Has Indian Navy brass gone stark raving mad?

Posted on January 24, 2016 by Bharat Karnad

Basking in the afterglow of the electrifying Tejas at Bahrain, we are back to the more familiar strategic mistakes the military has tendency to commit. The shock here is that it is the Indian Navy — which has always had an inherent strategic sense, which of late has been faulting on a couple of issues (such as going in for 80,000 ton plus-class carriers to accommodate the US-given EMALS — electro-magnetic aircraft launch system which, as argued in my previous writings and in my new book, will end up grievously hurting the national interest.

The immediate problem is with the CNS, Admiral Robin Dhowan, announcing that the indigenous Arihant SSBN will showcase the Indian naval complement at the 2016 Presidential Fleet Review (PFR) to be held next month in Vizag, where some 50-odd navies will be sending their ships (http://idrw.org/ins-arihant-to-be-showstopper-at-international-fleet-review-ifr/). This boat is now at the on-board weapons-firing test stage after successfully negotiating harbor trials and deep sea-diving phases, as prelude to induction in fleet operations,

SSBN spearheading a fleet review??? Have Dhowan & Co. gone stark raving mad? A reasonable question to ask considering the Chinese PLAN will be sending a flotilla of surface ships and a submarine or two. Nothing would make PLAN happier than have the Arihant right there for them to assess, and in maneuvering to the review position in the van giving away its cavitation and some sonar signature (even if it doesn’t submerge) and other metrics for both the Chinese surface and submersible fleets hereafter to key into their threat data bank connected with their fire control systems for easy identification and counter-actions. This is ridiculous. And, how long do you think it will be before PLAN passes on the Arihant-related target information to the Pakistan Navy for use by the Agosta Bs in its inventory? Beyond the pride Arihant will no doubt induce in the top naval brass by putting Arihant on show, and the frisson it may generate at the review with every adversary and friendly participating navy trying to get a fix on the Indian SSBN, what exactly is sought to be achieved by NHQ?? Considering how careful the navy has all along been in not even exposing the Kilo SSKs to US naval scrutiny in the Malabar exercises until the last one, going so public with the SSBN is nothing short of strategic disaster that bids fair to heedlessly endanger operations of the Arihant class of ships once they get fully seaborne, with the first boat pulling long distance patrols armed with nuclear-tipped missiles starting in 2017.

Time to swallow pride Mr. Dhowan and do the right thing: Pull the Arihant from the PFR, pronto, lest you eliminate even that slight strategic advantage an unexposed Indian SSBN poses PLAN and Chinese interests west of Malacca! If the CNS doesn’t relent, it is time for the defmin Manohar Parrikar to show some political leadership for a change, rather than acquiescing in every damn-fool measure instituted by the military services even when these violate common sense, and ORDER the navy to keep the Arihant under heavy wraps, especially from prying eyes at the 2016 PFR.

Posted in Asian geopolitics, China, China military, civil-military relations, Culture, Defence Industry, DRDO, Geopolitics, Great Power imperatives, India's China Policy, India's strategic thinking and policy, Indian Navy, Indian Ocean, Military Acquisitions, Missiles, Nuclear Policy & Strategy, Nuclear Weapons, Pakistan, Pakistan military, society, South Asia, Strategic Forces Command, Strategic Relations with the US & West, Weapons, Western militaries | 18 Comments

Dimwitted BAS organizers re: Tejas — but visuals here

Posted on January 23, 2016 by Bharat Karnad

For more private phone camera recordings of the Tejas performing on previous days in Bahrain, see
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CackdUGFfFg and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSY72-PIiR8 — both with very clear views of the Tejas making a low pass and then going vertical Charlie. These visuals are what we have to make do with considering the BAS organizers stiff-armed the Tejas today which, incidentally, again pulled a tight 350 metre turn at 160 knots — bravura stuff!. (As soon as I get visuals of todays LCA performance, will put it up. It won’t be long!)

After being primed, ready to watch Tejas being put through its impressive paces — got on line by 4:30 PM IST, was tearing my hair out watching instead some dimwitted Bahraini (?) bimbos interview all manner of persons ranging from the UK military to mostly circus performers — magicians, rope-dancers, even as 6:10 passed and one heard Tejas taking to the skies, and the camera settled on passing shots of the Indian LCA pulling hard maneuvers — 8g turn, etc., before abruptly moving back to the bimbo on the dais for another ridiculous exchange, and then seemingly reluctantly back to cover the Tejas landing after its aerial stint.

The organizers of the Bahrain Air Show are obviously to blame and this visual neglect of the Tejas was apparently by design — there’s no other explanation. Because not long before LCA’s time slot, the camera lovingly followed every little twitch by many other aircraft, the last oh which was a French Mirage 2000! Is it too outre to infer that the French and the Pakis (and possibly the Chinese) jointly pressed the BAS organizers to truncate the live broadcasting of the full Tejas session?? Consider their stakes and the context.

Plainly nobody expected Tejas to come out so well, and prove itself beyond doubt as a low cost 4+gen fighter that developing countries (particularly in the neighbourhood, Iran, Africa, Central Asia, Southeast Asia, and the extended Indian Ocean region) may easily cotton on to if the Indian govt showed even the slightest strategic sense to sell it.

Paris and the govt of Francois Hollande is biting its nails, trying desperately to somehow get Delhi to sign the contract for the 36 Rafale combat aircraft in a deal that is manifestly unaffordable for India. Would the Quay d’Orsay want the Tejas to upstage the Mirage on show in Bahrain and, by extension, its successor the Rafale, by broadcasting to a discriminating audience in India just how good India’s own, locally designed fighter aircraft really is, and begin sowing doubts in the minds of Modi, Parrikar, and company about the Rafale contract on the anvil??

Then there’s Pakistan. As mentioned in an earlier blog, it hightailed its JF-17 Thunder jointly produced with China right out of BAS for fear of being shown up in very adverse light. But this fear seems to be stalking the French as well because the Tejas has gone, as a source said, from being “an oddity” to the real thing that can upset a lot of calculations in great many vendor states peddling military hardware. And Pakistan Army personnel are the palace guard protecting the sunni emir, Hamad bin Isa bin Salman Al Khalifa, from the shia majority in Bahrain and if GHQ Rawalpindi says cut up the live videocast of Tejas at BAS, it’s a small price to pay to keep the minders of the praetorian guard happy.

And China must be aghast to find India coming up so fast with its Tejas. It has an open field with no competition. Suddenly it finds that its cut-rate combat aircraft, Soviet/Russian knockoffs mostly, may not be able to cut the mustard in the export market. Every incentive for Beijing then to concert with Islamabad and Paris to get BAS organizers to play ball.

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Urgent! See Tejas perform live! LCA impact

Posted on January 23, 2016 by Bharat Karnad

Tejas while scheduled to be front stage and centre at the Bahrain Air Show at 1810 hrs (6:10 PM) Indian Standard Time on the last day of the Bahrain International Air Show, the Indian fighter may actually go up 10-15 minutes earlier, as the flight displays have been faster paced than the programme had planned.Catch Tejas live at http://www.bna.bh/portal/tv/ch55!! Get on line by 1745 hrs (5:45 PM) IST.

Several things have become apparent about the Tejas:

(1) The buzz about Tejas is in the form of general wonderment among the community of aviation experts and professionals present at the Sakhir air base hosting BAS: How come no one has heard of the Indian Light Combat Aircraft ere now and, considering what a great aircraft it is proving to be, whose idea has it been to keep this gem under cover, far from the gaze of international aerospace circles???

And three technical/performance aspects relating to the Indian LCA’s display have really impressed everybody in Bahrain:

(2) The turning radius of roughly 350 meters compared say to the US F-16’s 426-428 meters and the F-16, mind you, is virtually the gold standard for agility in combat aircraft. This means that in a dogfight Tejas could get inside of F-16’s loop and get on its tail more effectively than the US aircraft could do anything to avoid getting blown out of the skies.

(3) The low-speed handling characteristics of the LCA (necessary for effective prosecution of air-to-ground missions) has been a standout attribute, courtesy its compound delta wing (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=LlEJRqVMYpY). This is what the
experts are talking in hushed tones about, especially as it is manifestly better than those in the same mission profile of the French Mirage 2000 in the IAF fleet, and comparable to the French Rafale IAF is pining for and which Prime Minister Modi, with little forethought, has committed himself to buying at an exorbitant price of some Rs. 63,000 crores for 36 aircraft with weapon load, i.e., Rs 1,750 crores per aircraft with NO technology transfer whatsoever!! In other words, the country could buy 14 Tejas Mk-1 for the cost of JUST ONE Rafale!! So, what are IAF’s reasons again for hitching a good part of India’s defence acquisitions budget to this buy? Go figure!!!

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Indo-Russian relations on ‘Latitude’

Posted on January 22, 2016 by Bharat Karnad

Two television discussions on the state of Indo-Russian relations (16-17 January, 2016), and earlier, on Indo-US and Indo-Russian strategic partnerships (June 5, 2015) on the Maroof Raza-hosted television programme – ‘Latitude’ on Times Now TV at
http://www.timesnow.tv/Road-ahead-for-Indo-Russian-ties/videoshow/4484358.cms, and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvg5m3I8CwQ.

Posted in arms exports, Asian geopolitics, China, China military, Defence Industry, DRDO, Geopolitics, Indian Air Force, Indian Army, Indian Navy, Military Acquisitions, nuclear industry, Nuclear Weapons, Relations with Russia, Russia, russian assistance, russian military, society, South Asia, Strategic Relations with the US & West, United States, US., Weapons | Leave a comment

Tejas doing its thing in Bahrain!

Posted on January 22, 2016 by Bharat Karnad

For the clearest visuals of the first formal Tejas session at the Bahrain Air Show yesterday afternoon, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=SR88zf50vAU. Fast forward to the 2.56 minute mark of the 13-odd minute long video. These are truly great moments for the Indian designed fly-by-wire 4.5 gen multi-role combat aircraft! What a way to make entry into the international fighter market. Way to go Tejas!!!

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LCA maneuvers in Bahrain and Tejas’ immediate prospects

Posted on January 21, 2016 by Bharat Karnad

The stalwart fliers who will be piloting the two Tejas LCAs at the Bahrain Air Show (BAS) every afternoon post-lunch in the time slot 1300 hrs- 1600 hrs for the duration of the BAS are, from the Navy — Cmde. Jaideep Maolankar, presently head of the National Flight Testing Centre, Bangalore, and the service’s chief test pilot, Captain Shivnath Dahiya, and from the air force, Group Captain Madhav Rangachari.

Today is the first BIG day for the LCA and Maolankar and Rangachari will be at the controls. According to an unimpeachable source they “will perform (at the very least) a square loop, two rolls, a steep pitch up, a low speed pass combined with half roll and a loop.” This should quieten the doubters in IAF, MOD, and GOI and indeed prompt everyone in the procurement decision loop to trust in Indian talent and R&D programmes. Defmin Parrikar should capitalize on the Tejas impact at BAS, and instruct the ADA, DRDO, et al to transfer in full and without ado the technologies they have developed, ideally, to an Indian private sector defence industrial consortium to produce in large numbers and with hugely improved production quality (something HAL never achieved over the decades which, perhaps, was the reason for IAF’s reluctance to accept indigenous stuff), more realistically to a slate of Indian private sector firms with HAL, may be, retaining the prime integrator role. The ramped up Tejas production will meet both the country’s needs and a rapidly cultivated export market. The priority foreign customers should be Sri Lanka and Malayasia who, with slight Indian persuasion, opted out of their initial decision to tap Pakistan for the Sino-Paki JF-17 Thunder, followed by other neighbouring states, including Bangladesh, Myanmar and members of ASEAN. Vietnam, in particular, will be especially motivated to exploit the fighting qualities of the Tejas to the max.

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1st video of the Tejas at Bahrain

Posted on January 20, 2016 by Bharat Karnad

For the first video of the Tejas performing aerobatics at the Bahrain Air Show, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=oQ_ZnWbQk74, or slightly better at https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=oQ_ZnWbQk74 .

One can (1) see right away why the PAF chose to withdraw the Sino-Paki JF-17 Thunder from the show, (2) understand why potential customers would be very interested in a relatively light multi-role plane that will not cost buyer-states their GDP, and (3) wonder at IAF’s and MOD civilian bureaucrats’ distaste for this indigenous combat aircraft and if it is not the usual inducements — the pleasures of Paris/etc, secret offshore accounts, offers of “scholarships” for suddenly “brilliant” progeny in prestigious universities and/or placements in well paying jobs in MNCs/FSIs in the West packaged with residential permits, that are at work.

If Defmin Parrikar still does not appreciate the strategic value of the Tejas (and its variants) as the mainstay combat aircraft of the IAF for as long as warfare by manned weapons platforms lasts, which is not too long into the future, as the seedbed for a genuinely Indian aerospace industry, and as an enormously prized product whose export potential is vast, then he might as well retire to Goa where he will at least do no harm to the national security interests.

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Tejas — Pak Thunder(bird) fearing comparison/competition in Bahrain, pulls out

Posted on January 18, 2016 by Bharat Karnad

The word is the Pakistan Air Force has decided to pull its MiG-21 Chinese derivative — JF-17 Thunder(bird), built at the Kamra Air Complex from the forthcoming Air Show in Bahrain. (For the list of aircraft on static and dynamic –flying–display, see http://www.bahraininternationalairshow.com/trade/Content/Aircraft/5_7/.) It suggests that PAF both fears comparison with the Indian Tejas, flying under DRDO (not Indian Air Force) aegis, at the air show — they were allotted the same exhibition pad (Number 15) to park the planes in — and competition in terms of flight performance at the show. There were some doubts about the Sino-Pak JF-17 taking to the skies, now it will not even be seen in Bahrain. Discretion being better part of exhibiting a fairly antique combat aircraft, it would have been damned difficult for PAF to sing their plane’s praises and maintain a straight face while seeing the 4th-Gen Tejas pull tight 8-g turns above them, and otherwise impress with its manoevereability and stealth attributes that the Thunderbird can’t match. It would have highlighted the generational difference between these two aircraft. The PAF is apparently prepared to forfeit the unrefundable half a million dollars to reserve exhibition space than risk exposing their bird to expert criticism, and negative contrasting with the Tejas.

Incidentally, of the three test pilots that will be putting the 5th and the 7th of the Tejas prototype series deployed to Bahrain, two are from the Navy, emphasizing the Navy’s belief in and support for the indigenous navalised version of the Tejas aircraft under development. The Navy needs to be commended; IAF needs to hang its head in shame.

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Terrorists’ Edge: India’s Systemic Disorder Exposed in Pathankot

Posted on January 15, 2016 by Bharat Karnad

Suppose there was perfect “intelligence”, advance notice of the time, place, and date of a terrorist attack. Suppose further that all local state and central organisations, police at different levels, and paramilitary and the armed services, were all in sync, had familiarised themselves with situations that may arise, and practiced the precise actions needed to thwart the terrorists. What would happen in this situation in real life? As evidence shows, there would be inter-agency chaos and jurisdictional confusion leading, inevitably, to delays and a muddled response.

In Pathankot, there was 24 hours’ notice about the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM)-inspired terrorist event, and yet the jihadis managed, with ease, to breach the defence system. A few of them traversed the distance to the Pathankot air force base (AFB) in the local Superintendent of Police’s car, penetrated the AFB perimeter and holed up unmolested for a whole day to rest and recuperate in an unused shed not far from where the Indian Air Force planes were parked.

They embarked on their suicidal shoot-up mission that met with little initial resistance because the nearby Army Division didn’t act, assuming that a National Security Guard (NSG) unit was flying in from Delhi. Once deployed, the NSG lost a senior officer because he failed to take the elementary precaution of treating a dead jihadi as a potential booby-trap.

Lapses in Security

This episode also reveals the rot of corruption at all levels, especially the BSF, state police, and the AFB guard, and how easy it is for an intruder simply to buy his way into sensitive areas (according to news reports, fifty rupees procured access to the Pathankot base). It also brings to light the severely lax attitude to security (with no surveillance cameras on the perimeter and no cordon sanitaire, with habitation allowed just beyond the boundary markers.

A more egregious example of system breakdown was witnessed in December 1999 with the hijacking of the Indian Airlines flight IC 814 by militants who obtained the release of Mahmood Azhar, the JeM chief, in return for the safe return of passengers. The awful thing was that just a year earlier exactly this situation was gamed, and a multi-agency ‘Exercise Sour Grapes’ carried out to practice moves to frustrate hijackers, such as parking a truck/tanker in front of the plane, disabling the plane by blowing out its tyres, and mounting commando action.

But, when IC 814 touched down at the Amritsar airport to refuel, all hell, predictably, broke loose. Every responsible head of agency in government from Chandigarh to Delhi lost his head, none of the practiced actions were implemented, the Punjab Police commando unit and Indian Army formation in the vicinity were asked to stand down, and the refueled aircraft took off, eventuating in the humiliating negotiation involving External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh and Taliban ruffians in Kandahar.

Lessons Not Learnt

Sandwiched between these incidents during the BJP governments was the still more devastating Mumbai 26/11 strike in 2008 during the Congress Party’s watch by a handful of seaborne terrorists. I had written then that, luckily, their Pakistani minders didn’t have another ‘Pearl Harbour’ in mind because the terrorists could as easily have blown up a large part of the navy’s Western Fleet, then lying at anchor 500 meters away and 40 degrees off the jihadis’ approach line to the Gateway of India on an outboard motor-rigged inflatable dinghy.

So, the problem is not the party in power, or the incompetence of politicians at the helm, but the absence of operating procedures standardised across a spectrum of terrorist actions that every relevant police and intelligence agency at the local, state, and central government levels, as well as the paramilitary, NSG, and the armed services should adhere to strictly in counter-terror contexts anywhere in the country. The need is, therefore, urgent for a slate of counter-terror SOPs to ensure predictable, decisive, prompt, integrated and effective responses.

Why We Urgently Need the NCTC

Minus this, as in all terrorist-induced crises to-date, every agency will act separately according to its own bureaucratic lights and succeed only in getting in the way of every other agency doing the same. It advantages the jihadis and encourages their state-sponsors to rely on terrorism as asymmetric means of warfare to unsettle the Indian state and society at will.

Worse, there’s no nodal organisation, such as the National Counter-Terrorism Centre (NCTC), to coordinate intelligence inputs, tailor the SOP-related actions to specific situations and to control all anti-terror operations. Mooted by the Manmohan Singh government after 26/11, NCTC is lying fallow. With neither SOPs nor an apex agency in sight, all such crises invariably end up being handled by the National Security Adviser of the day. Brajesh Mishra tackled the IC 814 hijack, MK Narayanan 26/11, and Ajit Doval Pathankot and each, in his own way, made a hash of it.

Snapshot

NCTC Can’t Wait Any More
•Pathankot terror attack raises the issue of severely lax attitude to security besides highlighting how easy it is for an intruder to buy his way in.

•Luckily terrorists behind Mumbai 26/11 strike didn’t have another ‘Pearl Harbour’ in mind with the navy’s Western Fleet being a few metres away.

•The need is, therefore, urgent for a slate of counter-terror SOPs to ensure predictable, decisive, prompt, integrated and effective responses.

•A large part of the problem can be addressed by institutionalising the NCTC to coordinate intelligence inputs and control all anti-terror operations.

——-
Published in ‘The Quint’, January 15, 2016; at http://www.thequint.com/opinion/2016/01/14/terrorists-edge-indias-systemic-disorder-exposed-in-pathankot

Posted in Afghanistan, Asian geopolitics, Culture, domestic politics, Geopolitics, India's Pakistan Policy, India's strategic thinking and policy, Indian Air Force, Indian Army, Indian Navy, Indian para-military forces, Internal Security, Pakistan, Pakistan military, society, South Asia, Special Forces, Terrorism | 5 Comments

Watch out for the Tejas, Sakhir!

Posted on January 13, 2016 by Bharat Karnad

Two Tejas LCAs should at this moment of writing be flying over the northern Arabian Sea for a refueling stop in Muscat before taking off for the Sakhir AFB, Bahrain. At the Air Show starting January 21, the Tejas will be parked on Pad 15 between pairs of the Pak-China product, JF-17 Thunderbird, and the RAF Typhoon Eurofighter. This is actually a wonderful placement for the obvious reason that visitors will be able to compare and contrast the antique nature of the ungainly, nearly 60-year old Sino-Pakistani knock-off of the ex-Russian MiG-21 on the one hand, and the 4.5 generation (when equipped with the 2052-based AESA radar), largely composites-made and hence immeasurably stealthier and beautiful-looking Indian Tejas, sporting smooth lines and modern design with, moreover, a larger operating radius on internal fuel and bigger weapons-carrying capacity available at around the same price as the JF-17, and the Eurofighter (designed by a consortium of the most advanced aerospace European countries, including Germany, UK, and Spain) with longer range but also a price tag some four times that of the LCA. Indeed, there isn’t a fitter aircraft for India to arm itself with at lower unit cost, and amortize its investment in the Tejas programme by creating a market for it in developing countries (by initially selling a few aircraft at cost price) and then growing the market with attractive deals and “friendship” payment modes.

No bad thing at all for the internationally-known aviation experts and cognoscenti generally to inspect what is potentially a great air defence aircraft India has produced inside of 35 years from a designing and industrial base that was reduced to zero with — and I repeat this — the KILLING in the early 1970s of the Marut HF-24 Mk-II by the Indian Air Force in the main. That the Tejas that will be put through their paces over the Shakhir skies will be flying DRDO colours, and will not be operating under the IAF’s aegis, shows the level of antipathy to home-grown aircraft of the Service’s leadership that has refused to-date to take ownership of it. (A comparison of the timelines: the US F-35, some 20 years in the making, is turning out to be an absolute lemon but is nevertheless being inducted into the US Air Force!) IAF’s treatment of the Tejas is a national shame, revealing to the world the Service’s outrageously regressive fixation on imported fighter aircraft and its resistance to anything indigenous. Once the praise and good notices start rolling in, however, IAF will rue the fact it didn’t back the LCA to the full.

End-note:

The Bahraini air show managers have apparently made the Tejas and JF-17 share the same exhibition space to spark interest in the regional and international media. But, along with the DRDO testing crew and maintenance personnel GOI has, by way of abundant caution, hopefully had the foresight to also dispatch a well-armed security team to mount 24/7 guard around the Tejas — the enormously capable Indian Navy’s Marine Commandos (MARCOS) would be best for this task — to augment whatever security is afforded the participating aircraft by Bahrain. Too many ill-wishers inside and outside the country, alas, have an interest in showing down the Tejas to not try and sabotage the Indian LCA in small and big ways and otherwise to spoil its international coming-out party.

Posted in arms exports, Asian geopolitics, China, China military, civil-military relations, Defence Industry, DRDO, Europe, Geopolitics, Great Power imperatives, India's strategic thinking and policy, Indian Air Force, Internal Security, Iran and West Asia, Military Acquisitions, Pakistan, Pakistan military, Russia, society, South Asia, Special Forces, Weapons, West Asia | 27 Comments