UTS Voice
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The “naval bible” of 1989-1990 had no doubt “that India intends to be the dominant regional maritime power from ‘Suez to Malacca’.” In addition, numerous high level pronouncements since the US Fleet sailed uninvited into the Bay of Bengal in 1971 have indicated a wish to be able to challenge superpower supremacy at least at the level of normal US and Soviet Indian Ocean naval force deployments. It became a point of debate from South Africa to Australia and beyond the Straits of Malacca as to whether India possessed any expansionist aspirations or not. On the flip side of the story, however, was the feeling of satisfaction for those Indians who may at first have doubted the utility of naval power but subsequently discovered to their pleasant surprise the successful application, deployment and operations of the Indian Navy first in Sri Lanka and then in the Maldives in the late 1980s. The Navy of New Delhi was also quick to make its presence felt in the Persian Gulf shortly after the ceasefire between Iran and Iraq.
The myth and fear of an Indian naval expansion, expedition, and exploration soon exploded one fine morning that changed the world for a long time to come with the “USA under attack” on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. Overnight the “aggressive” defence capability of India turned into a potentially credible deterrence against the rogue states and hence an invaluable asset to the US led free world’s combined enterprise of “global war on terror.”
In one stroke, the West hailed and appreciated the most positive aspect of the year 2002 for the “Indian Navy’s further cementing of ties with the United States”, a process that began with the terrorist attacks on the twin towers of the World Trade Centre. In the words of the former US Secretary of State Colin Powell, India and the USA have “opened a new strategic dialogue to transform our relationship.” The Indo-US defence cooperation straight away manifested itself into close escort of US merchant ships through the Strait of Malacca from Singapore to the Andaman Sea. Described the action as the first such co-operation between the nations since the Second World War, it was soon followed by the revival of the “Malabar” series of naval exercises in the high seas surrounding India.
The establishment of further closer ties between India and the US in 2005 enhanced the deployment graph of the Indian Navy as the defence forces of DC and Delhi came strategically closer than ever before. In fact the curses of world terrorism and religious fundamentalism have made it natural today that the two countries should be allies forgetting the bitter memories of the Cold War during which prickly and hostile relationship often soured the feeling of the two democracies. Although both India and the US have a mutual interest in countering Chinese influence in the Indian Ocean region, it seems unlikely that an overtly anti-Chinese policy will ever emerge in the joint Indo-US naval mission in the Indian Ocean.
Joint naval exercise apart, what was unthinkable yesterday is happening today in the affairs of the Indian Navy which so far had been using only ships of French, German and Russian submarines, British and Russian aircraft carrier and London, Moscow and New Delhi built surface vessels. The freshly supplied “Trenton” by the USA opens an unprecedented new vista for the Indian Navy’s operational ability and the fleet’s ocean going capability.
Since Tenton, as reported, is the biggest Indian defence deal with the USA in recent times, it may be interesting to explore the actual role, deployment and interfacing thereof with the rest of the Indian sea force which till date did not have a single US machine in its inventory.
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