Georges Clemenceau, the French Statesman and Prime Minister in the first two decades of the 10th Century’s famous quote, “War is too important to be left to the generals,” needs a recount.
Generals also mean Admirals.
This is not to underplay the importance of the higher command and military leadership in and out of war, but only to underline the need for a holistic approach to defence affairs particularly in acquiring expensive assets for a developing country as India.
The start point of the discussion is the seminal achievement of the Indian Navy and Cochin Shipyard of construction of INS Vikrant.
INS Vikrant & Third Aircraft Carrier
The war ship commissioned by the Prime Minister of India on September 02, 2022 , has been conceptualized over the years by the Indian Navy’s Warship Design Bureau based on approvals from time to time.
Conclusion of this large project is testimony to the Navy’s and Cochin Shipyard’s ability to undertake construction of another aircraft carrier the third and the second indigenous one. A Brief on INS Vikrant is appended below.
The euphoria over commissioning of INS Vikrant has led to strategic and naval planners raising the pitch for just such a platform.
Indeed aircraft carriers are a symbol of national power, these need to be in India’s arsenal so to say if New Delhi seeks to project as an aspiring regional power though in the larger foreign policy domain the ambition is of being a “Vishwa Guru,” or global guide and mentor.
The conventional wisdom has been that India requires three aircraft carriers at any one time – one for each seaboard and a third for down time of carriers during repair and refit.
Evaluation of Indian Navy MCPP
Now lets look at some basics of Naval force planning. “The present Maritime Capability Perspective Plan (MCPP) covers 15 year period upto the XIV Plan i.e., till 2027. MCPP is based on a ‘capability dominant and threat cum mission based approach’, which is driven by national interests. The MCPP envisages an optimum force mix to address future challenges.”. This is an excerpt from the Fourth Report Standing Committee On Defence (2014-2015) (Sixteenth Lok Sabha) Ministry Of Defence Demands For Grants (2014-2015) Navy And Airforce (Demand Nos. 23 And 24).
The operative phrase is, “optimum force mix,” and “to meet future challenges,”.
The primary purpose of an aircraft carrier is to project national power. However, the rational of maritime planners pitching for the large platform appears to be to maintain a significant presence in the two sea boards – east and the west.
This perceives a two pronged collusive threat from China and Pakistan in the maritime domain even as it is an accepted truism on the land frontier with India’s two adversaries.
In concert with power projection capability there is also a necessity to have substantial, surface and sub surface capabilities from submarines, guided missile ships, amphibious craft and mine clearance vessels apart from the standard fleet of destroyers, frigates and cruisers.
A naval air arm to operate from these and not just the aircraft carrier is a sine qua non. And the new domain of unmanned underwater systems where the Indian Navy is lagging.
Presently, there are serious deficiencies in the submarine and the mine clearance fleet, the latter is virtually non-existent. There are other deficits in the 140 odd fleet that the Navy is fielding, but these were the most critical.
India is struggling to create a supplementary submarine fleet under Project 75 (1) the extension of the Scorpene programme due to a lumbering acquisition process. No visibility of induction of a mine clearance vessel programme is evident.
Importantly acquisition of a functional combat fleet aboard INS Vikrant is expected to consume billions of US Dollars given that this will be a foreign acquisition.
Of course a navy requires multiple assets such as supply and support ships to support the
fleet.
Not Guns versus Butter But Realistic Priorities
Coming on to budgeting, frequently naval and military planners tend to forget that India is a developing country.
The annual per capita income “based on Net National Income (NNI) at constant prices continued below the pre-Covid-19 level at ₹91,481 in the financial year 2021-22, data released by the Ministry of Statistics & Programme Implementation,” as per Fortune India website.
As per nominal GDP per capita, India ranks at 159 at $ 2601 and fares better at 129 based on Purchasing Power Parity at $ 8358.
The argument is not that of guns versus butter, but only to rationalize the allocations to build usable capabilities in multiple dimensions rather than focusing on a third aircraft carrier – which will be like the resplendent Taj Mahal – a tourist attraction that generates sizeable income from visits by foreign and Indian tourists but in terms of meeting the aspirations of millions of Indians of better lives is limited.
Conclusion
Yet the disjointed manner in which defence capability building is addressed in India – there is no hope of a holistic approach in building usable capabilities in the near, medium and long term.
In fact the much desired third aircraft carrier of our maritime planners today may also fall a victim to the disjointed approach to defence capability building – something despite the argument above is a lament rather than a cause for cheer.
Appendix
Brief on INS Vikrant
As provided by the Ministry of Defence through a press release on September 02, INS Vikrant is designed by Indian Navy's in-house Warship Design Bureau (WDB) and built by Cochin Shipyard Limited, a Public Sector Shipyard under the Ministry of Ports, Shipping & Waterways, Vikrant has been built with state of the art automation features and is the largest ship ever built in maritime history of India.
The 262.5 m long and 61.6 m wide Vikrant displaces approx 43,000 T, having a maximum designed speed of 28 Knots with endurance of 7,500 Nautical Miles. The ship has around 2,200 compartments, designed for a crew of around 1,600 including women officers and sailors.
The carrier is designed with a very high degree of automation for machinery operations, ship navigation and survivability. The carrier is equipped with the latest state of the art equipment and systems. The ship is capable of operating air wing consisting of 30 aircraft comprising of MiG-29K fighter jets, Kamov-31, MH-60R multi-role helicopters, in addition to indigenously manufactured Advanced Light Helicopters (ALH) and Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) (Navy). Using a novel aircraft-operation mode known as Short Take Off But Arrested Recovery (STOBAR), INS Vikrant is equipped with a ski-jump for launching aircraft, and a set of ‘arrester wires’ for their recovery onboard.