Asia Looks Seaward

official documents and policies supplied elements of a strategy, furnishing a

modicum of strategic direction. The United States has certainly altered its

approach to maritime strategy since the height of the Cold War, and it has done

so not once but several times. Any student of U.S. grand strategy and military

strategy could identify the major inflection points: the end of the Cold War

and the September 11 attacks. Like his Indian counterpart, the former U.S. chief

of naval operations, Admiral Michael Mullen, directed the U.S. Navy to develop

a new maritime strategy. During the course of 2006–7, a relatively open process

to do just that has taken place.^5

Even absent a formal maritime strategy document or an open process to

develop a document that can be mined for information, it is possible to glean

the outlines of present-day Indian maritime strategy and to see how India is

thinking about and going about becoming a maritime power. This chapter will

look at the current state of Indian thinking about maritime power, examine

how this mode of thought fits into larger Indian views of national security and

India’s place in the world, and analyze India’s current and future capacity to

become an Asian and indeed a global maritime power.

The chapter will look first at how maritime power can support Indian national

security objectives and, more broadly, how it can mesh with or support predomi-

nant Indian worldviews, as manifest in the major schools of thought on Indian

national security. Maritime power may not conform neatly with these views.

If not, any gaps and issues will be identified and assessed. Next, the chapter will

compare current IN and national security views of maritime power with Indian

maritime facts on the water. It will size up the nation’s naval and coast-guard

capabilities, identify the types of missions New Delhi deems critical and has

actually undertaken, and appraise the government’s plans for future procure-

ment, organization, and operations.

A First Look at Indian Security Objectives

For quite some time now, the Indian government, and in particular the defense

establishment and the IN, has been thinking about how best to use maritime

forces to advance the national interest. That intellectual ferment, and the pro-

curements and activities to which it gives rise, has intensified over the past four

years. As discussed below, India has often scanted the maritime realm, focusing

instead on security challenges emanating from land. It is not surprising, there-

fore, that India has not yet become a maritime power, either in Asia or beyond.

This could change in the coming decade or two, but New Delhi must surmount

a number of significant hurdles before it can use its burgeoning maritime power

flexibly, consistently, and effectively.

The concept of maritime power implies something broader than naval power.

It connotes both the will and the capability to influence events in the nautical

126 Asia Looks Seaward