Editor's Foreword

336 The MiliTAry BAlAnCe 2010
widening economic and diplomatic interests beyond
South Asia. In August 2009 the navy updated its maritime
doctrine for the first time in nearly six years. In his
foreword, then Chief of Naval Staff Admiral Sureesh
Mehta wrote that, ‘as the largest democracy and an
emerging major economy, India’s role as a responsible
player on the global stage, towards promoting peace,
stability and development, has been recognised in the
international arena’. The document focuses on the
spectrum of conflict, India’s maritime environment
and interests, and the application of maritime power.
The latter chapter incorporates new constabulary
missions for the navy, including counter-terrorism
and anti-piracy operations. For the first time, it is
stated that India’s maritime forces could be deployed
on specific counter-terrorism missions ‘both independently
and as cooperative endeavours with friendly
foreign naval and coast guard forces’.
The key strategic challenge, and priority for the
navy, is the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy.
Days before retiring in August 2009, Mehta stated that
India neither had the military capability nor the intention
‘to match China force for force’, and advocated
the use of maritime domain awareness and networkcentric
operations along with ‘a reliable stand-off
deterrent’ as means of coping with China’s rise. India’s
new maritime doctrine categorises India’s secondary
maritime areas of interest as including, for the first
time, ‘the South China Sea, other areas of the west
Pacific Ocean and friendly littoral countries located
therein’, and the deliberately vaguely worded ‘other
areas of national interest based on considerations of
diaspora and overseas investments’. These represent
key indicators of Indian naval trends or aspirations.
In July, the navy launched the first locally built
Arihant nuclear-powered submarine. Its weapons
fit has yet to be announced, and commissioning is
expected in 2012. In 2010, the navy is expected to
acquire its first Akula-class nuclear-powered submarine
on lease from Russia. The former Russian carrier
Admiral Gorshkov, due for commissioning in 2012 or
2013, is to augment the navy’s single current Viraatclass
carrier, and the first of two locally built carriers
is to be commissioned the following year. India
was also acquiring technologically sophisticated
missile-armed ‘stealth’ warships and augmenting
its maritime-surveillance capabilities (see Defence
Economics, p. 349 and the essay on p. 473).
Enhancing the security of small island states in
the Indian Ocean against terrorism and piracy is also
an emerging concern. In August 2009, India boosted
defence cooperation with the Maldives by agreeing
to set up a network of 26 radars across the Maldives
atolls to be networked to the Indian coastal radar
system, along with the establishment of an air station
to conduct surveillance flights and coordinate naval
patrols in the Maldives Exclusive Economic Zone.
The Indian navy regularly carries out coordinated
anti-piracy patrols off the Seychelles coast and since
mid October 2008 has deployed a warship to the Gulf
of Aden for maritime-security operations.
Following the reopening of the Daulat Beg Oldi
and Fuk Che airfields in Ladakh, close to the 4,000km
Line of Actual Control, the de facto border between
India and China, India’s air force also plans to turn
the Neoma advanced landing ground in Ladakh into
a runway proper. The new Indian air force chief, Air
Chief Marshal P.V. Naik, publicly complained that
his fighter-aircraft strength, a third of China’s, was
inadequate and needed to be increased.
The army continues its long-standing counterterrorism
and counter-insurgency operations in
Indian-administered Kashmir, where there are signs
of increasing infiltration across the Line of Control,
as well as in the insurgency-affected northeastern
provinces of Assam, Nagaland and Manipur. Despite
pressure from the local administration in Kashmir,
Antony ruled out repealing the Armed Forces (Special
Powers) Act, which provides the armed forces with
extraordinary powers of arrest and detention, in
Kashmir or parts of the northeast.
There is uncertainty over how best to deal with
continued violence by the Maoist Naxalites, who
reportedly operate in nearly a third of the country’s
districts. While the prime minister called them
the gravest internal security threat, he also sought
a nuanced political and developmental strategy to
tackle the violence. The government was ready to
hold a dialogue with the Naxalites provided they
give up their arms, a condition they rejected, and the
order banning the Communist Party of India (Maoist)
as a terror organisation was renewed on 22 June.
Meanwhile, the air force was refused permission to
use force against the Naxalites in self-defence during
surveillance and search-and-rescue operations, while
a new anti-Naxalite force, the Commando Battalion
for Resolute Action (CoBRA), was also established
under the command and control of the central reserve
police force. In October the central government
announced a new anti-Naxalite plan that included
deployment of over 40,000 central police personnel
in affected provinces.