Guest Column | Think and Act Ahead

Vice Admiral Shekhar Sinha (retd)

Whenever there is a debate on the future shape of air power for India, it is only natural that the conversation veers towards maritime air power, which is an important pillar of Indian Navy’s three-dimensional force, and country’s foreign policy outreach for strategic objectives.

For tomorrow’s threats, the armed forces prepare today. The adversary always springs a surprise. This is the history of warfare. We have become too familiar with the narrative of surprises from the neighbours across borders; therefore, it has become predictable to a large extent.

In today’s geopolitical scenario unpredictability lies over oceans where the technology has shrunk its vastness. An aircraft patrolling 3,000km away from its shores can continuously feed the Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA) data ashore which makes decision-making by the top leadership far easier. Distances have also shrunk because ships, submarines and aircraft venture far out from their shores now.

While it may have been possible for land resources to meet the developmental needs of a country in the past, it is not so anymore. China and India, world’s two most populous countries, know it well that to ensure food and energy securities of their people they will become more dependent on oceans, both for transportation of material and extracting resources. Invariably, this would lead to competition and contestation. Navies will become more relevant. One look at the warships off the Gulf of Aden, Straits of Malacca and Gulf of Oman etc would reveal that. China in its Military Strategy Paper of 2015 has enunciated that ‘the traditional thinking that land is all important needs to be abandoned. Oceans are most important for development and prosperity. PLAN will be modernised and made powerful to protect China’s interests in distant seas and abroad.’

Prime Minister Narendra Modi too has enu