#5 Seizing the seas
Can we choose to ignore aircraft carriers? Looking at the alternatives.
This is the third and final of a multi-part series that looks at aircraft carriers and other naval technologies, and discusses what might work for India. In this piece, we focus on the alternatives to aircraft carriers, and whether they would work for India. The first part in this series was a brief primer on maritime strategy, and can be found here. The second part in this series looked at aircraft carriers in particular in the Indian context, and can be found here.
At the outset, we’d like to apologize for the large delay between this part and the previous two parts — to keep things short, let’s say our careers made it tough to think very productively about carriers. And now that we’ve “landed” that pun, we hope you enjoy this article!
In the previous article, we pointed out some of the shortcomings of aircraft carriers, including their large operational and maintenance costs and their vulnerability to the latest advances in weapons technology. To balance the discussion, we now look at the other options available to navies, and how they fare in maintaining maritime power.
Should we eye land on an island?
One popular alternative to building or buying expensive aircraft carriers is to develop and use island bases. Islands have a role to play in forward power projection, though of course, this is tempered by the distance factor — it is tougher to defend more remote islands. Islands can also play a role in helping create perceptions of being hemmed in1.
In comparison to aircraft carriers, islands are immobile, but cheaper and importantly, unsinkable. They also offer better operational endurance since aircraft carriers require regular maintenance and docking.
All these reasons mean that islands often are points of competition for the major players in the Indo-Pacific (viz. China, India, the USA and Japan). This includes islands that are part of these players’ territories, such as the Andaman and Nicobar Islands (ANI) and Lakshadweep for India and Guam and Diego Garcia for the USA, and also the race to gain influence in the various island nations in the region, such as Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Madagascar, and islands in Oceania.
For India, the ANI could serve as a vital point of force projection into the South China Sea and the wider Indo-Pacific. They can help allay concerns of Chinese adventurism in the Bay of Bengal and help control it as a secure space. The Lakshadweep islands could perform a similar function for the Arabian Sea.
However, the ANI and Lakshadweep currently lack the infrastructure to support sustained naval or air operations. Deferring the construction of the INS Vishal and diverting these resources towards the deployment of naval assets in the ANI can help India attain an asymmetric advantage in the region.
The decision to fall back on this alternative is not straightforward though. A school of thought believes that the large scale militarization of the A&N islands would hurt India’s image as a peaceful nation. The endemic nature of a large portion of species on these islands, and the impact of noise and environmental pollution on the ecology also raises concerns.
The islands face a water shortage, and will need desalination plants to meet the needs of the larger population which the presence of a naval base will imply. In edition #2, we have looked at the problems that desalination plants can cause to the environment.
For all their benefits, islands cannot match carriers in their strategic impact. Islands by their very nature are defensive and therefore incapable of projecting power much beyond their shores. Carriers in comparison, also have a demonstrative impact. They are effectively a floating piece of sovereign territory and therefore become a symbol of a nation’s pride and power.
Rime of the Submariner
The Late Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) General Bipin Rawat had favoured the deployment of submarines over the commissioning of India’s third aircraft carrier.
Submarines are arguably cheaper than carriers. Though the manufacturing and procurement costs of a modern submarine are comparable to that of an aircraft carrier, their operative and maintenance costs are much lesser.
Subs with advanced stealth mechanisms are capable of destroying carriers from a greater distance with cruise missiles. They can also increasingly utilize targeting data provided by off-board sensors to improve accuracy. A submarine's stealth enables it to covertly position precision land-attack missiles within range without causing a diplomatic incident. This remains vital in a conflict, sometimes helping avoid incidents altogether. As we mentioned in our previous article, the stealth afforded by modern submarines means that they can possibly get past aircraft carrier defences in the event of escalation to conflict.
However, India’s submarine fleet stands depleted. We have 17 functional submarines of which 13 are between 19 and 33 years old and nearing retirement. India’s submarine strategy now is less warship and more worship.
Efforts to refresh the submarine armada have also suffered from stalled decision making and procedural delays. In 2005, India signed a contract for building six French Scorpene Class submarines under license from Mazgaon Docks Limited. The sixth and last submarine was launched in April 2022, a full 17 years after signing of the contract.
India is looking to the Rs 43,000 crore Project 75-I to renew its fleet. This programme envisions building six conventional - that is, non nuclear - submarines featuring fuel cell Air Independent Propulsion (AIP) technology. Based on electrolytic fuel cells, this technology produces energy by combining hydrogen and oxygen with only water as the waste product. It has no moving parts and is safer and more efficient than others.
AIP allows a conventional submarine to remain submerged for much longer than diesel-electric submarines — for more than a fortnight, versus two to three days for diesel-electrics. This vastly reduces their chances of being detected.
Hopes of timely completion are sinking however with foreign firms pulling out of the project. Recently French company Naval Group pulled out of the bidding process, following their Russian and German counterparts.
These delays are leading to a demonstrable impact on India’s sub manufacturing capabilities. MDL, having launched the last of the Scorpenes, will start running down its state-of-the-art submarine-building facility, losing expertise and highly-skilled workers. The timely follow on of Project 75 with Project 75-I as initially envisioned would have helped avoid this.
Despite the issues surrounding it, the Indian submarine plan is a statement of intent. The Defence Ministry also plans to invite request for proposals for joint development and building of six nuclear powered submarines under the Atmanirbhar Bharat programme. Note that nuclear powered submarines have their complications when it comes to safe disposal of waste (we highlighted a similar concern for nuclear powered aircraft carriers in #4). Against this backdrop, the development of indigenous AIP technology by the DRDO is encouraging.
Plan C? Planes at sea!
Shore based aircrafts, particularly fighter jets have been a priority for India. The recent procurement of 36 Rafales, which are twin engine, multirole fighter jets, demonstrates this.
However, aircraft are unlikely to substitute carriers since shore based aircrafts have a limited range. In fact, they complement each other. Boeing plans to demonstrate its Super Hornet aircrafts to the Indian navy as a potential part of the air wings of Vikrant and Vikramaditya. The advantages of such a configuration have already been highlighted in edition #4.
Teaming up
India is a part of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) — a grouping consisting of the USA, India, Japan and Australia that aims to broaden collaborations on a wide range of issues including maintaining influence in the Indo-Pacific.
There are various other groupings in the works, such as a trilateral involving India, France and Australia, and the AUKUS grouping of Australia, the United Kingdon and the USA.
The creation of such ‘coalitions of the willing’ allows like-minded countries to avoid force duplication and explore complementarities. Advantages also include improved logistics mechanisms and coordinated defence strategies.
Of course, such endeavours cannot substitute for the development of our own fleet and technologies, not least because situations can always change in the future. However, they do provide flexibility for us to focus our limited resources and capacity towards the areas that most need our attention.
We have described some of the alternatives to aircraft carriers in this piece. There are still others that we have not expounded on, such as missile technology and mines. There are cases to be made for each of these options, and the naval fleet needs to be modern and diverse enough to meet whatever threat might arise.
At the same time, the aircraft carrier seems to provide the necessary hard projection power in the Indian Ocean Region the Indian Navy desires, without the overt hostility of the patrols and use of modern attack submarines. The versatility of carriers for use in peace time further adds support to the case for their development and deployment.