Don’t let China fill the void on the high seas

The 1805 Battle of Trafalgar heralded the British Royal Navy’s domination over the world’s oceans that lasted almost 150 years. It was the beginning of an era that underlined the importance of sea power for attaining global superpower status. Subsequently, Japan and the US emulated the British in the 20th century, developing naval power that peaked in World War II. Thereafter came the meteoric rise and fall of the navy of Soviet Union between 1945 and 1991. And now has emerged the 21st-century aspirant: China’s PLA Navy, flexing its muscles with surface and sub-surface firepower across the seas.

The trend began early in the 19th century with the 27-ship fleet, guided by Lord Nelson’s daredevilry and deviation from traditional naval deployment and battle tactics, pitted against a 33-ship French-Spanish armada off the Atlantic Ocean coast in the Iberian Peninsula. The battle saw “ships aligned into columns and sailing directly towards, and into, the enemy fleet line”, thereby sinking conventional water wisdom.

Thus grew a British naval tradition which gave its top fleet commander a unique ‘first among equals’ status in the armed forces as well as the stiff-nosed, class-conscious, aristocratic British society of royalty and its paraphernalia.

Fast-forward to the 1880s: a virtually landlocked German Empire, under the House of Hohenzollern, wakes up to give Queen Victoria’s acknowledged maritime British Empire and its flag-fluttering, fire-spitting, fighting fleet of frigates a missed heartbeat or two. The young (king) Kaiser Wilhelm, a grandson of Queen Victoria, brought up in the shadow of the Royal Navy, wanted an ocean-going navy, in line with the British naval tradition and glory. Kaiser’s mother, the daughter of Victoria, wrote to the latter: “Wilhelm’s one idea is to have a Navy which shall be larger and stronger than the Royal Navy” as he admired as well as envied the record of his grandmother’s fleet.

In the midst of the London-Berlin naval arms race entered Winston Churchill as First Lord of the Admiralty, a post he took up in 1911 and held during the early years of World War I.

Churchill, being a man of ideas, proved effective and efficient with several landmark naval reforms. Introducing naval aviation, improved gunnery in battleships and enhanced speed of vessels to countering German naval re-armament with the principle of building two British battleships for every German boat. The British Empire emerged as a pyrrhic victor in 1918 with a devastated Europe licking long-term wounds.

Europe’s peacetime, however, proved short-lived like the Carthaginian peace as World War II began in 1939. Fortuitously, Churchill was again in the same office of First Lord of Admiralty and took upon himself to implement what he had said in British Parliament’s House of Commons in 1935: “Want of foresight, unwillingness to act when action would be simple and effective, lack of clear thinking, confusion of counsel until the emergency comes, until self-preservation strikes its jarring gong, these are the features which constitute the endless repetition of history.”

Though Churchill could do nothing good for India or other colonies, he was the best thing to happen to the British. His fortitude, resilience and foresight boosted the morale of the men facing fire on land, in water and from the air. Leading from the front, he succeeded in turning yet another ‘defeat into victory’ for the British, with the Royal Navy being in the forefront of achievers amidst “blood, sweat, toil and tears”. The world saw a repeat victory of enduring and resolute naval powers of the US and Britain. The supremacy of sea power was there for all to see.

Little wonder, therefore, that free India learnt early, starting well with the induction of an aircraft carrier (Vikrant) on March 4, 1961, a submarine (Kalvari) on July 16, 1968, and an indigenous frigate (Nilgiri) on June 3, 1972. Pioneering Indian Admirals and the political bosses deserve the nation’s gratitude. However, is India faltering of late on the waterfront? Does the pace of build-up of operational and reserve fleet match the enhanced role of the country in international affairs and global waters? Does India require fresh foresight for its fleet owing to an aggressive Communist Party of China (CPC) that is posing an unprecedented threat to global, not to speak of South Asian, order?

Four decades ago, when sceptics asked, “Have the Chinese really got a navy?”, Jane’s Fighting Ships (1982-83) said: “It is hereby pointed out that it (China) currently contains the third largest submarine force in the world, the largest number of light forces and one of the biggest amphibious groups afloat.”

China’s ‘quantitative’ 105-strong submarine force now stands streamlined to a modern, high-tech 59-submarine fleet (five ballistic missiles; six nuclear-powered, 48 diesel electric boats). India, too, has moved on; from eight conventional diesel-electric Soviet Foxtrot boats to one indigenous ballistic missile and a mix of 16 old and high-tech tactical submarines of Russian, German and French origin. It’s again time for (naval) foresight for the 4,104-nautical mile coastline, the distant islands in the east and west seaboard, and forging ties with at least four Indian Ocean island-nations — if mutually agreed upon, to equip and give them ‘security guarantee’ in exchange for operational freedom. Else, China will fill the vacuum, as is its wont.