[dropcap color=”#008040″ boxed=”yes” boxed_radius=”8px” class=”” id=””]I[/dropcap]ndia is an “important” country will have to take responsibility for security in the Indian Ocean region said Japan Maritime Self Defence Force chief Admiral Tomohisa Takei who is here to take part in the International Fleet Review.
The Admiral also said that the IFR is an important event that will provide a platform for further dialogue, to enhance cooperation among the navies.
Admiral Takei told IANS that they want better cooperation in the India Ocean; and would like to enhance relations with India.
[dropcap color=”#008040″ boxed=”yes” boxed_radius=”8px” class=”” id=””]I[/dropcap]ndia, which is in the center of the region, will have to take responsibility for peace and security in the Indian Ocean region, from East Africa, to South China Sea,” he said.
The Japanese Navy chief higlighted the fact that the Indian Ocean region accounted for 50 percent of the world’s population and has huge volumes of trade passing through the waters.
India and Japan are often called by experts as “natural allies” in the region. Defence relations between the two countries have been enhanced of late, with the visit of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe giving it further push.
Japan, with India and the US, is also a part of naval exercise Malabar, which has caused discomfort to China.
[dropcap color=”#008040″ boxed=”yes” boxed_radius=”8px” class=”” id=””]T[/dropcap]he exercise, which started as a bilateral one between India and the US now has Japan as a permanent partner. In 2007, when Japan and Australia were included in the exercise, China had issued a demarche to the countries.
Recently, on a tour to India, US Pacific Fleet Commander Admiral Scott Swift said that China’s objection was “fine” as it was not a part of the exercise. He also said that the exercise should be “inclusive” without declaring whether US wanted China’s participation.
Asked if involving China in the exercise can be considered, Admiral Takei said: “There is no difference in China or any other country.”
The Admiral described the IFR, which saw participation of 50 navies, as “a platform which can enhance interoperability”.
“Exercise at peace time makes the foundation for emergency.”
Takei also fondly remembered his participation as a “young captain” in the previous edition of the IFR in 2001.
“The world is taking India more seriously now, India has gown as a nation,” he said.
Japan as sent its anti-submarine destroyer JS Matsuyuki to participate in the IFR.
[dropcap color=”#008040″ boxed=”yes” boxed_radius=”8px” class=”” id=””]I[/dropcap]n October last year, India had also sent its Shivalik class stealth multi-role frigate INS Sahyadri to participate in a fleet review organised by the Japanese Maritime Self Defence Force.
The IFR held at Visakhapatnam saw participation from 50 navies, with 24 foreign ships, and 71 Indian Navy ships. This was the second time the IFR was organised in India — the largest military exercise the country has held so far.
China, the US and Australia were among the participating navies.
Notes:
1. IANS
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The blue water capabilities do require some modern destroyers,nuclear powere subs.fitted with ICBMs and a modern aircraftcarrier, too.
It only remains now for India to acknowledge and live up to it’s importance buried by its anti-National Constitution and policies.
True that two thirds of the World’s shipping passes through the Indian Ocean. India can have Three Squadrons or Six Vignettes (eighteen) ships of Fast Nuclear Powered Missile Destroyers with choppers mounted on the stern with active sonar and radar to effectively police the ocean at less cost than an aircraft carrier and the flotilla required to service and protect it.. Apart from the limitation in spread and flexibility, there is the enormous risk s of having so many eggs in a carrier.
As for oceanic command, what India needs as back up for the Fast Destroyers are nuclear powered attack submarines. Nuclear powered, nuclear ICBM launch platform, strategic submarines prowling the seas to give India’s “No First Use” deterrence credibility is four decades over due.
The Indian Navy, like the US Navy is bringing up dreadnoughts and capital ships like the Knights of medieval Europe while Russia is moving into smaller, faster, ships with greater stamina, flexibility and higher fire power like Genghis Khan’s Mongols. (Remember the Battle of Trafalgar?)
India is endowed with natural if static Eastern and Western fleets of aircraft carriers, missile cruisers, submarine bases and so in its archipelagos that India has ignored because of its land-locked perspective to expend enormous and unnecessary sums on “Navy Build Up” in imitation of obsolete Navies, Naval Forces Naval Ideas that rest on an economic base and a global agenda that it will take India a century to even aspire to AFTER it puts an end to bad laws, perverted constitution and the reservations-extortion raj this has fostered.
This is all old time “Show the flag”, “Fleet review”, and “Capital ship” assessments of naval profiling. How does showing the flag here and there strengthen a navy?
For example, by concentrating its Naval forces around Karwar, The Indian Navy has effectively unlearned the lesson of Vizag and PNS Ghazi. Not to mention Pearl Harbour, the Battle of Trafalgar and the sinking of the Bismark! Now the enemy knows exactly where to take out the Western Fleet, all that remains is the “how” and the “When”,
I have maintained since the 1970s that India needs to have a large number of tiny bases and tiny but sharp toothed ships, subs, missiles and aircraft that can be moved around between bases to cluster or swarm as necessary. Not just along the coast but along India’s extensive archipelagos of the Nicobar, Lakshadweep, Minicoy and Andamans.
The Indian Navy is locked into a pre Second World War parading of Dread Noughts and Fortresses more redolent of medieval Rajasthan. If at all it is possible to create a Maginot line in the oceans, The Indian Navy will succeed in doing so! This reminds me of very junior chess players painstakingly building a bulwark of pawns against a superior and dynamic player who delivers a check mate with a few deft moves and a sacrifice or two.
Look at Russia. In deploying small ships with extraordinary fire power in Crimea, they have demonstrated what I have been trying, in vain, to tell India for decades. My lack of success is primarily due to India trying to become a “me too” “toys for the boys” Navy like the US without any regard to India’s strategic or tactical needs, affordability or lie of the land.