The “Malabar” naval exercises in the Bay of Bengal came to an end earlier this week with a close formation drill involving Indian aircraft carrier INS Vikramaditya, the US flat-top Nimitz, and Japan’s new helicopter carrier, the JS Izumo. The expansive scope and complexity of the engagement led many to portray Malabar 2017 as a maritime response to China’s aggression in Dokalam where the Indian Army and People’s Liberation Army troops remain locked in a tense stalemate.
Indeed, with over 20 ships, including two submarines and over 100 aircraft and helicopters involved in complex manoeuvres, the strategic messaging to China seemed more than clear. Notably, Indian commentators cast Malabar as a strategic precursor to a more proactive sea-denial strategy aimed at challenging People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) ships and submarines in the Indian Ocean.
In the run-up to Malabar, the media had reported a “surge” in Chinese naval presence in the subcontinental littorals. PLAN units prowling India’s near-seas reportedly included the Luyang III class destroyers, hydrographic research vessels, and an intelligence-gathering ship, Haiwingxing, presumably to keep track of naval ships taking part in the trilateral exercises. But Indian analysts seemed more distressed by the reported presence of a Chinese conventional submarine in the Indian seas, confirmed by the docking of the Chongmingdao, a submarine support vessel, in Karachi last month.
For many Indian observers, the emphasis on anti-submarine warfare (ASW) exercises in Malabar is a sign of India’s growing willingness to leverage its maritime partnerships in Asia to counter PLAN operations in the Indian Ocean. Not surprisingly, much of the commentary in the Indian media highlighted exercises involving P-8I and P-8A reconnaissance aircraft, MiG-29K fighters and Japanese ASW helicopters, lending credence to accounts that an Indian “sea-denial” strategy was at work in the Bay of Bengal.
Yet, there is something essentially flawed about the idea that Indian naval power can prevent Chinese warships and submarines from accessing India’s near-seas. Modern-day trading nations regard the oceans as a shared global common, with equal opportunity rights for all user states. Consequently, unless a sea-space is a site of overlapping claims (as in the case of the South China Sea) or a contested enclave in a geopolitically troubled spot (as the Persian Gulf), no coastal state ever actively denies another the use of the high seas.
This balance only changes during war, when navies seek to block adversaries from entering critical sea spaces in the contested littorals. During peace-time operations, however, maritime forces enjoy assured access to the seas that lie beyond national territorial waters (even if a coastal state insists on prior notification).
Given Beijing’s key role in the politics and geoeconomics of the Indian Ocean region, a peacetime plan to deny its warships entry into India’s surrounding seas is unlikely to succeed. With the PLAN expanding its diplomatic engagements along the Indian Ocean rim, many regional states have been welcoming of Beijing’s maritime initiatives and investments in the Indian Ocean. India’s plans to constrain Chinese naval power in South Asia are bound to meet with regional opposition.
New Delhi, in fact, might do well to take a leaf out of Beijing’s maritime playbook by leveraging naval operations for geopolitical purposes. In recent years, the PLAN has sought to project power in the Indian Ocean region through a constant naval presence in India’s near-seas. By refusing to accept the Indian Ocean as an Indian backwater, it has made successful inroads into India’s geopolitical sphere of influence. India too must now resort to a strategy of counter-power projection by expanding the scope of its naval deployments in the South China Sea, long considered a Chinese preserve.
Raising the tempo of Indian naval operations in South-East Asia does not mean challenging China’s naval might in the Western Pacific. By gradually expanding security presence along the critical sea lanes of the Western Pacific, the Indian Navy must plan to use the South China Sea’s geopolitically sensitive spaces for the strategic power projection.
Such a strategy is bound to have a deterrent effect on China’s naval posture in the Indian Ocean region. Beijing’s constraints in opposing Indian maritime presence in the Western Pacific are similar to New Delhi’s limitations in the Indian Ocean, where the Indian Navy has struggled to offer push-back to China.
What’s different is that Beijing’s political and territorial ambitions in the South China Sea make it far more sensitive to naval forays by unfriendly states. After an arbitral tribunal’s ruling in July last year invalidated many of China’s historical rights within the nine-dash line, Beijing has been extremely cagey about perceived challenges to its authority in the waters of the South China Sea.
China’s vulnerability in its near-seas must be taken advantage of by India. To challenge PLAN incursions into the Indian Ocean, the Indian Navy must plan for counter-presence in China’s near-seas, where Beijing cannot prove a territorial infringement, and yet feel the pinch of a perceived violation of its political sphere of influence.
India’s maritime planners know well that a nuanced high-seas presence in the Western Pacific is unlikely to ever cross the threshold of provocation which could lead to full-fledged conflict with China. Nagging Indian naval presence in the South China Sea is better suited to signal Indian resolve than any attempt to deny PLAN assets access into maritime South Asia.
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Steve Ovett, the famous British middle-distance athlete, won the 800-metres gold medal at the Moscow Olympics of 1980. Just a few days later, he was about to win a 5,000-metres race at London’s Crystal Palace. Known for his burst of acceleration on the home stretch, he had supreme confidence in his ability to out-sprint rivals. With the final 100 metres remaining,
[wptelegram-join-channel link=”https://t.me/s/upsctree” text=”Join @upsctree on Telegram”]Ovett waved to the crowd and raised a hand in triumph. But he had celebrated a bit too early. At the finishing line, Ireland’s John Treacy edged past Ovett. For those few moments, Ovett had lost his sense of reality and ignored the possibility of a negative event.
This analogy works well for the India story and our policy failures , including during the ongoing covid pandemic. While we have never been as well prepared or had significant successes in terms of growth stability as Ovett did in his illustrious running career, we tend to celebrate too early. Indeed, we have done so many times before.
It is as if we’re convinced that India is destined for greater heights, come what may, and so we never run through the finish line. Do we and our policymakers suffer from a collective optimism bias, which, as the Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman once wrote, “may well be the most significant of the cognitive biases”? The optimism bias arises from mistaken beliefs which form expectations that are better than the reality. It makes us underestimate chances of a negative outcome and ignore warnings repeatedly.
The Indian economy had a dream run for five years from 2003-04 to 2007-08, with an average annual growth rate of around 9%. Many believed that India was on its way to clocking consistent double-digit growth and comparisons with China were rife. It was conveniently overlooked that this output expansion had come mainly came from a few sectors: automobiles, telecom and business services.
Indians were made to believe that we could sprint without high-quality education, healthcare, infrastructure or banking sectors, which form the backbone of any stable economy. The plan was to build them as we went along, but then in the euphoria of short-term success, it got lost.
India’s exports of goods grew from $20 billion in 1990-91 to over $310 billion in 2019-20. Looking at these absolute figures it would seem as if India has arrived on the world stage. However, India’s share of global trade has moved up only marginally. Even now, the country accounts for less than 2% of the world’s goods exports.
More importantly, hidden behind this performance was the role played by one sector that should have never made it to India’s list of exports—refined petroleum. The share of refined petroleum exports in India’s goods exports increased from 1.4% in 1996-97 to over 18% in 2011-12.
An import-intensive sector with low labour intensity, exports of refined petroleum zoomed because of the then policy regime of a retail price ceiling on petroleum products in the domestic market. While we have done well in the export of services, our share is still less than 4% of world exports.
India seemed to emerge from the 2008 global financial crisis relatively unscathed. But, a temporary demand push had played a role in the revival—the incomes of many households, both rural and urban, had shot up. Fiscal stimulus to the rural economy and implementation of the Sixth Pay Commission scales had led to the salaries of around 20% of organized-sector employees jumping up. We celebrated, but once again, neither did we resolve the crisis brewing elsewhere in India’s banking sector, nor did we improve our capacity for healthcare or quality education.
Employment saw little economy-wide growth in our boom years. Manufacturing jobs, if anything, shrank. But we continued to celebrate. Youth flocked to low-productivity service-sector jobs, such as those in hotels and restaurants, security and other services. The dependence on such jobs on one hand and high-skilled services on the other was bound to make Indian society more unequal.
And then, there is agriculture, an elephant in the room. If and when farm-sector reforms get implemented, celebrations would once again be premature. The vast majority of India’s farmers have small plots of land, and though these farms are at least as productive as larger ones, net absolute incomes from small plots can only be meagre.
A further rise in farm productivity and consequent increase in supply, if not matched by a demand rise, especially with access to export markets, would result in downward pressure on market prices for farm produce and a further decline in the net incomes of small farmers.
We should learn from what John Treacy did right. He didn’t give up, and pushed for the finish line like it was his only chance at winning. Treacy had years of long-distance practice. The same goes for our economy. A long grind is required to build up its base before we can win and celebrate. And Ovett did not blame anyone for his loss. We play the blame game. Everyone else, right from China and the US to ‘greedy corporates’, seems to be responsible for our failures.
We have lowered absolute poverty levels and had technology-based successes like Aadhaar and digital access to public services. But there are no short cuts to good quality and adequate healthcare and education services. We must remain optimistic but stay firmly away from the optimism bias.
In the end, it is not about how we start, but how we finish. The disastrous second wave of covid and our inability to manage it is a ghastly reminder of this fact.