#3 Merry time? A maritime strategy primer
Some basics of maritime strategy and how they play out in the Indian Ocean.
The 70-80-90 Rule states that 70 percent of the Earth’s surface is covered with water, 80 percent of the world’s population lives on coastlines, and 90 percent of international trade crosses the ocean at some point. Recently, this was expanded to the 66-70-80-90-99 Rule, highlighting that 66 percent of global wealth comes from or near the sea, and that 99 percent of international digital traffic passes through submarine cables. This makes our seas and oceans intrinsically important, and underscores the importance of the Navy.
This is the first of a multi-part series that looks at aircraft carriers and other naval technologies, and discusses what might work for India. Here, we start with some broad information about strategies used by navies and what they hope to achieve.
The land mass of the earth is almost completely organized in the form of political states — however, the seas do not lend themselves towards political control. Any control that maritime nations exert over regions of the sea is temporary. Further, the seas are crucial for trade, transportation, and for economic activities like fishing and petroleum exploration1.
Maritime strategy covers the range of tactics and actions a naval power takes, or plans to take in various situations. Given the crucial nature of the seas to a country with a long coastline and a strategic geographical location like India, a comprehensive maritime strategy is a must to protect India’s national interests.
The increasing significance of the Indian Ocean Region
The Indian Ocean Region (IOR) is extremely important from a geopolitical viewpoint. The US Pacific Command was renamed to the US Indo-Pacific Command in 2018, reflecting the American interest in the security of the IOR, and in working with allies including India towards countering the growing maritime assertiveness of China. The Quadrilateral Framework (or ‘Quad’) is a grouping of Australia, India, Japan, and the USA that is focused towards a ‘free, open and inclusive Indo-Pacific’.
The security dynamics in the Indo-Pacific are changing rapidly — this region contains countries with both the fastest growing economies, as well as those with the fastest increasing military expenditures.
Of the total trade passing through the IOR, only 20 percent is between the countries in the region, while 80 percent is extra-regional. 80 percent of global maritime oil trade passes through the Indian Ocean Region. The IOR contains three of the five largest chokepoints for global maritime oil trade — the Strait of Hormuz, the Strait of Malacca, and the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait. Blocking a chokepoint even temporarily can lead to substantial increases in global energy costs and the prices of energy, which will have knock-on effects on almost every other product. A recent example of this was during the blockage of the Suez Canal by a container ship in March 2021, which caused a 4 percent surge in the price of crude oil.
Note that as per the figure above, the Suez Canal is a smaller chokepoint as compared to the straits of Hormuz and Malacca in the IOR, which suggests that any blockage there would have even more severe effects. This highlights the importance, from a global perspective, of protecting against the wilful blocking of these chokepoints by any player.
China is currently the world’s top oil importer, and more than 85 percent of its oil imports pass through the IOR, especially the Straits of Malacca. In order to protect these Sea Lines of Communication (SLOCs) and its energy lifeline, China has increasingly been turning to militarization in the Indo-Pacific. Some of the steps it has taken in this regard are the construction of artificial islands in the South China Sea to push its international borders, as well as the construction of bases in Djibouti and Gwadar in Pakistan. These bases are part of China’s “String of Pearls” strategy, which has seen China finance the construction of 14 ports in the IOR and 3 ports in the Pacific2 in order to establish an advantage in the Indo-Pacific.
The geographical location of the Indian peninsula along with its islands, especially the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, gives India a strategic advantage via the presence of nearby bases. The Indian Navy is generally considered to dominate the IOR. This dominance is important, since 90 per cent of India’s trade by volume and 70 per cent by value transits the seas (These numbers are slightly above the global average of 80 percent by volume and 70 percent by value).
These figures show that India has a strategic and economic imperative to protect her interests in the IOR. This is something that is all the more essential given the recent Chinese forays into the region. The challenges that India faces will stiffen as the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLA-N) continues to expand its fleet in the future, and Indian maritime strategy will be important in ensuring Indian interests are safeguarded at sea.
Maritime strategy
The measure of a country’s maritime prowess is its ability to establish ‘sea control’ and project power across the seas to the shores of a potential adversary. Sea denial is another facet in the development of a maritime strategy.
Maritime strategy affects the littorals, which are defined as “the areas to seaward of the coast which are susceptible to influence or support from the land and the areas inland from the coast which are susceptible to influence from the sea.”3
Sea control and power projection
As per the Indian Maritime Doctrine, 2009:
… sea control denotes a condition where one is able to use a defined sea area, for a defined period of time, for one’s own purposes, and at the same time deny its use to the adversary. …
Sea control strategies are centered around the aircraft carrier. The various supporting ships are equipped with anti-aircraft weaponry, anti-submarine weaponry, minesweepers, and submarines.
In order to be able to “control” the region of the sea, the deployed fleet must be able to attack and disable the various means of counterattack available to the enemy. Command of the sea has also generally been divided into two parts — global naval influence and local sea control.
Power projection is a facet of sea control wherein fleets are deployed to establish power and dominance in a region. Their presence becomes a tacit representation of the ability to attack the player against whom power is being projected. Usually, in addition to the sea control technology, power projection uses weapons with the capability to attack land-based targets and various landing crafts. This highlights the capacity to attack the enemy, and even invade them if the situation so dictates.
In the years after the Cold War, the US Navy has been the dominant global naval power. It has expressed this via its fleets, which sail along various routes in order to test the international freedom of navigation principle (see the map above, for example). In recent years, however, the rise of the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLA-N) and the return of the Russian Navy along with their denial systems described below, means that the US Navy no longer has as much local sea control in the Indo-Pacific as it used to.
Sea denial
The Indian Maritime Doctrine, 2009 says that
Sea denial is a concept of denying the adversary use of a sea area for a certain period of time, when it is not required for our use.
The denial strategy is also called an Anti-Access / Area Denial (A2/AD) strategy. Based merely on the definition, sea denial is a (more passive) subset of sea control. However, there are wide differences in how these strategies manifest on the ground.
Sea denial emphasizes defence, with a focus on the littorals. The common goal of sea denial is to ensure an opponent’s navy cannot enter into a region from which it can launch attacks against the country.
China makes use of this strategy in the South China Sea, the East China Sea, and the area surrounding Taiwan. This is mostly with a view to deter the USA from stepping in during a possible future crisis over Taiwan. The Economist reported in 2012 that China has invested heavily in asymmetric capabilities against America, including
thousands of accurate land-based ballistic and cruise missiles, modern jets with anti-ship missiles, a fleet of submarines (both conventionally and nuclear-powered), long-range radars and surveillance satellites, and cyber and space weapons intended to “blind” American forces.
Russia too has missile systems in place that can be used in denial strategies. The Economist reports that
NATO commanders fear that in the event of a crisis, missile systems in the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad and in western Russia itself could make the Baltic Sea a no-go area for its naval vessels.
Other weapons that are used in sea denial strategies are mines, ships and patrol boats equipped with torpedos, and even aircraft carriers deployed relatively close to shore. The central idea is to have a variety of ship-targeting weapons, so as to deter (and if deterrence fails, attack) enemy ships from entering the denial region.
Note that mines are not often a prudent option — this is because of the presence of neutral vessels like merchant ships in most waters. Mines do not provide the tactical flexibility of being able to attack only specified targets.
A well implemented denial strategy provides the ability to carry out small-scale but highly effective attacks against an enemy that is attempting to enter the denial region. They also have the advantage of being much cheaper to implement than strategies for sea control.
India’s Maritime Strategy
The Indian Navy is structured around the concept of sea control.
The Navy aims at being able to effect deterrence, both singly and jointly with the other armed forces and organs of national power. In case of deterrence not succeeding, the Navy must be able to undertake operations in a manner that is both efficient and effective, in synergy with the other armed forces, to deliver decisive victory and attain the military-strategic objectives, towards achieving the political aim.
As we saw above, in its role as the solitary global naval power, the US Navy uses sea control and power projection with an aim to maintain maritime security all over the world. Indian maritime ambition, on the other hand, is more focused.
The Indian Navy aims to establish sea control mainly in the Indian Ocean Region, in order to protect Indian interests. This local sea control is a vital part of maintaining a maritime sphere of influence, especially within the neighbourhood. However, the strategic importance of the IOR, as highlighted above, suggests that even this local control could become highly contested and expensive.
A further concern is that any conflict is likely to be of a short duration, and establishing sea control in a short period may not be achievable against a credible adversary4. In response to these concerns, there are opinions that India should also focus on building up its sea denial capabilities in the IOR.
The asymmetric nature of these denial systems allows for a cost-effective and precise ability to target any threats to India’s maritime security. The sea denial systems of Russia and China already serve as a template for India to achieve this — although any imitation should be tempered to fit the Indian context and requirement.
A possible course of action therefore, is the adoption of a balanced approach. This proposes assertion in the near seas with the help of sea denial systems, while also pursuing sea control strategies in the IOR, especially in the Andaman Sea, which is close to the chokepoint at the Straits of Malacca. Even if limited in scope, this dimension of sea control is essential to safeguard Indian interests.
The centrality of the aircraft carrier to the sea control approach, along with its usefulness for sea denial, makes it a useful addition to the Indian Navy fleet. We will discuss more about aircraft carriers in the next article.
Indian Maritime Doctrine (2009), Naval Strategic Publication 1.1, Indian Navy. Updated online version, 2015, available here.
T. K. Balasubramaniam, & A. K. Murugesan (2020). China’s Rising Missile and Naval Capabilities in the Indo-Pacific Region. Journal of Indo-Pacific Affairs, 98-111. Available here.