Non-traditional security threats have assumed menacing proportions, warns former Vice-Admiral Bangera

"We only spare half our time for combat; the rest is spent in Delhi, fighting the government!"Thus spake Vice-Admiral (Retd.) S.C.S. Bangera at the last meeting

India does not have the tradition of bringing out white papers even on subjects that concern the country as a whole. On the contrary, secrecy appears to be the watchword. Therefore, is it safe to assume that in most key matters the approach adopted by the powers that be is one of trial and error?

Not really; for, if one looks behind the so-called armour of secrecy, one will find that there are, indeed, people who labour along, bringing out what are called study papers, approach papers, plan papers, or even strategy papers, which ensure that the possibility of major blunders is minimised.

One such key "strategist" was at the Club last week, throwing light on India's "maritime strategy", describing how it was put together, the areas that it covered and how it had met with far more than the proverbial modicum of success.

Vice-Admiral (Retired) S.C.S. Bangera, who was speaking on "India's Maritime Strategy", clarified at the outset that because of the lack of white papers, many officers of the Indian Navy had to spend more than half their time in Delhi, where they had to engage in budgeting, planning and helping develop the navy over the next few decades.

Did this mean that they were not prepared for combat at short notice,

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as all personnel of the armed forces ought to be? This was how Vice- Admiral Bangera answered the unasked question: "It's only the other half (of our time) that we spend fighting. The combat part is simpler. Fighting the government of India is much more difficult. We spend a lot of time there!"

On a more serious note, he said, the Indian Navy believed that it was only a small component of the country's maritime activity which encompassed all those people and/or organisations that dealt with the sea, such as offshore exploration, fishing, mining, ports, harbours and so on.

Vice-Admiral Bangera, a highlyqualified officer, spent four decades in the executive branch of the Indian Navy. He was trained at the Missile and Gunnery Warfare School, Vladivostok, in the former Soviet Union; the Royal Naval College, Greenwich, London; and the National Defence College, New Delhi. He also completed a special course on national and international security at Harvard University.

During a career in which he commanded a number of warships, a large flotilla, a premier military academy and various Directorates at Naval Headquarters, he rose to the rank of Vice-Admiral and was the Flag Officer Commanding in Chief of the Southern Naval command when he retired in July, 2006.

He took active part in the historic attack on Karachi Harbour during the 1971 Indo-Pak war. Interestingly, he was posted as the Indian Naval attaché at Islamabad from 1985 to 1988. Awarded the Ati Vishishta Seva Medal in 1990, he received the Param Vishishta Seva Medal in 2004 for distinguished services of the most exceptional order.

Expanding his theme "India's maritime strategy", Vice-Admiral Bangera started with the elements that constituted a country's "strategic environment".

First, the end of the cold war, which also meant the end of predictable security threats. This led to a relative decline of the nation-state and the emergence of sub- and super-nation states within the nation who had a bigger say in what happened and where.

This was quickly followed by the phenomenon of globalisation which resulted in a relative surge in economic interest. So much so, that now every decision was based on the economic needs of a country. "I think we have finally come of age on that (point)."

At the same time, there was a rise in ethno-nationalism, a clash of civilizations, with an asymmetric strategy and accompanied by a major problem, trans-national terrorism. Together, these posed what were called non-traditional security threats which had assumed menacing proportions.

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"This, in fact, takes away most of your time, whether you are from the US maritime forces or the navy, or from any other force. The security threats of the non-traditional variety have started dictating terms.

"We have a changed security environment. We can.t any more talk about long-drawn-out wars and (as for) our traditional rivals across the border. we have to look far beyond.

"There are new international alignments and opportunities; for India, this is a great opportunity. the shift has taken place from land-centric operations to the sea. This is because the sea is open and a lot of activities, whether piracy, smuggling or human trafficking, is taking place at sea. Exploitation of the sea has become very important."

Turning to another critical aspect of strategic planning, Vice-Admiral Bangera referred to "stunning" global demographic trends, with special reference to the populations of key countries like Japan, China, India, Russia and the USA .

He said since the population of Russia was not growing at a sufficient pace, the country would have the same number of people as Yemen by the year 2030. The point to note was that Russia had one-sixth of the world.s land and hence a high percentage of the world.s oil and gas reserves. There would most likely be migration from adjoining China.

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In the USA, the Hispanic nonwhite population would far exceed the white population. In Europe, Europeans would not remain a majority in many countries. Germany would barely have enough people to work.

Keeping all these factors in mind, India would be sitting pretty and looking at opportunities; the Indian population, specially qualified Indians, would play a major role.

Harking back to the relevance of maritime forces, Vice-Admiral Bangera said the unhindered mobility of a country's maritime forces could give it a great advantage.

Since international laws applied only till a distance of 12 miles outside a country's land, it was easy to anchor a vessel just 12 miles out at sea to give either a threat, or to act as a measure of reassurance.

"If a US naval ship comes and parks 12 miles outside Bombay, there is nothing you can do by international law. You have the freedom of navigation there. That's a great advantage. It's very versatile and flexible, too. You can be there now and gone tomorrow. And of course it's a very powerful tool to protect national interest."

This led Vice-Admiral Bangera to touch upon the principles that went into formulating a country's maritime strategy. Any such strategy had to have at its core a military role, a diplomatic role, a constabulary role, as well as a benign role.

The military role was straightforward . deterrence, whether conventional or strategic nuclear. India's nuclear doctrine was now "open source" and made it clear that the country would have a triad; in other words, the capability of firing from the sea as well (apart from land and from the air).

But a far more important issue was one of raising the cost of intervention for extra-regional powers, no matter how powerful, to such an extent that they would not be able to afford the cost of picking a fight with India.

Allied to this was the need for securing the coastline, so that the mercantile marine was totally safeguarded. Energy security was another key issue, because a lot of India.s oil (energy) requirements came in through the sea.

Those who worked on India.s maritime strategy had identified certain "choke points", such as the Straits of Hormuz, the Suez Canal, the Malacca Straits and so on which, if "choked", could dictate the course of events in India.

"The large amount of shipping that passes through the choke points everysingle day has a tremendous bearing on what India can do or cannot do.

"And therefore, instead of talking about our coastline as we used to in the ' fifties and 'sixties, we now look at this area as the focus of maritime activity. In fact, India has already registered a claim for undersea mining in the South Indian Ocean."

What about the diplomatic role? Vice-Admiral Bangera recalled that it was de rigueur in the .fifties and' sixties to talk about the Indian Navy not conducting joint exercises with the navies of certain countries. But the times had changed. Sadly, such demands were again being heard today, especially from"those who are not part of the government but" friendly with the government."

All navies had a key diplomatic role to play, viz., of developing partnerships and gaining one another's confidence in order to meet the contingencies of smaller countries needing help. As also the peace-keeping operations mandated by the UN.

"This is critically important; we need to have inter-operability with multi-national forces, because they have all realised that they cannot achieve anything on their own. They need a multi-lateral force and cannot go and operate immediately unless they have done that in peace time."

Moving on to the constabulary role, Vice-Admiral Bangera said it involved tackling the growing menace of human trafficking and anti-terrorism and anti-piracy operations. Ultimately, it boiled down to maintaining good order at sea.

India had the unique distinction of having netted the only captured pirate ship, even though piracy was common in the South East Asian area. The pirate ship India captured was the Japanese "Allendre Rainbow" which was nabbed on the West coast of India. No other country had captured a pirated vessel which had changed its flag and was involved in many illegal activities.

Finally, the benign role; this involved humanitarian assistance and disaster relief. When the tsunami struck in December, 2004, there was devastation in India.s neighbourhood. Early on the following morning, India.s ships had berthed at Galle Harbour, Colombo, and the devastated Sri Lankans saw Indian naval ships the first thing when they woke up in the morning; these were loaded with assistance, food and other requirements.

Within 48 hours, Indian ships were also giving assistance to countries like Indonesia. All this was owing to the fact that such activities were built into the maritime strategy formulated in Delhi.

Other benign activities were: noncombat evacuations, hydrography, diving assistance and training. India was now training naval personnel in more than 20 countries, including Singapore.

Going back to the formulation of the country.s maritime strategy, Vice- Admiral Bangera said that the national interest was defined first and placed at the top of the heap.

However, although the "national interest" was not clearly defined in writing, articles on the subject appeared periodically and from these were derived the national security objectives. Then, taking into account the global and national environments, a national security policy was formulated.

From this emerged the "grand strategy of maritime domain." This did not touch the navy alone but the entire maritime activity. The military aspect, to take care of the naval, land and air strategy, was then added to the grand maritime domain strategy..This is how the whole vision is formulated. We have come of age now, having held the hands of the British in the'fifties; now, we are operating with a number of countries and so we are able to follow what a democratic set-up is required to do.

"And this is the relationship between policy, doctrine and strategy: A policy is formulated, which becomes a doctrine; this is issued in writing and what flows from there is a strategy. The results are gauged by all the operations we undertake. This feedback reinforces or changes the doctrine. This is what happens in Delhi."

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The Indian Navy played a key role in the Maldives in 1988 when it faced a coup. An Indian naval ship was preferred over an American ship that was in the vicinity because the Americans said, "This is your backyard, handle it yourself.'

Similarly, the Indian Navy had been providing seaward security for major political meetings in Africa. Further, it was the first to evacuate its nationals when war broke out in Lebanon (even before the French, British and Americans reached Beirut).

Finally, Vice-Admiral Bangera recalled the words of the late Mr. Laxman Kadirgamar, assassinated Foreign Minister of Sri Lanka, who made the following statement:

"The mapping of the bed of the Colombo Harbour was completed so swiftly and efficiently by the Indian Navy; (this) is yet another manifestation of the enormous goodwill that the government of India bears towards the government and the people of Sri Lanka. This exercise shows that the modern Indian Navy has the reach and the capacity to be ranked among the foremost navies of the world."

Vice-Admiral Bangera revealed that Colombo harbour was completely written off and no ship could enter or leave it; the mapping of its bed was done by the Indian Navy.s hydrographers in less a week.

Answering questions, Vice-Admiral Bangera told PDG Manibhai Doshi that it was incorrect to say that the air arm of the Indian Navy was neglected or underdeveloped.

In fact, no country on this side of the Suez had as large a fleet air arm as did India.

The navy had grand plans for its fleet air arm, but usually faced budgetary constraints. Despite this handicap, "I think we have done fabulously well."

When PP Arun Sanghi asked the speaker to rank the Indian Navy, he said it was the fifth largest in the world.

Even though he called it a "lean force" (the navy had 60,000 personnel, versus 100,000 in the air force and 1.10 million in the army), Vice-Admiral Bangera said it had a large number of ships - over 140 - as also aircraft carriers, submarines and so on. But size was not important; what mattered was ability and efficiency.

Sitaram Shah asked the speaker to throw more light on his theory of India.s demographic advantage vis-à-vis the rest of the world; as also the bid to explore the Antarctic despite looming poverty in the country.

Vice-Admiral Bangera emphasised that over the next 30 to 40 years India would have the youngest working population in the world. (It was crucial to educate them well so that they could seize both the opportunities and the challenges that lay ahead.)

As against this, Japan had a very low birth rate and was the only country in the world that did not admit immigrants to make up for the loss of its workforce. In fact, the Japanese were closing down schools at the rate of 200 schools a year because there were no children to attend these schools.

Over the next 30 years or so, the average age of Japan would be close to 70."What sort of production can be expected with an ageing population? They haven.t solved this problem yet."

In India, on the other hand, where the population explosion used to be called a "curse", it could turn out to be a great asset - "if we can take this opportunity and convert it."

Properly educated and trained, there would be no country in the world that would be able to reach up to the standards that Indians could achieve. The whole world would depend on India and Indians. This was the opportunity that he had referred to.

Turning to the need for exploration in the Antarctic, he said although India had bullock carts on its roads, it also had its own space vehicles.

"Those with vision have said, let's aim for everything simultaneously. Therefore, our claim in the Antarctica or our deep-sea mining, were all made so that you can create the capability the minute you make the claim. Slowly, something will happen, though we are very slow like a big elephant. But still something is moving. Surely we have come a long way after the ' nineties? That's the reason why we are looking well ahead."

The next question was, why had India fared poorly in the area of civilian use of water resources for merchant shipping, civilian movement of people and so on?

For this the speaker blamed the surfeit of Ministries handling various functions, the bureaucracy and red tape. In view of all these, and worried that there would be no vision plan for the country as a whole, the Indian Navy had recommended a maritime commission.

The Fifth Pay Commission had even given its approval. But. the maritime commission was yet to take shape because of inter-Ministerial rivalries in Delhi. "This is part of democracy. We have to lump it and wait for them to get their act together."

"But one day, I have no doubt, we will have a commission and it will have a holistic view of the developments and say that this is the way India should go in the maritime sphere (and not just the navy). I am sure people like you will talk about it and influence decision makers in Delhi."

Burjor Poonawala inquired about the delay in acquiring an aircraft carrier from Russia (even though an agreement had already been signed) and the reason why ships were suddenly decommissioned without warning.

Vice-Admiral Bangera said the navy had a commissioning and decommissioning programme with a time frame of 15 to 20 years. Therefore, the navy knew exactly which ship was going out of service and when. If the country's ship-building capability could match the navy's growth pattern, there would be no problem.

But the fact was that of the shipbuilding units, Mazagon Docks had space limitations; Garden Reach had a labour problem; Cochin was coming up; but HSL at Vizag was full of labour problems.

If all this was changed, if Mazagon Docks could find another place with deeper waters to build ships, then it would be able to meet the demands of the navy.

As for the sudden decommissioning of ships as referred to by Burjor, the speaker clarified that no decommissioning was done overnight. Decommissioning activity usually started two years before the ship was finally cleared out.

Vice-Admiral Bangera said the contract for buying the aircraft carrier "Admiral Gorhskov" from Russia was signed in 2004 and its modernisation was likely to take three to four years.

He had learnt that there were some problems, but he did not have any inside information on the same. But India was building its own aircraft carrier, a process that normally took up to ten years.

Nanu Daruvala asked, point blank, why were the labour problems at ship-building yards not tackled with an iron hand? After all, they were delaying defence requirements.

A smiling Vice-Admiral Bangera said, .for the answer, look North. (a reference to the government and the powers that be in New Delhi).

Even the private sector was demanding reforms in the labour laws... "but it's just not happening at the moment." This was clearly a consequence of politicians belonging to differing ideologies occupying significant positions of power who were blocking reform.

"This is one of the issues that will pull us down a bit, in comparison to China. In China, you don.t have to ask anybody, you just implement it the next morning and get on with it. (Of course) this has got its downside as well. We have got to take care of a number of other issues which are beyond our purview. Finally, it comes back to you - make sure that you elect the right people to go up there,"Vice-Admiral Bangera concluded.

Earlier, Dev Thukral introduced the guest speaker, while the vote of thanks was proposed by Nandan Damani.