequently, delays, inefficiencies and sub-par decisions then become normal to the process.

The second debilitating flaw is another set of bizarre impediments that come to play when a comprehensively considered case from Naval Headquarters is meaninglessly put through multiple layers in the three departments under the MoD as well as its finance wing and then to the Finance Ministry before reappearing on the Minister’s table. These Kafkaesque processes not only mock maritime force modernization but also compromise attaining a strategic posture.

The Indigenous Enigma
Since the licensed production of the first major war vessel of the ‘Leander’ class, INS Nilgiri in the 1960s, Indian naval shipbuilding has come some distance, contributing much of the platform requirements for maritime forces. India is one of the few countries in the world to have the capability to compose all types of warships—aircraft carriers, nuclear and conventional submarines, destroyers, frigates, and corvettes among others. Over 90 warships have so far been indigenously constructed, with thirty more major ships being at various stages of build. However, beneath this inspiring number lie some fundamental weaknesses. The conundrum is embedded in what is meant by ‘indigenizing.’ To illustrate, in warship construction the thumb rule goes something like this: materials (steel etc.) contributes 70 % by weight, but only 10 % of cost, while the payload and propulsion plant which adds just 25 % by weight, contributes over 60 % of the cost. Therefore if by indigenising is meant sourcing materials locally then an argument can be made that the warship under construction is 70 % home-grown! This misleading notion manifests in the form of huge project delays and cost overruns; for the key to efficient warship building lies in an autonomous design capability (which does not weigh at all) and self reliance in access of pay load, both of which are weak areas in India’s shipbuilding narrative. The problems associated with the lack of accountability of the DRDO, reliance on import of payload, bureaucratic processes and the flaws in higher defence decision making have been dealt with in the previous section. What it does is to complicate and setback an already undermined situation.

India’s overall shipbuilding industry comprises of 27 shipyards, of which 6 are under central government control, 2 under state government and 19 in the private sector domain. All these shipyards are however not responsible for naval construction. Of the six shipyards under the central government, four are dedicated defence Public Sector Undertaking shipyards—Mazagon Dock Ltd (MDL), Garden Reach and Shipbuilders and Engineers (GRSE), Goa Shipyard Ltd (GSL) and Hindustan Shipyard Ltd (HSL).These shipyards come under the administrative control of the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and are at the core of Indian naval construction. Few other shipyards, notably the government-owned Cochin Shipyard Ltd (CSL), and private-owned Pipavav Yard (recently been awarded construction of five naval off shore patrol vessels) and the Larsen and Tubro yard (involved in the construction of submarine pressure hulls) are also involved in warship construction. Among all the shipyards, the MDL is by far the leading warship builder in India, having constructed all major types of naval ships excluding the aircraft carrier. The CSL, which comes under the Ministry of Shipping, is presently building India’s first ever indigenous aircraft carrier. Compared to the public sector shipyards, the private shipyards are relatively new to warship building with neither design competence nor autonomy in access to payload; this is not to mean that that the Government shipyards have design or payload access. Planning and professional directorates at Naval Headquarters led by the Directorate of Staff Requirements are accountable for defining staff requirements of the ship, evaluation and selection of payload which sets into motion design work. Design for naval warships, particularly major war vessels, are generated by the naval design bureau, a department under Naval Headquarters staffed by naval architects who are responsible for generating design drawings (from concept to detailed design, based on which ship build is enabled). So far so good, but behind the façade of a vast design agency are a set of small back offices which are manned by a bank of consultant designers from collaborating foreign shipyards and teams from the original payload manufacturers who are, in fact, the intellect behind the creation of the detailed design drawings. For example, in the case of the first indigenous aircraft carrier (IAC-1)[9], Fincantieri, an Italian firm, provides total design support for the hull and its fitting out, while the Northern Design Bureau (Russian) along with Mikoyan make available aggregate design back up for the aviation facilities. While it is a statement of fact that a certain design involvement of equipment manufacturers is inevitable while generating detailed drawings, the problem arises at commencement, where the preliminary phase of design consultancy is sought and remains active through fitting out and trials at the design bureau. At this time there emerges a duality in the process since such consultancy is most beneficial in the Yard where the ship is being constructed and accountability on realisation of the ship or a specific system can be squarely apportioned. In sum, we have a design consultant controlled by a ‘super’ design agency who, in turn, dominates the Indian ship building yard which neither has design competence nor control over selection of pay load or other equipment and yet carries the burden of liability for performance. It does not take a management guru to suggest that when design competence is weak and control over payload remains in the hands of equipment manufacturers out of the country, then both design expertise and consultancy must reside in the shipyards.

Shipbuilding Programme: The Resource Mismatch
Major shipbuilding programmes (does not include Auxiliaries, minor war vessels and aircrafts) for the next two decades include the following:

  • Two Indigenous Aircraft Carriers at $5 billion each.
  • Seven Project 15A/B Guided Missile Destroyers at $750 million each.
  • Seven Project 17A Multi Role Frigates at $650 million each.
  • Three Arihant class SSBNs at $ 1 billion (?) each.
  • Three Nuclear powered attack submarines at $900 million (?) each.
  • Six Scorpene class conventional submarines at $600 million each.
  • Three Landing Platform Dock at $400 million each.

The total of capital expenditure on these projects spread over a period of two decades is approximately $30 billion. Allowing for another $10 billion expenditure on other units and aircrafts would suggest, assuming planar cash outflow over the period, an annual outlay of $2 billion. This figure, when placed in perspective of the Navy’s share of the defence budget, $6.74 billion, amounts to almost 30% of the Naval budget, putting intense pressure on the other budgetary heads, making management of the Navy untenable, suggesting a major mismatch between Policy and the Resources demanded to power Strategy.[10] This would be redolent of a need to question the a priori; that is, is there a cogent theory that links the promotion and nurturing of a maritime force with an accepted contract for its use? In other words does the Strategic approach have national recognition?

Three documents issued by the Navy intended to provide a strategic frame work for growth and development of maritime forces titled ‘The Indian Maritime Doctrine’, ‘The Future Indian Navy’ and India’s ‘Maritime Military Strategy’ neither have the ratification nor the blessings of the Government of India or in fact the MoD,[11] which ought to answer the preceding poser and underscore the wittingly left gap between Policy and Strategy.

To Run the Gauntlet: a Conclusion
The Chairman and Managing Director of one of India’s PSU shipyards in a moment of misplaced vainglory proclaimed that his “order books had been full for the last fourteen years.”[12] His memory had to be jogged that the Yard had not delivered a single warship over the same period! This anecdote is symptomatic of the hobbled state of shipbuilding in India. The root cause lies in the lack of integration of the professional patron, the Navy, into the highest decision making structure that appropriates and dispenses warship building tasks. Left in the dilettante hands of the MoD the casual participation of the bureaucrat leads to, as mentioned elsewhere, Kafkaesque progressions that confounds maritime force modernization. There also exists the perverse anomaly of an approved shipbuilding programme strangled by the hesitancy to commit resources; not for want of capital since the defence budget as a part of GDP is at a low of barely 1.79%, but more for lack of resolve and discernment of the demands of a strategic approach, its linkage to growth and the nature of power play in contemporary geopolitics. The need for public-private partnership and initiatives which unshackle the PSU Yards from the tyranny of MoD control and devolution of design expertise from the central bureau to the Yards, along with selective empowerment to choose payload within the restraints of Staff Requirements becomes an imperative. The yards in this context will need to be given the freedom to seek out investments to enhance capacity if at all timely order-book-execution is to be achieved.

To run the gauntlet in India’s charge to suffuse maritime strategic space within the self centric power structures of contemporary world order, we have no option but to bring about a make over in orientation. Its ideational foundation rests on espousing a strategic approach and is enabled by transforming the shipbuilding edifice through the mantra of ‘integration of the professional patron into higher defence decision making, provision of matching resources to reconcile strategy with policy and to unshackle the Yards and enthuse it with autonomy.’

End Notes

[1] The order from the Select Committee of the House of Commons on the Affairs of the East India Company (Google eBook) Published in Great Britain  Author, Select Committee on the Affairs of the East India Company, East India Company (London)  Publisher: Cambray, 1810.

[2] Ibid

[3] Ibid Clause four of the original document.

[4] An 11th Century AD compilation by Bhoja Narapati.

[5] Kautilya. Arthashastra. Translation by Rangarajan L.N. Penguin Classics, India 1990, p 53, 87, 546-548.

[6] The Aeterni regis Papal Bull of 21 June 1481 by Pope Sixtus IV granted the Canary Islands to Spain and further discoveries in Africa to Portugal. The Inter Caetera Papal Bull of 04 May 1493 granted most New World discoveries to Spain. Problems cropped up over time with these arrangements, and the Treaty of Tordesillas of 07 June 1494 attempted to settle some of these difficulties, formalizing some of the implicit understandings of the earlier Papal Bulls. The Treaty of Tordesillas settled on what came to be called the Tordesillas Meridian running through the Atlantic and separating it into the Western and Eastern Hemispheres, giving rights of  exploitation of these regions to Spain and Portugal.

[7] Howard, Michael.Causes of War Pg 102. Harvard University Press 1980.

[8] Gorshkov S.G. The Sea Power of the State. Pergamon Press Ltd., Oxford, England 1979, p179.

[9] Indigenous Aircraft Carrier (IAC)) is a class of two aircraft carriers being built for the Indian Navy by Cochin Shipyard Limited (CSL), they are the largest warships as well as the first aircraft carriers to be designed and built in India. The first ship of the class INS Vikrant will displace about 40,000 metric tons, 262 metres (860 ft) long, configured for Short take-off but arrested recovery (STOBAR) and have a tailored air group of up to 30 to 40 aircrafts. Expected delivery date originally scheduled for 2014 is now slated for 2017.

[10] For the year 2013-14, the Navy’s share was 18% of the entire defence budget of $37.45 billion.

[11] All three documents have been authored by the Integrated Headquarters Ministry of Defence (Navy) in 2004, 2006 and 2007 respectively and remain to date unratified.

[12] Personal exchange with the author.

The Evolution of a New Triple Entente

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By

Vice Admiral (retd.) Vijay Shankar

Keywords: “A New Triple Entente,” India-China relations, Anti-Access Denial Strategy, China Maritime Strategy, China-USA relations

Download full article here: The Evolution of a New Triple Entente

Excerpts:

“The only check on the abuse of political predominance has always consisted in the opposition of an equally formidable rival, or of a combination of several countries forming leagues of defence. The equilibrium established by such grouping of forces is technically known as the balance of forces.”[i]

The Alliance System

The history of armed conflicts in the twentieth century may not have brought about any deep seated changes to contemporary understanding of the true nature or rationality of power and its application. But, there is an instinctive grasp amongst nations that a conflict between an assemblages of States can only lead to immeasurable catastrophe which could and would serve to repudiate the purpose of military action. This discernment was central to the theory of balance of power. Up to the turn of the twentieth century it was this system of alliances that sought stability within the power equations of the era. The existence of an international order whose stability was predicated on a system of  grouping of States not only influenced the nature and intensity of wars that were fought but made transparent the conditions under which these may occur and also, ironically, presented a template for resolution. Seen in this perspective, the same circumstances that held the promise of stability additionally carried with it the calamitous prospects of horizontal and vertical expansion of the intensity of war. The two World Wars exemplified the limits of intensity and its expansion. At the heart of the arrangement lay four dominating impulses; politics, imperialism, territory and economics. If one or even two of these stimuli were to be detached, it would be interesting to see what nature of balance would emerge and whether it would find relevance in the contemporary milieu that obtains in the East Indian Ocean and the West Pacific region.

In the run up to the First World War, two treaties of alignment were central to order. These were the ‘Triple Alliance’ between Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy on the one hand; while the ‘Triple Entente’ between France, Britain and Russia sought equilibrium in a world that was threatened by subjugation unless an equally imposing opposition coalition could challenge and maintain the status quo. This context not only laid down the broad contours for strategic planning by both Unions but also had the potential to set into motion a significant chain of irrevocable military actions if one or the other perceived a threat of war. Consequently a crisis invariably tested the politician’s ability to restrain the military. Underscoring the dilemma that confronted the dual alliance was; “how effectively could an alliance designed to cope with the contingency of war serve interests in the day to day diplomacy of peace.”[ii]

The Fear of Nations and the Death of an Enlightened World Order

Some of the symptoms of the anarchic nature of things are a vicious securing of spheres of power and economic influence as exemplified by China in Africa; the competition between autocracy and liberalism; an older religious struggle between radical Islam and secular cultures; and the inability to regulate the chaotic flow of technologies and information. As these struggles are played out the first casualty in the post Cold War era is the still born hope of a benign and enlightened world order. The endemic instability world wide is characterized by the number of armed conflicts that erupted between the periods 1989 to 2010, which total 49.[iii] The nature of these wars, more than anything else, reflected what I term the ‘Uncertainty Paradigm’ for they ranged from wars of liberation and freedom to insurgencies, civil wars, racial-ethnic-religious wars, proxy wars, interventions and wars motivated by the urge to corner economic resources. In all cases it was either the perpetuation of a dispensation, political ambitions, or the fear of economic deprivation that was at work below the surface.

In this era the fears and anxieties of nations are driven by four vital traumas. At the head of these is the perpetuation of the State and its dispensation. In second place is the fear and understanding that impedance to the nation’s ambitions of growth and development may come about due to internal or external stresses or a combination of the two. The third trauma is that the remaining interests that the State considers critical must be recognized and accepted by the International system; this distress places the system in a quandary, particularly so when interests overlap at which time there is a real potential for friction and conflict. Lastly, is a conundrum faced by all major powers that is, does military power prevail?

It will not fail anybody’s notice that both India and China fall into this very same cast ensnared by the ‘four traumas’, with one very critical difference, and that is the cooperative stimulus along with an egalitarian tradition is strong in India’s case, while China has not displayed respect for either. Against this backdrop, when the politics of competitive resource access is put into the same pot as survival and development of State, to which is added the blunt character of military power, we have before us the recipe for friction and conflict. It is against this canvas that the development and structuring of Indian engagement with like minded powers must be contextualised.

[…]

The New Triple Entente and Concept of Anti-Access Denial

As the curtains fell on the twentieth century the character of strategic alliances had transformed in two of its earlier facets. Gone were the imperialist motives that readily recognized and accepted the risk of war and the urge to territorial conquest and expansion. In its place was a fresh premise; one that was governed by political compatibility, economic mutuality and collective security. The emerging convergence of interests in both the political and economic arena between India, Japan and the USA makes the prospects of a new ‘Triple Entente’ strategically of the essence.

Having also brought about a modicum of coherence to the need to contend with and normalize China’s aspirations (which it has so clearly spelt out), it would now be appropriate to define and derive objectives of the concept of Anti-Access Denial as applicable to the larger regional Maritime Military Strategy. Anti-Access Denial by the Alliance will seek to contest and deny China’s ability to unilaterally project military power to secure her interests either through aggression or through other destabilizing activities. The instrument to achieve denial is by convincingly raising the cost of military intervention through the use or threat of use of methods that are predominant in form and irresistible in substance. The strategy’s first impulse is to avoid a hot conflict.

To ‘contest and deny’ would suggest a clear understanding of where the centre of gravity of power projection forces lie. In China’s case it is the triumvirate of the Aircraft Carrier; security of the narrows and of the ‘string of pearls’ that would be needed to assure sustenance of forces (on which is founded the integrity of the Third Island Chain). Use of aggressive means is clear enough, but prying open faults that could destabilize and therefore distract the main exertions, are not at all patent. The Alliance will have noted that in China’s case both internal as well as external stresses obtain that could be leveraged in order to undermine their primary thrust to contest, deny and to project power; more importantly the envisaged Alliance too has fissures that China not only has the resolve and capability to exploit but also has a willing ally in Pakistan and North Korea to queer any pitch.

‘To raise the cost of military intervention’ is a matter that resides in the mind of political leadership, yet there will always be a threshold, the verge of which is marked by diminishing benefits of intervention or power projection. It will be noted that it was a similar calculus that must have come to play in the 1995 Taiwan Strait crisis that inhibited and forced China to reconcile to humiliation in the face of a possible debilitating confrontation. Also the logic of weakening out-of-region motivation sets in, diluting the efforts of the intervener. Lastly the threat of ‘use of force’ must not only be credible but also the ‘value exchange’ in terms of losses must weigh against the power projecting force. The objectives of an ‘Anti-access Denial’ Strategy may therefore be summarized as follows:

  • To devise operational and material Alliance doctrines and strategies to deter, threaten, (and should the need arise) strike and neutralize Chinese aircraft carriers that may menace Alliance interests in the IOEO.
  • To deploy denial and control forces that effectively exclude the ‘string of pearls’ ports. Platforms of  choice would be conventional submarines, maritime strike aircrafts supported by long range surveillance efforts.
  • To disable operational networks through ASAT and active cyber action.
  • To surveil and seed the straits with seabed sensors, surface and air scouts.
  • To disable energy and resources traffic through non lethal methods and to ensure that own escorts keep open Alliance right of passage on the sea.
  • To raise the cost of military intervention will suggest a strategic posture that by disposition, demonstration, marking and resolve, declare our orientation, will and intent that the cost of intervention will far outweigh its benefits.

Leaving aside, for the moment, material aspects of generating capabilities, the most critical issue is one of timing, that is, what would be the enabling circumstances that would trigger an Anti- Access Denial Strategy.  While the short answer may be “when Alliance interests are threatened” this does not in any way assist the planner in resolving the quandary. Two factors must, however, lead; the first is that initial moves must be so calibrated that the intervener is made aware that a threshold is being approached and that the next rung in the escalatory ladder is a ‘hot’ exchange. This may take the form of ‘marking’ or through hotline communications. The second is by initiating demonstrative action which may serve to disable operational networks or even measures instituted in some other theatre.

A maritime Anti-Access Denial strategy unlike a continental standpoint, abhors ‘Lakshman Rekhas’ for there are no readily definable geographic ‘redlines’, what is of greater import is context, circumstances and events, which brings us back to the original dilemma of characterizing the conditions that would bring the strategy into play. In any event, we have in an earlier section noted China’s security narrative and the challenge that a rising China poses. Both advocate the centrality and compelling force of an aggressive drive to corner resources. Under this order of things, the Triple Entente may define ‘red lines’ as follows:

  • Any large scale military attempt to change the status quo in territorial configuration.
  • Large scale military build up either at Hambantota, Gwadar or at Sittwe.
  • Aggressive deployments that disrupt energy and resource traffic or dislocate networks.
  • Any attempt to provide large scale military support, covert or otherwise, to promote an insurgency.

In execution, Alliance Anti-Access Denial Strategy will be implemented in three distinct phases. The First will involve selective Anti-Access Denial deployment, surveillance and marking in the IOEO; the second will entail demonstration through cyber action and possible ASAT intervention; the third and last is hot action including sea control, enabling Exclusion Zones and SLOC severance.

Conclusion

The ultimate reality of the international system is the place that power enjoys in the scheme of assuring stability in relations between nations. Uncertainty in international relations queers the pitch, in view of the expanded space of possibles. China has unambiguously articulated three canons that make for its strategic objectives; stability, growth and regional preeminence. In the absence of a security oriented cooperative impulse, the problem with such sweeping strategies, specifically the coming ‘Third Island Chain’ superimposed on a long range power projection, and access denial is its blindness to recognize that, we are in fact dealing with a sea space that is the busiest of all the “vast commons.” The reluctance for collaboration makes the potential for friction high.

Contemporary challenges in the IOEO are dominated by what direction China’s rise will take. Of significance is that the potential for a collision is a reality and the only consideration that could deter it, is the ability to attain a strategic posture in the IOEO that serves to stabilize. India’s relationship with the USA and Japan provides the opening to establish a ‘Triple Entente’ that realizes political compatibility, economic mutuality and collective security in the region in order to counterpoise China.

Download full article here: The Evolution of a New Triple Entente

End Notes

[i] Gooch G.P. and Harold Temperley (eds). British Documents on the Origin of War 1898-1914, Vol III, London 1928 Appendix A, p 402-3.

[ii] Bridge F.R. From Sadowa to Sarajevo; The Foreign Policy of Austria-Hungary 1866-1914. London 1972, p 360.

[iii] The World at War http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/index.html.The United Nations defines “major wars” as military conflicts inflicting 1,000 battlefield deaths per year. In 1965, there were 10 major wars under way. The new millennium began with much of the world consumed in armed conflict or cultivating an uncertain peace. As of mid-2005, there were eight Major Wars under way [down from 15 at the end of 2003], with as many as two dozen “lesser” conflicts ongoing with varrying degrees of intensity.