Maritime Challenge Before India

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10/27/2014 Distinguished Lectures Details

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By:Ambassador (Retd) Yogendra Kumar

Venue: Central University of Rajasthan Ajmer

Date: October 14, 2014

Maritime Challenges before India in the 21st Century

I will discuss the significance of the oceanic waters for our national security and well-being in terms of the challenges

they pose for us. And, I will discuss the challenges in both aspects, as threats as well as opportunities shaping our

future.

The strategic analyst community in India, and also abroad, often complains of India being a sea-blind country despite

its long coastline and a large number of islands. It is, in that sense, interlaced with our colonial past when, indeed, our

maritime memory was erased by the Raj. During the British period, the Indian Ocean was reduced to a British Lake

being controlled by the Royal Navy commander based in Singapore; this was accompanied by the destruction of Indian

shipping industry, as well as the shipping sector itself, as a result of deliberate policy of discrimination by the then

British rulers . It is of a piece of the tragic history of Indias colonis ation.

That is why the development of capabilities for addressing the maritime challenges for India is of a piece of Indias

emergence as an important player in global affairs. And, it is part of the narrative of our freedom struggle when Indias

maritime capabilities were projected as a vehicle for the spread of Indian civilisation and for the country to be known as

the golden bird or soney ki chidiya. Let me just add that the ancient name of India is Jambudweep meaning the

is land of jamun (black berry) tree.

Indian coastline is 7516.6 kms of which the mainland peninsular coastline is 5, 422.6 kms. It has 1,197 island

territories. Following Indias ratification of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UN CLOS) and the adoption of

appropriate domestic laws, an area of 2.013 million square kilometres of Exclusive Economic Zone in addition to

155,889 km of territorial waters are Indias area of exclusive use; following Indias submission before the UN

Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, a further addition of another approximately 1.2 million km makes

the total sea area almost equal to our land area of 3.3 million km.

India shares maritime border with more countries than on its land borders the Maldives, Sri Lanka, Myanmar,

Indonesia, Thailand, Pakistan and Bangladesh; it has an unresolved maritime border dispute with Pakistan but, even,

where borders are delimited there are frequent instances of illegal fishing due to lack of clarity about the precise

alignment, arrest of fishermen, arms-smuggling, including terrorist infiltration, human-smuggling and drug-trafficking.

All of these pose continuous threats to national security requiring cons tant vigil by maritime and other security agencies

and have led to tensions with the neighbouring countries, especially Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

India's Maritime Military Strategy, issued by the Indian Navy in 2007, identified the Indian Ocean Region along with its

chokepoints and its international shipping lanes which are located close to the peninsular coastline and pass through

its island chains, as the primary area of interest and includes, amongst secondary areas, the southern Indian Ocean

Region, the Red Sea, the South China Sea and the East Pacific Sea.
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The importance of seaborne commerce has increased with the onset of the current era of globalis ation at the end of the

Cold War in 1991 and expansion of trade relations world-wide. For India, given its heavy energy dependency, petroleum

supplies and other essential commodities are brought through these sea lanes. Its trade connections have intensified

as has the growing presence of a large Indian diaspora of recent and of historical origin in the littoral countries in

the Indian Ocean and of the South China Sea. It has a natural interest in the prevailing situation and in being actively

engaged diplomatically in these regions. As a rising global power, it also has interests in other water bodies of the

world, such as the Mediterranean, the Atlantic and the Arctic Ocean which is also opening possibilities for navigation

and exploitation of natural resources s uch as hydrocarbons.

The Indian Ocean littoral, an area of primary importance for Indian maritime agencies, hosts one third of the worlds

population in about one quarter of the worlds landmass; it is rich in minerals reserves and for having 31% of the gas

reserves and other oil reserves, precious minerals such as uranium, tin, gold and diamonds. Its littoral comprises

countries with extreme diversities in economic circumstances and political stability including some becoming either

failed or failing states or having failed regions within them; these factors have caused acute forms of terrorism,

including the Jihadist variety, gun-running, human-trafficking, smuggling and other type of criminal activity. The IOR is

the locus of 70% of the worlds natural disasters.

Moreover, in conformity with the habitations elsewhere, the Indian Ocean coastal areas have large urbanised

populations, extensive economic activity and concentration of industrial establishments. In Indias case, its extensive

population concentrations, economic powerhouses and vast coastline play a critical role in our national life as a whole.

The state of these coastal areas is being shaped by the urbanisation trends, the quality of urban governance,

environment and the climate change challenges.

All of the issues described above touch the very core of global and regional geo-politics and our security and well-being.

The end of the Cold War in 1991, entailing the disappearance of the Soviet Union and as a military and economic

balancer of the preponderant power of the US, led to triumphalism and unilateralism on the part of the victors of the

Cold War resulting in the weakening of the global multilateral security and economic institutions. This outcome of the

Cold War also led to either great power interventions in the Indian Ocean littoral or state collapse which led to growing

instability in the littoral regions (Iraq, Yemen, Somalia etc.); the Wests ideological triumphalism also led to the 2008

global financial and economic crisis and to the accelerated rise of China with a substantially altered global powerpolitics.

An offshoot of globalisation, namely, the IT revolution and the empowering of the non-s tate actors, combined with

weakened nation states, has created a situation in parts of the littoral which the security analysts describe as the phase

of post-Westphalian Long War or of irregular or asymmetrical warfare which requires a different kind of military

doctrine for conflict management. The weakened state and multilateral institutions, combined with the surge of the

technology, have brought in new factors into global security dynamics, such as quality of governance, science and

technology, especially IT and bio-technology and skewed economic growth leading to environmental unsustainability,

competition for access to natural resources such as food, water and energy and the impact of their inter-linkages on the

security dynamics. The end of the Cold War has also led to the weakening of the formal alliance systems and

development of interest-driven cooperation amongst nations. The current phase is also witnessing the emergence of

Asian powers , especial ly China, which is bringing in its own dynamics especially as it is considered by the West as not

yet coopted into the global s ystem.

The conundrum of transition to the post-Cold War period has been highlighted by the US National Intelligence Councils

(NIC) futuristic report, Global Trends 2030, published in December 2012. It considers the transition as being

characterised by the uncertainty about the US role, the complexity of relationship between governments and diverse set

of actors including state and non-state, the difficulty in the estimation of the pace of change and in estimating the

framework of relationship between trends, discontinuities and crises necessitating a close focus on the smaller

political-psycho-social shifts which do not get under the framework of grand ideologies like fascism or communism.

Technology and the weakened institutions are, further, facing mutating challenges facing India. Warfare will be

conditioned more by precision guided munitions and its "irregular nature. Naval warfare will be increasingly

characterised by modernisation, including submarine buildup, sea-access/denial strategies centred around

chokepoints, electronic, cyber space capabilities, NBC weapons and terrorism, piracy, the Jehadist insurgency and,


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what the security experts call, OODA (Observe, Orient, Decide and Act) Point which epi tomizes compress ed decis ion-

cycles.

The non-traditional threats are also extremely important. Events such as the SARS pandeemic (2003), the Indian Ocean

Tsunami (2004) will continue to test capabilities for government response failing which the countries can be

destabil ised. Climate change, according to analysts, has not been fully understood as regards i ts security ramifications.

The mega-city urbanisation and the youth bulge challenges require better capacities for management and different

types of natural disasters, i.e., droughts, crop plagues, prolonged volcanic eruption, soil erosion, new pathogens,

including those which can be artificially engineered non-state actors, will have politically disruptive potential.

The maritime agencies involved, that is, the Navy, the Coast Guard, the coastal police, the shipping sector and the

Minis try of Earth Sciences, have important roles to play in addressing the entire spectrum of these challenges.

The Indian Navys India's maritime m ilitary strategy, published in 2007, speaks of the navys force projection role in the

Indian Ocean to protect national interests as well as maintain good order at sea, that is, pursuit of its constabulary role

to conduct low intensity maritime operations (LIMO) as well as for anti-terrorism, anti-piracy and anti-trafficking

operations. Success ive prime minis ters have spoken of the Indian Navy acting as the net security provider in the Indian

Ocean Region. In these roles, it has concerns about the existing balance of power in the region and its future trends. It

also has the major function of hosting the sea-leg of Indias nuclear triad so as to ensure that the nuclear deterrent

remains credible at a minimum level of weaponisation. Its benign role includes activities such as humanitarian aid,

disaster relief, diving as sis tance, hydrography, non-combatant evacuation operations.

The capacity building for such role involves weapons acquisitions from overseas as well as their manufacture at home:

given the scope of the naval procurement programme, there is the compell ing necessity for maintaining targeted foreign

relations, and for expanding and modernis ing production capacity at home with contributions from the private and public

sector, and, inter-alia, from communications, electronics, IT, space sectors. The capacity building for carrier-based

naval formations, nuclear and conventional submarines, naval aviation, satellites et cetera is an imperative necessity.

The process of naval modernisation and evolution of its force structures in terms of the evolving challenges have an

encompassing range - from national, including strategic, security, the geopolitics and the entire spectrum of non-

traditional security threats.

The Indian Coast Guard has come a long way since its establishment in 1978, to countenance practically the same

range of threat spectrum as the Indian Navy but at a lower level of lethality. It was tasked with enforcing maritime law,

organising security in territorial waters, policing of the exclusive economic zone and to conduct research and rescue

operations in an area of 3.9 million km following ratification, in 2001, of the international convention on maritime search

and rescue. Its mandate includes safety and protection of artificial islands and offshore terminals, installations and

devices, protection of fishermen at sea, protection of marine environment, assistance to customs and other authorities

in anti-smuggling operations and enforcement of enactments in force in the maritime zones. The DG, Coast Guard,

functions as the chairman of the offshore s ecurity coordination committee, of maritime search and res cue authority and

as the lead intelligence agency for coastal and s ea borders security. The Coas t Guard suffers from capacity constraints

due to inadequate procurements. However, it is an active participant in various multilateral and international

organisations bringing together various national Coast Guard agencies.

The coastal police organisations, under the various coastal state governments, came into existence following the shock

of the Mumbai terror attack of November, 2008. By building capacity as local police to enhance coastal patrolling, a

significant gap in security cover for India was sought to be plugged along with better coastal surveillance, including the

capacity to track down the fishing boats a truly gigantic task. It is handicapped by severe financial and capacity

constraints, including personnel skills and its growth is affected as well by the threat perceptions of the different coastal

states of India.

The shipping sector has, literally, started from this scratch after 1947. The world trade is growing faster than the worldoutput; maritime transport handles 78% of global trade by volume and over 70% of global trade by value. The challenge

of maritime shipping and shipbuilding sectors remains quite considerable. So also, the rather stunted state of coastal

shipping, despite Indias long coastline and its extended island chains, and still inadequate capacity in the port

sector,including port management. The connectivity of ports to the hinterland, requiring rail and road connectivity is


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acknowledged as a major constraint on Indias growth. Indias national shipping tonnage has fallen as a carrier of our

seaborne trade whereas, now, the Indian bottoms are ageing fast and increasingly unsuitable for the changing pattern

of seaborne shipping towards supertankers and very large carriers. The government needs to undertake major policy

changes to lift the sector in all respects in the face of strong competition from China, South Korea and, to an extent, the

Philippines , by treating it as a strategic national sector.

In the non-traditional security threats, characterising the 21stcentury, are endeavoured to be addressed by the Ministry of

Earth Sciences, set up in 2006. It is respons ible for development of technology for exploitation and exploration of marine

resources, weather services, climate change and geo-hazards, including tsunamis and vulnerability mapping for the

purpose; it underlines the need for improving the quality of services provided for each of these activities which require

considerable international collaboration. Its further major scientific role is oceanographic studies where it has

significant partnership with the International Oceanographic Commission.

All of these maritime capacities are aimed at the entire spectrum of challenges faced by India. The upscaling of these

capacities, some to plug the existing gaps and others to keep abreast of the rapidly mutating challenges, is an ongoing

process. The potential of these capacities for national well-being, especially of shipping and oceanic affairs, is

immens e and it is als o an important tool for Indian diplomacy. The bolstering of the national security framework is, also,

of great significance for regional and global stabili ty.

The conundrum facing India and the region is a combination of the traditional and the non-traditional security threats.

Here the instability potential is apprehended by the arrival of China in regional waters and as to whether it will be

disruptive of the existing order. The opening, however, can be in India seeking the opportunity to address the non-

traditional challenges on priority to stabilise the situation in the littoral better with the enhanced beneficial effects for

India, and to create favourable atmosphere for CBMs for a stable maritime order. This relatively benign and, not

unfavourable to India - order in the Indian Ocean is not likely to come under threat in the immediate future and the

existing regional mechanisms can be deployed more effectively to address both the traditional and non-traditional

security challenges.

This gives the opportunity to India to be diplomatically active amongst the littoral countries. One approach, of course, is

to strengthen the regional governance organisations like IORA (Indian Ocean Rim Association) and the IONS (IndianOcean Naval Symposium). Besides, a proactive approach for perception management needs to be developed in the

littoral through leveraging our national media, and IT-enabled outreach programmes such as the pan-African e-network

project. The need to address the challenges of the growing influence of the states in foreign affairs necessitates the

strengthening of the role of MEAs public diplomacy division. Special capacity-building efforts are needed for our

maritime agencies for handling the challenges of non-traditional threats to the region.

The diplomatic environment in the 21st century is undergoing rapid change due to globalisation and other

accompanying factors and the, consequent, rapid expansion in the number and the variety of international actors,

empowered by ICT and the social media, extending much beyond the traditional NGOs to include the more amorphous

civil society groups. There is the resurgence of the traditional geopolitical agenda as the nation states compete for

power, resources and, even, territory. There is expansion of regulatory diplomatic agendas which have been expanded

by the global financial crisis regulatory banking, for example - and the whole host of other issues which can be

handled only through more effective multilateral governance: these agendas are an outcome of this phenom enon which

is likely to endure into the future.

The institutional structures supporting diplomatic activity are, therefore, being modified. The foreign ministries will

continue to remain active in managing diplomatic networks and will do this, additionally, through creation of

administrative hubs, virtual embass ies, "swarm ing of resources rather like the "OODA Point for the mili tary leaders -

from a wide variety of groups for emergency response as well as recourse to "diplomatic reserve, rather like military

reservists for service at short notice as has become the practice in many countries. Changing patterns of diplomatic

communication in the contemporary diplomatic environment require a sophisticated understanding of the stakeholdersand of the audiences on a particular issue and the recognition of the centrality of public diplomacy. There is the

emergence of a new international security agenda which comprises complex international issues beyond the capacity

of an individual country, which are highly interdependent and require holistic solutions to be achieved through

collaboration between international stakeholders and civil societies. Diplomats would be acting as facilitators and


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social entrepreneurs between domestic and foreign civil society groups which operate global policy networks. This

function will be necessary as conflicts are arising over interference of outside agencies in the domestic affairs of

countries. Challenge for diplomats is to juggle the different skill sets required for handling the international security

agenda and the more conventional geo-political agenda where the countries compete for power and resources. The

diplomatic norms and practices, diplomats have lived by over centuries, are fragmenting and losing their popular

currency.

In short, the efforts required for these challenges need to be based on the whole-of-the-government approach and

somewhat different kind of ins titutional thinking an effort which ins titutions such as the Central University of Rajasthanare geared well enough to undertake.

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Maritime Challenge Before India