inward-looking gaze would pursue maritime security operations dedicated to
vanquishing terrorism and defending against Pakistani efforts to ‘‘break off other
pieces’’ of India, as they describe the 1947 partition.
Regardless of which worldview or combination of worldviews predominates
in India over the coming decade, putting maritime power into action requires
both capabilities and an operational and tactical sense of how maritime forces
should be deployed. A maritime strategy—if a clear one were in evidence—would
furnish some guidance on these matters.Butdoctrinalconcepts,associated
procurement strategies, and national security policies and processes that link
maritime capabilities to diplomatic, economic, and military levers of national
power are likewise critical. India has taken one necessary step in this direction in
recent years.
Creating and Using Maritime Power
In April 2004, specifically, India issued its first formal Maritime Doctrine since
independence. The doctrine built upon the IN’s first Strategic Defence Review,
an internal IN effort undertaken in 1998. That it took fifty years for the navy
to conduct a strategic review and another six to formulate a doctrine tells part
of the story of why India has not yet become a significant maritime power, even
in its own region, let alone a global politico-military entity to be reckoned with.
As noted above, however, this is all changing very rapidly.
The Strategic Defence Review identified four major roles for the IN: sea-based
deterrence, economic and energy security, forward presence, and naval diplo-
macy.^13 Each of these roles is broad and conforms to the traditional roles
assigned to navies in medium to large states with maritime interests and capabil-
ities. How New Delhi chooses to carry out these roles, however, could carry
significant consequences for the security and stability of what India regards as
its own waterway—the Indian Ocean region—and beyond. As it attempts to
fulfill its roles and associated missions, the IN will interact more extensively with
Asian navies both small (Singapore and Pakistan) and large (China and Japan), as
well as U.S. and European maritime forces. As noted above, the nature of these
interactions could vary considerably depending on the worldview and resultant
policy choices of India’s leadership.
Each role staked out for the navy can be examined in terms of (a) current
capabilities; (b) future capabilities and associated acquisition strategies; (c) road-
blocks and challenges to acquiring these future capabilities; (d) current and
future operations/exercises; (e) limitations, hurdles, and unexpected consequen-
ces; and (f) potential interactions with other Asian navies that result from each
role. Regardless of how these roles evolve and which worldview predominates
in Indian foreign policy, the IN will face issues it has known before but will
continue to plague it at least into the next decade.
India as a Maritime Power? 133