EDITORIAL BUSINESS AND POLITICS OF ARMING INDIA APRIL 2021 Complicated Partnership India faces a tough choice in finalising its future submarines fleet APRIL 2021 1 BUSINESS AND POLITICS OF ARMING INDIA Sample Market Reports For Commissioning Reports and for Pricing, Contact Us: IndoStrat Enterprises Phone: +91 9871050869 Email: [email protected] EDITORIAL Dear Reader, n the ‘blow hot-blow cold’ relations between India and Pakistan, unpredictability leaves one gasping I for breath. This unpredictability was on full display late last month, just when it appeared there is absolutely no possibility of any kind of engagement, the neighbours have pulled a surprise. When none expected it, the armies of the two nations issued a joint statement reiterating their commitment to the 2003 ceasefire agreement along the Line of Control between the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir and Pakistan-occupied J&K. The real motivations or reasons behind the ceasefire is less important than the opportunity it offers to both the countries, especially Pakistan, to step back from the unsustainable, unachievable, and unrealistic wish-list it had put forward for re-engaging with India. The maximalist stand taken by Pakistan has always remained a diplomatic dead-end, and the ceasefire offers it a way out. If anything, it is yet again an opportunity for Pakistan to revisit and reverse its policies vis-a-vis India — State-sponsored terror, fanning Kashmir insurgency, and a host of other issues. Pakistan has extremely limited options and even these are lost to it because of the strident policy, posturing, and grandstanding it does against India. In the process, Pakistan harms itself more than it harms India. Over the last seven decades, Pakistan has tried various options, and come a cropper. Most of those options are no longer available. Even those which might still be available yield diminishing returns. Pakistan has tried open wars in the past. Not only did that option fail spectacularly, but it also damaged Pakistan so badly that it never recovered from those setbacks. For instance, the 1965 war ended the economic boom and since that fateful war, Pakistan’s economy has steadily lost steam, and is today the sick man of South Asia. The 1971 war ended up leaving a rump Pakistan. The 1999 Kargil conflict, although a limited war, destroyed Pakistan’s image and credibility completely. Pakistan is seen as a dangerous and an adventurous country that was not only using terrorists as strategic assets but also taking the region to the brink of nuclear catastrophe. Since then, war, even a limited one, is no option at all, certainly not in a nuclearised environment. Plus, even if a war does not turn nuclear, it entails costs that will completely devastate Pakistan’s already ailing economy. Wars simply cannot be waged on an empty treasury. Even proxy war (read terrorism) is no longer a sustainable option. When Pakistan unleashed Jihadist terror on India, it was supposed to be a low-cost high-yield operation. But nearly three decades later, it is too costly and poor return on investment for Pakistan, and as such has run its course. Persisting with it will only yield even further diminishing returns. Over the last 30 years, the terrorism infrastructure Pakistan built to hurt India has imposed an immeasurably high cost on Pakistan in terms of loss of image, reputational damage, the uncertainty caused to business and investment climate, the wave of extremism and domestic terrorism it unleashed. Since 1990, when Pakistan started exporting terrorism to India, the trajectories of the two economies have been poles apart. While India has managed to achieve high growth, Pakistan has been languishing, caught in a low growth trap. The economic differential between the two countries has widened to a point where in some years merely the increase in India’s defence budget was greater than Pakistan’s entire defence budget. Cut to the chase, terrorism might have bloodied India, but it hurt Pakistan in unimaginable ways, not just economically, but also socially, culturally, and politically. NC Bipindra Editor Editor: N. C. Bipindra Creative Editor: Shajan C. Kumar Assistant Editor: Aadithya Contributing Editors: Ayaskant Das, Atul Kumar Administration: Rashmi Sharma Website: https://defence.capital Email: [email protected] Phone: +91 9871050869 Edited, Published & Printed by N. C. Bipindra IndoStrat Enterprises, 67 D, 3rd Floor, Pocket A, DDA SFS Flats, Mayur Vihar Phase 3, New Delhi 110096. Views expressed are those of individual writers and do not represent the policy of this publication. APRIL 2021 3 CONTENTS CHAKRAVIEW Break from the past or yet another false dawn? If indeed Pakistan is now going to be making policy not on emotional but rational basis, then not only should Pakistan be encouraged, but this positive change must also be reciprocated and engaged, especially by India. P9 Submarine project: How to catalyse India’s Difficult choices to make Defence Research and for Indian Navy Development The private sector defence firms have, for long, railed against the GoI’s practice of arbitrarily awarding India’s underfunded defence R&D and low overall contracts to the DPSUs through nomination. This, researcher density have resulted in India being real or perceived bias, to privilege the interests unable, thus far, to develop any breakthrough military of the DPSUs over those of the private sector, has technology or weapon system and remains among the engendered within the private sector, a hesitation to largest importers of military equipment in the world. commit large investments in capital-intensive defence P18 manufacturing P13 China posturing in South China Sea: Vietnam should lead response There is a need to mitigate the aggressive Chinese Posturing in the South China Sea by all the peace- loving nations in the region. P21 4 APRIL 2021 MARITIME AFFAIRS Suez Canal takes centre stage for maritime security challenges By Commodore S. L. Deshmukh and the Red seas. The Suez Canal which separates the African continent from Asia provides the shortest wisting a dictum a bit one could say “One who maritime route between Europe and the areas around T rules the Suez rules the world (trade)”. The mishap the Indian and western Pacific oceans. Suez, one of which occurred in Suez Canal has proven its sensitivity the world’s busiest shipping lanes annually handles and importance. approximately 1139 million MT of the global trade World trade worth 1 Trillion USD passes through (Smith, 2021) including petroleum products. Prior Suez Canal annually (Topham, 2021). The blockage to its construction, which was completed in the year of the canal due to ship running aground has affected 1869, the only important settlement around was Suez world trade and has had an impact on the prices which had 3,000 to 4,000 inhabitants then. Most of including petroleum products. the towns along the canal have developed since, with a notable exception of Al-Qanṭarah. Suez Canal- A historical Perspective The Suez Canal extends 193 km covering Port Said (Būr Saīd) in the north and Suez in the south. It has Suez Canal alias ‘Qanāt al-Suways’ in Arabic, is a dredged approach channels north of Port Said, into vital sea-level waterway. It runs north-south across the the Mediterranean, and south of Suez. Interestingly Isthmus of Suez in Egypt to connect the Mediterranean this canal does not use the shortest route across the APRIL 2021 5 MARITIME AFFAIRS isthmus, which is only 121 km (75 miles). Instead of that isthmus comprises marine sediments, coarser sands, and canal utilizes several lakes-from north to south, Lake gravels deposited in the early periods of abundant rainfall, Manzala (Buḥayrat al-Manzilah), Lake Timsah (Buḥayrat Nile alluvium (especially to the north), and windblown al-Timsāḥ), and the Bitter Lakes—Great Bitter Lake (Al- sands (Smith, 2021b Buḥayrah al-Murrah al-Kubrā) and Little Bitter Lake (Al- Buḥayrah al-Murrah al-Ṣughrā). Shortening of Sea Route The Suez Canal, a novel feat of engineering, is an open cut and is without locks. Though the canal uses extensive Benefits of the Suez Canal would we evident from the straight stretches it has eight major bends. To the west of fact that before commissioning of the Canal ships from the canal is the low-lying delta of the Nile River and to the the UK to Gulf had to cover 20,900 Kms and the needed east is the higher, rugged, and arid Sinai Peninsula (Smith, average of 24 days of transit which came down to 12000 2021a). Kms and 14 days respectively, a saving of 43% in terms of distance with associated saving in fuel burn and CO2 Some Interesting Facts emissions. The ships transit through the Canal in 11-16 hrs (Smith, 2021c). The Isthmus of Suez, the sole land bridge between the continents of Africa and Asia, is of relatively recent Capacity geologic origin. Topographically, the Isthmus of Suez is not uniform. The area has three shallow water-filled In its first year of operation (1870), the canal handled depressions: Lake Manzala, Lake Timsah, and the Bitter 486 transits i.e. fewer than 2 per day. In 1966 this had Lakes; though distinguished as Great and Little, the Bitter increased to 21,250 transits at an average of 58 per day, Lakes form one continuous sheet of water. A number of with net tonnage increasing from some 444,000 metric limestone and gypsum band obtrude in the south of the tons (437,000 long tons) in 1870 to about 278,400,000 isthmus. Another significant feature worth mentioning metric tons (274,000,000 long tons). As ships started relates to a narrow valley leading from Lake Timsah south- becoming bigger the number of transits started reducing westward toward the middle Nile Delta and Cairo.