The Third Aircraft Carrier For Indian Navy Is Inevitable
By
Colonel Awadhesh Kumar, Veteran
China will be brought down to its knees not at Galwan, Moldo or Chengdu but in the areas stretching from Malacca Strait to Madagascar. So though a new Command HQ may be needed near Srinagar for chasing back the Chinese hordes Out from Tibet, a 65 thousand ton Air Craft Carrier is needed to choke the Chinese jugular vein passing through the Indian Ocean Region in the form of their commercial shipping. The third aircraft for the Indian Navy is thus not only most essential but will turn out to be an inevitable requirement.
The Chinese recently commissioned their first indigenous aircraft carrier, the Shandong, in December 2019. They already have a refurbished brown water but operational aircraft carrier China named Liaoning.
They are now resolutely working on its third and fourth aircraft carriers of the Type 002 class at the Jiangnan shipyard in Shangai. The Chinese Navy aims to have at least 10 aircraft carriers probably to match the US Navy.
Thus India which commissioned its first aircraft carrier in 1961 is now surely behind the Chinese in this strategic field. One thing is very clear that China does not require 10 Carriers for the South China Sea (SCS) as she has several islands in the Paracel and Sprately group complete with airbases and other defence systems.
So a majority of these aircraft Carriers may be three at a time are likely to be operating in the Indian Ocean Region for protection of their critical commercial shipping lane carrying vital oil and other basic raw materials from West Asia and Africa, to run the ever growing economy. In fact China’s overseas base at Djbouti now has a pier capable of berthing an aircraft carrier. Also in the next step these Carriers will then be used for coercing the littoral states to tow the Chinese line.
India currently has only one aircraft carrier—the 45,000-ton INS Vikramaditya, acquired from Russia in 2013. This is the third carrier to be operated by the Indian Navy since independence.
The Indian Navy is now pushing for a grant of ‘Acceptance of Necessity’ for the third carrier, the IAC- 2 soon. Admiral Karambir Singh, Chief of Naval Staff has consistently maintained that the need for a new 65,000-tonne IAC-2 remains non-negotiable, since one carrier would need to be deployed on the western and eastern seaboard respectively, while the third undergoes refit and repair. To balance the cost of the third carrier, the IN has reportedly trimmed the number of naval fighter jets to 36 (two squadrons) from the original 57 planned to be inducted.
Former PM Atal Behari Vajpayee had correctly summarized in 2005 “India’s maritime area of interest extends from the Straits of Hormuz in the west to Malacca Straits in the east. PM Modi’s maritime vision too has changed the simply ‘Look East’ to the ‘Act East’ policy. In fact it is now the pivot for the Indo-Pacific’ policy and revival of the Quadrilateral Cooperation Dialogue.
Even as India’s first indigenous aircraft carrier (IAC-1) Vikrant is getting ready to commence her basin trials soon and is expected to be fully operational by 2022,it seems that doubts are being created about the efficacy of the air craft carriers themselves.
Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), General Bipin Rawat, when speaking to journalists in February 2020, indicated that the Indian Navy may not get approval for a third aircraft carrier (the second indigenous aircraft carrier IAC-2) anytime soon. The reason, he said, was that since aircraft carriers are expensive to build, the priority instead should be to bolster the Navy’s submarine fleet.
Firstly the CDS now must shed his “mountainous “ thought process and think “Trilaterally “. Only then he will come to know that the final frontier is the IOR and not the Himalayas. Also in the Himalayas we are quite prepared and certainly some more build up is required. However the IOR needs sanitization and only a very strong Navy will be able to do it.
Just six small European Ships ( Portuguese ) subdued Zamorin of Calicut, which was the commencement of subjugation of the entire Subcontinent for next 300 years.Do we want the six PLAN Carriers do the same thing once again ? Certainly not.
Most important is that our decision making must be timely. Air craft carriers cannot be ordered off the shelf, they take 10 years or more to build. We need not worry too much about the expenditure as the expenditure gets spread over that period.
Yes a Carrier has to be planned through the inter-se priority of the defence budget. The decision for strategic assets such as the IAC -2, must be debated at the highest level of the national security leadership and only then announced through an institutionalized process. No off the cuff remarks should be tolerated.
In case cost is a factor then the Kochi Shipyard Ltd, where lots of money has been sunk to create the construction infrastructure, should straight away be given a repeat order for VIKRANT type Carrier again. This will ensure that Submarine manufacturing fiasco of Mazagon Docks is not repeated once again.
Those elected political authorities, now made responsible for defence of India, must make funds available Spread over the next 5 years for :
*The third Aircraft Carrier
* Bringing 17 Strike Corps to full strength
* Raising of 19 Mountain Strike Corps for Ladhak Sector
* Additional 4x Rafale Squadrons
