deployment of the PLA Navy ships in the - Information Resource ...

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had a continental mindset) on this issue. A lot of effort
was spent to break free from the mould of British
dominion "Brown Water Coastal Navy" and progress
towards a balanced ‘Blue Water Navy’. The Navies are
national instruments for enforcing a nation’s political
objectives and furthering national interests. In our
endeavour to combat asymmetric threats we should
not lose focus on this issue!
The 26/11 Mumbai attack however, did draw
attention to the fact that there is a need for the Indian
Navy, as the lead Maritime agency, to don the mantle
of a ‘headmaster’ and coordinate maritime security
with all other maritime agencies of the nation.
Therefore, to put it succinctly, the possible future roles
of the IN of 2020 could be broadly grouped into two
categories, the first being the Roles for conventional
operations of war fighting and the second as Roles
towards thwarting non-conventional/asymmetric
warfare waged by the enemy. Towards developing
capabilities to meet conventional warfare challenges,
the IN of 2020 would need to keep pace with the RMA
and focus towards achieving the following:
• A true three dimensional balanced ‘Blue
Water’ capability
• Network centric capability as against
existing network enabled capability.
• Capability to take on Ballistic Missile Defence.
• Capability to take on enemy satellites using
soft kill/ hard kill measures. To quote Dr. Sandeep
Waslekar “ Future wars would be fought in space
as with more and more reliance on satellites and
satellite based applications such as building up
of MDA picture, navigation applications,
strategic communications, Cooperative
Engagement (CEC), targeting data etc, who
ever controls the space eventually shall be the
victor at sea”.
Having discussed the need to develop a ‘Blue
Water‘ navy, the IN however, cannot ‘shy’ away from
involving itself in ‘Brown Water‘ or Coastal Operations.
In the maintenance of coastal security, the IN would
need to coordinate with various other Maritime Central
and State agencies since asymmetric threat is likely to
stay for years to come and in order to ensure a stable
environment in the region there is a need for all organs
of the Govt to ‘pull’ together starting from the
Intelligence set up, the police forces, the para-military
forces and most import the citizens of India. By
reducing the role of the Indian Navy to that of ‘Brown
Water Coastal patrol navy’, the biggest dis-service to
the nation would be committed. On other hand
permitting the IN to take on the lead role would be a
step in the right direction.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Capt Ashok Rai, is an alumni of the National Defence Academy and was commissioned in Indian Navy on 01
Jul 86. He is a Navigation & Direction specialist and has held various important Command and Staff
appointments. He is a graduate of DSSC Wellington. The officer is presently DMPR at IHQMoD (Navy).
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SEPTEMBER 2010
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