Asia-Pacific

India as the Pivotal Power of the 21st Century Security Order

1 Comment

India’s Role in the Asia-Pacific Topic Week

By MAJ Chad M. Pillai

“As the United States and China become great power rivals, the direction in which India tilts could determine the course of geopolitics in Eurasia in the twenty-first century.  India, in other words, looms as the ultimate pivot state.”

Robert D. Kaplan (The Revenge of Geography)

I remember reading these words several years ago and thinking back to my trip to India in 1998 at the height of the nuclear testing crisis by India and Pakistan.  During that trip, I took the opportunity to interview several Indian scholars on India’s ascent as a nuclear power and its implications.  Those interviews produce two key themes:  (1) India’s nuclear weapons program was designed as a deterrent to China, not Pakistan as many claimed, since China went nuclear in the 1950s and fought a border war with India in 1962; and (2) a disbelief of U.S. relations with an Islamic military dictatorship in Pakistan and Communist China at the expense of the world’s largest democracy.[1]  In order to accept these two observations, especially if India becomes the strategic pivot nation, the U.S. must acknowledge India’s relationship with, as Seth Cropsey described in his New American Grand Strategy article, the triple hegemonic threats in the Eurasian landmass: Iran, Russia, and China.

India and Iran’s relationship dates thousands of years from when the ancient Persian Empires and Indian Empires ruled the territories from Mesopotamia to the tip of India – occasional rivals during the period of the Indian Mughal (Sunni) Empire. Modern day Afghanistan served as the buffer zone and trade route between these two civilizations.  During the period of the of Colonial British-Russian Rivalry (The Great Game), the landmass between the Persians and British India served as a strategic buffer, and later provided the foundation for India’s relationship with Russia after “The Partition of 1947” that split India and Pakistan.[2]

1814 map of Central Asia, where great power competition between Russia and the British became known as The Great Game.
1814 map of Central Asia, where great power competition between Russia and the British became known as The Great Game.Source: Wikipedia.

India’s relationship with Russia dates to the Cold War after it gained independence from the United Kingdom. Initially, India was a champion of the “Non-Aligned Movement” seeking not to get entangled between the two superpowers. The decline in U.S.-Indian relations during the Johnson administration pushed India into the Soviet sphere due to differences regarding the Vietnam War, India’s stance on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), Indo-Pakistani tensions, and economic underperformance. The U.S. military relationship with Pakistan further alienated India which required India to invest heavily in Soviet armaments. India’s and Russia’s relationship has continued despite the end of the Cold War, primarily in foreign military sales and development (ex. Co-Russian and Indian joint Stealth Fighter venture). 

The BrahMos supersonic cruise missile, a product of a joint venture between Indian and Russian defense firms. Source: Wikipedia.
The BrahMos supersonic cruise missile, a product of a joint venture between Indian and Russian defense firms. Source: Wikipedia.

India has expanded military relations with the United States as it sees China as a growing security challenge. Additionally, Indians prefer their cultural (Bollywood and Hollywood) and linguistic (large Indian English speaking population) similarities to the United States.[3] In fact, C. Raja Mohan wrote a statement in his book Crossing the Rubicon by then External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh issued ahead of President Clinton’s visit of ‘five wasted decades’ and his “reflection on the fact that the world’s two great democracies found it impossible to engage in any substantive cooperation-either economic or political in the country’s first  fifty years.” 

As the two most populous nations on earth, the unique and recent strategic rivalry between India and China, as Robert Kaplan stated, has no history behind it.  They are two ancient civilizations separated by the Himalayan Mountain range that traded, passed religious and cultural knowledge back and forth in the peripheral zones (Afghan region of the Silk and Spice Route and South East Asia where we see a mixed Indian-Chinese influence among populations, linguistics, and cuisine), but have no known history of major warfare between the two save for brief conflict in 1962.  What is driving the emerging competition between India and China is their re-emergence on top of the global economy. As Robyn Meredith states in her book The Elephant and the Dragon: The Rise of India and China and What it Means for All of Us that “after a centurylong hiatus, India and China are moving back toward their historic equilibrium in the global economy, and that this is producing tectonic shifts in economics as well as in geopolitics.” It is projected that India’s population will exceed China’s and both will continue to modernize and create ever greater demand for consumer goods to meet the needs and desires of their vast populations. As a result, the Achilles Heel and source of emerging friction is the need to secure access to energy from Central Asia, the Middle East, and Africa to fuel their economic growth. 

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), “China is the world’s second-largest consumer of oil and moved from second-largest net importer of oil to the largest in 2014.”  Meanwhile, “India was the fourth-largest consumer of crude oil and petroleum products in the world in 2013, after the United States, China, and Japan. The country depends heavily on imported crude oil, mostly from the Middle East.” While much has been written of China’s activities in Africa to secure energy and mineral rights, less has been shared about India’s competition, though less successful, in the same arena. A significant lag in its competitiveness is China’s reliance on state-owned enterprises that offer better terms due to government guarantee vs. India’s reliance on its private sector and smaller state owned enterprises.  Despite this, India has also been working with Central Asian States and Iran to develop the proposed Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline and the Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) pipeline with recent Indian investment ventures in Iranian oil and gas fields in the range of $20 billion. To offset the competition for energy, both countries have invested heavily in renewable energy resources such as wind and solar.

India’s strategic geography provides it a long-term competitive advantage over China due to its position between the world’s key energy chokepoints.  According to the IEA World Oil Transit Chokepoints Report, “world chokepoints for maritime transit of oil are a critical part of global energy security. About 63% of the world’s oil production moves on maritime routes. The Strait of Hormuz and the Strait of Malacca are the world’s most important strategic chokepoints by volume of oil transit.”  India’s strategic relationship with Iran and South East Asian nations such as Malaysia and Indonesia, along with its control of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, place it in a formidable position to disrupt China’s access to its energy markets in the Middle East and Africa. China has been trying to offset its ‘Malacca Dilemma” by establishing economic-security ventures known as its “String of Pearls” to include expanded ventures with Pakistan, Burma, and Sri Lanka. 

shipmap_image
India’s geography provides it excellent positioning to influence critical sea lines of communication. Source: Shipmap.org.

The ‘Malacca Dilemma’ and ‘String of Pearls” will drive each nation to invest in their missile arsenal (nuclear and non-nuclear), naval power, and airpower.  According to the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) Military Balance 2016, China accounts for 41% and India for 13.5% of all defense spending in Asia. Further comparisons between the two show China spent $145 Billion (US Dollars) vs. India’s $47 Billion (US Dollars) in 2015.  Analyzing their naval power, China has the edge in numbers with more submarines (61 = 4 SSBNs and 57 SSNs), more combatant ships (74 including one carrier), and mine warfare (49).  India currently fields a navy with 14 submarines, 28 combatant (two carriers to China’s one), and 6 mine warfare ships.  However, its ability to influence the Strait of Malacca provides India the competitive advantage, especially if its efforts are combined with U.S., Australian, Japanese, and coalition nations to offset China’s numerical superiority.  Additionally, China will face its own A2/AD threat environment in the India Ocean as India expands its medium and long range missiles.

As the United States increasingly faces challenges to its global power by Iran, Russia, and China, its relationship with India will grow in strategic importance.  While India may never become a true ally of the U.S. due to its strategic relations with the other three powers, its role as a strategic pivot or fulcrum can provide a source of stability and balance.  Its democratic and cultural values align it with the United States and the West, but geography and history place India squarely within the context of its Eurasian neighbors. 

MAJ Chad M. Pillai is a U.S. Army Strategist.  He has published articles and blogs in Military Review, Small Wars Journal, Infinity Journal, The Strategy Bridge, Offizier, War on the Rocks, and CIMSEC.  He received his Masters in International Public Policy from the Johns Hopkins University School for Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in 2009.  This article was influenced by his Asian Energy Security and South Asian International Relations courses at SAIS. 

[1] In 1998, I took a trip to India for my adopted father’s mother’s death that coincided with the nuclear testing.  As a result, I proposed an extra credit project for my ROTC instructor to study the security implications and worked on it further during my internship at the Department of State that summer semester. 

[2] The strategic implications of the 1947 Partition continue in today’s conflict in Afghanistan as Pakistan views India’s relationship with the Afghan Government with suspicion and fears Indian encirclement if it loses its strategic maneuver space among the Afghan Pashtu regions.  Recommend “The Great Defile” by Diana Preston to learn more of the British Indian (manned primarily by Punjabis – Modern Pakistanis) Army’s misadventures during the Afghan Wars of 1838-1842.

[3] Indians prefer to study in the United States and migrate.  One current state governor and one former state governor are of Indian descent.

Featured Image: Prime Minister Modi speaks from the Red Fort in New Delhi on India’s 69th Independence Day in 2015.

Asia-Pacific

India’s Role in the Asia-Pacific Topic Week Kicks off on CIMSEC

Leave a comment

By Dmitry Filipoff

This week CIMSEC is running a topic week on India’s Role in the Asia-Pacific. Authors responded to our Call for Articles with publications featuring in-depth analysis on Indian strategic thinking, Chinese and Indian counterbalancing power plays, and factors driving India’s rise as a regional titan. We thank our contributors for their quality contributions.

Below is a list of articles featuring during the topic week. It will be updated as the topic week rolls out and as additional publications are finalized.

India as the Pivotal Power of the 21st Century Security Order by MAJ Chad Pillai
How The Indian Ocean Remains Central to India’s Emerging Aspirations by Vidya Sagar Reddy
India-China Competition Across the Indo-Pacific by David Scott
Sino-India Strategic Rivalry: Misperception or Reality by Ching Chang
Diluting the Concentration of Regional Power Players in Maldives by MAJ Ahmed Mujuthaba
Strategic Maritime Balancing in Sino-Indian Foreign Policy by Ryan Kuhns
India in the Asia-Pacific: Roles as a ‘Balancer’ and Net Security Provider by Ajaya Kumar Das
Modi’s Asia-Pacific Push by Vivek Mishra
Understanding Sino-Indian Relations – A Theoretical Perspective by Byron Chong
India as a Net Security-Provider in the Indian Ocean and Beyond by VADM Pradeep Chauhan (ret)

Dmitry Filipoff is CIMSEC’s Director of Online Content. Reach the CIMSEC editorial team at Nextwar@cimsec.org.

Sea Control: Asia-Pacific (ASPI)

Sea Control 116 – Indonesia, A History of Violence and Horror Fiction

1 Comment

983650568_bfdf96be73_zIn this week’s episode of Sea Control: Asia Pacific, Natalie Sambhi chats with Nadia Bulkin, a Senior Associate at The Asia Group, on Indonesia’s history of violence, its turn towards democratic nationalism and what that means for the country today. They delve into legacies and policy implications of military rule and colonialism. Natalie and Nadia also discuss the recent confrontation between Indonesian and Chinese coast guards in the South China Sea. Lastly, they explore Nadia’s passion for writing ‘socio-political horror’ fiction and what literature and film can teach us about understanding Indonesia’s psychology.

DOWNLOAD: CIMSEC Bulkin Indonesia

Nadia Bulkin is a Senior Associate at The Asia Group where she is the defense industrial team lead. Nadia holds an M.A. in International Affairs from American University’s School of International Service and graduated summa cum laude from Barnard College with a B.A. in Political Science and a double-minor in Economics and Environmental Science. She is fluent in Indonesian. Read her fiction writing here.

Image courtesy of Flickr user Chez Julius Livre 1.

Capability Analysis

The National Shipbuilding Procurement Strategy: An Assessment

Leave a comment

This article originally featured on the Conference for Defense Associations Institute. It may be read in its original form here. 

CDA Institute guest contributor Tom Ring, a Senior Fellow at uOttawa’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, comments on some of the challenges facing the National Shipbuilding Procurement Strategy.

With some observers and pundits clamouring for the National Shipbuilding Procurement Strategy to be completely scrapped, we should take the time to examine where we are and indeed whether the program is failing to meet its objectives. In a detailed analysis recently published by the Canadian Global Affairs Institute, the conclusion reached tells a very different story. This blog post provides a short summary of the issues that I explored more fully in the above paper, and concludes with identification of some of the very real challenges involved in implementing such a complex undertaking.

In 2006, the federal Government made a bold strategic decision – it would use the renewal of the Navy and Coast Guard fleets to rebuild Canada’s shipbuilding industry. The concept became the National Shipbuilding Procurement Strategy (NSPS). The economic benefits of this construction would accrue not only to the shipyards which eventually won the bidding process. Ancillary benefits would also be received by the hundreds and thousands of suppliers in this decades-long, multibillion dollar commitment.

Rather than the well-trodden practice of shipyards bidding on a project-by-project basis, they would bid on the entire package, one for the combat package, the other for the non-combat package. There would be two winners among Canada’s five shipyards capable of doing this work, meaning that there would be three losers. This was not how shipbuilding procurement had ever been done.

Much has been written recently about the NSPS, not all of which has been favourable. To be sure, any initiative that has the goals and ambitions of the NSPS will be (and ought to be) subject to considerable scrutiny. Healthy public debate on matters of important public policy is vital to democracy. Differing points of view and outright opposition should be a welcome part of a debate on an issue as important as the NSPS. Let me briefly outline the original goals of NSPS and assess where we are in achieving them.

Goal 1 – Rebuild the Federal Vessels in Canada: This is currently being accomplished. While it has been suggested that the ships can be built cheaper elsewhere, no evidence has ever been provided to substantiate this assertion.

Goal 2 – Revitalize the Shipbuilding Industry in Canada: This has been accomplished and the resulting job creation and associated economic benefits are being felt across Canada and will continue to be for some time to come.

Goal 3 – Build The Federal Vessels in a Manner that Maximizes Value for Taxpayers and Fosters Economies of Scale: This goal is perhaps one of the more contentious elements of NSPS, in so far as it implies acceptance by the Government of a “premium” for building vessels in Canada. There is likely no counter argument to the fact that shipyards in Canada cannot match the low labour rates charged by shipyards in Asia. However, for most Canadians, it is also likely a common sense proposition that if we need to invest $30–50 billion to rebuild the Navy and the Coast Guard we should do so in Canada – as long as we do it in such a way as to maximize productivity and efficiency. This is why Canada engaged First Marine International (FMI), the recognized world leader in assessing shipbuilding processes. Measuring over 183 different processes, FMI established efficiency and productivity standards for the winning shipyards, based on leading practices world-wide. Any contract to be subsequently awarded is conditional on these standards being maintained. We are only able to assess achievement of this goal after the two shipyards achieve their “target state” as established by FMI, and subsequently verified by them as required by the Umbrella Agreement (UA). If one assumes that target state will be reached, then FMI has stated that the facilities will be a significant national strategic asset. The resulting economic impact for Canada in the long-term will not be only jobs created, but careers created that will last for decades.

Goal 4 – Establish a Long Term Strategic Relationship with Two Shipyards: The elements of this arrangement are set out in the two partnership agreements called Umbrella Agreements, and include all of the provisions needed to permit value for money assessments, open book accounting, risk sharing, cost/capability trade-offs, etc.

Goal 5 – Realization of the Shipyards Commitments on ITB’s and Value Proposition: The achievement of this goal will require continuous assessment but there is no evidence to date that this will not happen.

There are, nonetheless, some very real and problematic challenges to be addressed and, to date, real solutions have not yet been identified. The first of these is the acknowledged inadequacies of the project budgets. The second is the ongoing challenge of program management for a multi-billion dollar endeavour. Neither is new nor unexpected.

The risk that intended capabilities might not be achieved within the established project budgets was identified by officials involved in implementing NSPS even before the shipyard selection process began. Officials with the Department of National Defence (DND) and Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) and well as at Public Works and Government Services Canada (now renamed Public Services and Procurement Canada) knew that most of the project budgets had been developed many years earlier and needed updating to reflect cost escalation, technology improvements, and new capability requirements. However, given the delays incurred due to the failed vessel procurement processes, and having nothing better to inform the new budget numbers before design work was well underway, it was decided to proceed with the overall program of work knowing that budgets would have to be re-visited at the design stage in any event.

In his 2013 assessment of the NSPS, the Auditor General noted that inadequate project budgets could constrain the achievement of required capabilities. No specific action was taken to address the observation. Cost estimation on projects that will be realized many years in the future is an imprecise undertaking, to say the least. Of course, every effort is made to account for inflation, currency fluctuations, and other known variables. Nevertheless, some factors cannot be fully accounted for. Innovation, advances in technology, and adjusted requirements due to new threats and changing circumstances will always have an unknown impact on a project that will only be realized in 10 years.

Still, the recent Australian Defence white paper estimated the cost of nine future frigates, to be built in the 2020 timeframe, at more than AUS$30 billion. And this number is for design and construction only, and does not include costs for weapon systems, or project management costs etc. Of course, there is no way of knowing whether Canada’s future naval vessels will be similar but the broad range of numbers provided by the Australian government should be instructive to those who are making similar estimations in Canada.

The second issue is the ongoing management of the program. This is also a critical shortcoming. If not addressed adequately, it will continue to hamper the achievement of the overarching goals and objectives of NSPS. Much like the issue of inadequate project budgets, the ongoing management of NSPS implementation was identified as a significant vulnerability in the fall of 2011, shortly after the selection process was completed. The challenge identified at the time was how to ensure that the entire implementation of NSPS was managed as one program and not a series of related projects. PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) was engaged in late 2011 to conduct a review and make recommendations on the “most appropriate governance and operating model to manage the Umbrella Agreements and long term sourcing relationships that have been created by the NSPS process.” PwC’s recommendations were never fully implemented.

The major criticisms of the NSPS are well known. The various vessel construction projects are over budget and have yet to be delivered. (It should be noted that construction is well underway on vessels in both packages, and construction on the second vessel in the non-combat package began on March 29th at Seaspan in Vancouver.) Has the Government maintained sufficient control/authority in the UA for its partnership arrangement with the shipyards? Does the UA sufficiently protect the Crown’s interests? Whether such concerns are real or could now be mitigated if they are real, is a question that deserves to be continually examined given the size, scope, and complexity of the program to re-build the federal fleets. In order to contribute to the public debate, I will more fully explore the nature of the challenges outlined above and discuss options for dealing with them in a policy brief in the coming weeks.

Tom Ring is a Senior Fellow at the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa. He retired from the Public Service in January 2015 following a 39 year career, the last five of which were as the Assistant Deputy Minister of the Acquisitions Branch at Public Works and Government Services Canada. In that role he was responsible for the implementation of the selection process for the National Shipbuilding Procurement Strategy. (Image courtesy of The Canadian Press/Andrew Vaughan.)

Fostering the Discussion on Securing the Seas.