Games being Played Along India’s Eastern Seaboard

What else could one expect from a hyperventilating news broadcast channel last week (see: http://www.timesnow.tv/Debate-America-eyes-Bay-of-Bengal---1/videoshow/4403335.cms & http://www.timesnow.tv/Debate-America-eyes-Bay-of-Bengal---2/videoshow/4403336.cms) other than sheer ill-informed and misguided revelations about the US Navy’s 7th Fleet trying to gain a firm foothold in Bangladesh. That broadcast journalism has hit a new low is no longer in doubt, but what is far more worrisome is the attitude of certain self-styled India-based ‘strategic experts’ to justify the purpoted US presence-to-be inside Bangladesh’s territorial waters as being a counter-balance to an alleged military presence of the People’s Republic of China inside Myanmar. To say the least, the facts say otherwise. Here’s what the issue is all about.     

Given the need to demarcate the maritime boundaries of Bangladesh and Myanmar without any further delay, Dhaka in October 2009 brought the issue before the International Tribunal for Arbitration, having exhausted all attempts to reach a bilateral agreement with Yangon. Consequently, Bangladesh was recently awarded 111,000 square kilometres of exclusive economic zone (EEZ) waters in the Bay of Bengal, almost the same size of Bangladesh, which includes all sea-based resources currently available for exploitation (especially oil and gas) and all such resources that may be discovered in the future. The Tribunal also awarded Bangladesh a 12-mile territorial sea around St Martin's Island, overruling Myanmar’s argument that it should be divided in half. The judgment is final and without appeal, with Bangladesh winning by 21 votes to 1. The biggest advantage for Bangladesh that is likely to stem from this judgment is that it will now be able to utilise the area that had been in dispute for the last 38 years. But in the absence of any bilateral agreement between the two countries clearly delimiting their maritime boundaries, what factors pushed the two governments toward a judicial solution? It was the strong likelihood of newly accessible gas and heightening demand in both countries that eventually motivated Bangladesh and Myanmar to pursue a solution through international arbitration, since the demand for natural gas in Bangladesh is immense, and the country’s acute power crisis has also emerged as a burning political issue. For Myanmar, demand for gas in the export markets has motivated the government to export more gas in order to gain greater foreign reserves.

Bangladesh has also gained several other important economic benefits from this verdict. Firstly, the government can now start drilling for oil and gas 200 nautical miles out to sea. The discovery of new oil and gas may help the country meet its domestic power demands, and the government could also generate capital by allocating blocks to international companies (especially US-, UK- and China-based) for further exploration. Secondly, Bangladesh will now be able to access different types of perishable marine and mineral resources, which should help strengthen its economy. Dhaka is also expected to find various types of minerals, including cobalt, manganese, copper, nickel and sulfite. Thirdly, this verdict will help increase the number of skilled workers capable of extracting much-needed resources from the sea. This issue has already been discussed between Bangladesh’s Foreign and Education ministries, which have agreed to open oceanography departments at Dhaka and Chittagong Universities. Fourthly, these developments could also help Bangladesh win the maritime dispute with India, which concerns the western side of the Bay of Bengal. India is insisting on the principle of equidistance instead of equality in demarcating the maritime boundary. The verdict on this dispute is expected to be handed down by 2014 through international arbitration.

Set against this background, what could the US possibly stand to gain from Bangladesh, apart from the expected lucrative offshore hydrocarbons exploration contracts? For one, the US is well aware that in the years to come the Bay of Bengal will indeed witness a naval arms race of sorts between India and China. India is already on record for having specified that its eastern seaboard will house the naval establishments required for supporting her survivable nuclear deterrent, i.e. the fleet of SSBNs and associated SSNs. For both the US and China, therefore, logic demands that the navies of both countries seek and develop suitable shore-based naval logistics infrastructure aimed at monitoring the envisaged growth of India’s nuclear-powered undersea warfare platforms. Between the US and China, it was the latter that took the first logical step forward, when in August 2011 saw Myanmar officially inviting China to develop logistics facilities for visiting PLA Navy (PLAN) flotillas at the existing port in in Kyaukpyu in the Bay of Bengal. The ultimate intention behind the creation of such naval logistics infrastructure is to provide support for the PLAN’s warships, ballistic missile tracking vessels and oceanographic survey vessels, that will be engaged in persistently monitoring India’s sea trials for its SSBNs, SSNs and SLBMs along the Bay of Bengal and southern Indian Ocean, and also for  providing protection for Beijing’s expanding offshore oil-and-gas exploration facilities in the Bay of Bengal. This was reportedly the main topic of discussion between Myanmar’s recently-elected President Thein Sein and his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao when the former visited Beijing between May 26 and 28 last year on his first official overseas visit. The strategic port of Kyaukpyu, a multi-billion dollar project totally financed by China, will house a network of pipelines which, after being commissioned in 2013, will have the capacity to transfer to Yunnan Province more than 80% of China’s imported oil from the Middle East and Africa, as well as natural gas from the Shwe Gas Field--currently Myanmar’s largest gas reserve with an estimated 7.0 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. It may be recalled that Yangon chose to sell the natural gas from Shwe to China over India in 2007, a move that consolidated Myanmar’s position as a valued ally of Beijing. The Kyaukpyu project includes upgrading the existing airport on Ramree Island where Kyaukpyu is located.

It is also believed that the PLAN will also make use of Kyaukpyu for providing logistics support for a new generation of ocean-going intelligence-gathering vessels. The first such vessel, the Uranus (No853), was last August commissioned into the PLAN’s South Sea Fleet. The PLAN also intends to deploy its new-build ocean surveillance catamarans being built at Guangzhou’s Huangpu Shipyard. The first three such vessels (991, 992 and 993) are presently in service with the North Sea Fleet, while the fourth vessel will be deployed with the South Sea Fleet. These vessels will lead the flotilla of marine exploration vessels which China will soon be dispatching after having obtained a deep-sea mining licence in central Indian Ocean (Southwestern Indian Ridge) from the International Seabed Authority (ISA). The State-run China Ocean Mineral Resources Research and Development Association had applied for the licence in May 2010 to explore for polymetallic sulphides in the Southwest Indian Ridge. It would now be required to sign a contract with the ISA, allowing it to explore up to 10,000 sq km over the next 15 years in line with the new rules on polymetallic sulphides adopted by the ISA last year. China, which has ratified the 1982 Law of the Sea Convention and is an ISA member, has been active in deep sea exploration since 2002 when it launched a programme that included developing an active diving submersible—Jiaolong--designed for a maximum depth of 7,000 metres.

The US strategy is plain and simple: it too, like China, has an overriding need to monitor India’s sea-based nuclear weapons-related developments, and what better than to do this under the guise of conducting perfectly legal offshore oil/gas exploration activities within Bangladesh’s EEZ. After all, all that the US will be required to deploy will be a fleet of no more than three non-militarised ocean surveillance vessels and two EP-3-type airborne ELINT aircraft, for which all that the US will require will be a ‘civilian’ shore-based logistics station that includes a runway, all of which can be built within a short span of time at Bangladesh’s St Martin’s Island. For tracking the sea-trials of India’s SSBNs and SSNs, both the US Navy and the Royal Navy will be able to deploy on short notice their SSNs from their bases in Diego Garcia, located 1,200 nautical miles (2,200km) south of the southern tip of India, and from The Maldives’ Gan Island.

 

In a related development, the DRDO’s Kochi-based Naval Physical & Oceanographic Laboratory (NPOL) has released the first definitive illustration of the next-generation S-5 SSBN, which externally bears a close resemblance to the Project 667BDRM Delta IV SSBN. The illustration, carried on a brochure of the NPOL-developed submarine sonar suite (SSS I-12), which is still under development for the S-5, which will carry twelve 6,500km-range SLBMs. Thus far, India’s MoD has sanctioned the fabrication of only three SSBNs: S-2 (Arihant), S-3 and S-4. Financial sanction for fabricating the S-5’s hull has yet to be obtained.   The double-hulled Project 667BDRM Delta IV SSBN has an operational diving depth of 320 metres and a maximum depth of 400 metres. The propulsion system allows speeds of 24 Knots (44kph) submerged while using two VM-4 pressurised water reactors rated at 180mW that drive two GT3A-365 turbines each rated at 27.5mW.

A Must-Read For All Submariners

This is the first and only definitive account  the dry-leasing of the Project 670 Skat/K-43 INS Chakra/S-71 SSGN, written by Capt Alexander Ivanovich Terenov and titled titled Under Three Flags The Saga of the Submarine Cruiser K-43/Chakra, which is now available in English after being translated by Vice Admiral (Retd) R N Ganesh, INS Chakra’s first Captain. Since this book is a translation from the original Russian script, both the Indian translator and its publisher are outside the purview of India's Official Secrets Act of 1923, which would otherwise have been applied against both had the narrative been of totally Indian origin. What this book reveals are the following:

· A detailed account of the origins of India’s quest for acquiring the Project 670 Skat/K-43 Chakra SSGN, beginning in 1982 when the then Rear Admiral V P S Shekhawat a pioneer submariner trained in UK and who later became the Chief of Naval Staff (CNS), inspected the K-43 in 1982 in Murmansk and recommended its dry-lease. The book describes how the K-43 was tropicalised at the Zvezda Shipyard, and how the three Indian Navy Captains-designate R N Ganesh, S C Anand and R K Sharma along with their three sets of crew complements (whose training programme began in batches from 1985 and involved 100 days of supervised underwater operations), operated the K-43 for the three years of the dry-lease. Though the K-43 had 70 crew-bunks, it at times had a crew complement of 200. During one training sortie the SSGN was continuously at sea for 13 days.

·  The writer, then as a young Captain 3^rd Rank Terenov, was appointed as Commanding Officer of K-43 in 1983 for type-rating the Indian Navy’s submariners for the K-43 at the training centres at Obininsk, Kamchatka and Vladivostok’s Vtoraya Rechka suburb of Vladivostok and the nearby Bay of Ulysses. Captain 1^st Rank Dmitri Sergeivich Kasper Yust was appointed CO of the training centre, with the entire type-rating and SSGN operationalisation schedule being supervised by Admiral A A Belousov through to April 1986.

· The K-43’s final dry-lease contract was due for signing by July 1987, followed by commissioning in December 1987 at Vladivostok. However, at the last minute, the Kremlin had second thoughts about allowing foreigners on board the K-43, ostensibly due to pressure applied on Russia by the US. About 10 days after this happened, the then Indian PM Rajiv Gandhi made a personal plea to the then Soviet Communist Party’s Secretary-General Mikhail Gorbachev, following which the ban imposed on the Indian submariners was lifted and they were allowed back into the SSGN.

· The K-43, by then already 20 years old, was finally commissioned as S-71 INS Chakra on January 5, 1988 as part of the Navy’s 6^th Submarine Squadron at a low-key ceremony held in -25 degrees Celsius by the then Indian Ambassador to the USSR, T N Kaul and the C-in-C of the Soviet Navy’s Pacific Fleet, Admiral G A Khvatov. While positioned in the South China Sea en route to Vizag, the submerged S-71 was met by an Indian Navy escort vessel and as the two of them entered the Singapore Straits, the S-71/Chakra had to surface while transiting the Malacca Straits, during which she was first photographed by the P-3C Orions of the RAAF that were operating out of TUDM Butterworth air base off Penang, as part of the ANZMIS arrangements.

· S-71/INS Chakra was used extensively, travelling 72,000 nautical miles (133,000km), and the SSGN’s PWR remaining active for 430 days during a three-year period (rather low by Western standards). Five Ametist-15 (SS-N-7) anti-ship cruise missiles and 42 torpedoes were fired, all under Russian supervision. An accident on board the SSGN in 1989 resulted in a fire breaking out and loss of on-board power, but was successfully contained, there was no radioactive leakage to the SSGN or the environment, and the vessel succeeded in returning to Vizag on its own power. Subsequent repairs at Vizag supported by representatives of the Afrikantov Design Bureau took three months to complete.

· The book describes for the very first time the layout of the berthing facilities and the Shipbuilding Centre (SBC), plus related logistics facilities located alongside such as a navigation systems/sensors repair workshop, a three-storey decontamination and radioactive safety service building, captive power-generation installations, high-pressure air and chilled water storage tanks for air conditioning, and shore-based accommodation facilities for the SSGN’s crew complement.

· In 1990, India had requested an extension of the SSGN’s dry-lease, but this was refused by the Kremlin. She subsequently went back to Vladivostok in January 1991 while being escorted by an Indian Navy AOPV, under the command of Captain R K Sharma, who is presently serving with India’s National Security Council Secretariat.

CMP-2012 Released By US DoD

Recent Developments In China & Pakistan

The Beijing-Kunming Expressway in China’s Sichuan province (bordering northeastern India) linking Yaan to Xicang was commissioned into service on April 28, 2012.

Pakistan, meanwhile, will order four additional 3,000-tonne F-22P guided-missile frigates (FFG) that will all be licence-built in Pakistan at a cost of US$200 million. Thus far, the Pakistan Navy (PN) has inducted into service three F-22P FFGs (all built at Shanghai’s Hudong Zhonghua Shipyard), while the fourth one is being licence-built by Karachi Shipyard & Engineering Works (KSEW).  The first F-22P FFG, PNS Zulfiquar, was commissioned on September 19, 2009, and the second, PNS Shamsheer, on December 19, 2009. The third FFG, PNS Saif, was commissioned on September 15, 2010, while the fourth FFG, PNS Aslat, will be commissioned next year.

The PAF’s JF-17 Thunder MRCA, meanwhile, has commenced flight validation trials for the WMD-7 laser designation pod at Chengdu. The photo below shows the JF-17 equipped with an optronic calibration pod in lieu of the actual WMD-7 pod being fitted.

Lastly, the DF-16 cannisterised ballistic missile, weighing close to 8.2 tonnes, is estimated to have a range of 1,200km. It will eventually replace the solid-fuelled single-stage Hatf-4/Shaheen-1/CSS-6/M-9/DF-15 TBMs that were inducted into service on March 8, 2003 (with a claimed CEP of 50 metres when carrying a 1-tonne nuclear warhead).

The 3,200km-range DF-25 cannisterised MRBM is a two-stage solid-fuel missile that can deliver a single nuclear warhead weighing 2,000kg. The two-stage DF-21A MRBM, on the other hand, has a range of 2,700km. The DF-25s will replace the solid-fuelled two-stage Hatf-6/Shaheen-2/M-18 IRBMs of Chinese origin, which have a claimed CEP of 300 metres when carrying a 1-tonne nuclear warhead.

PNS Azmat FAC-M’s Sea Trials To Get Underway

It may be recalled that the Pakistan Navy’s (PN) Chief of the Naval Staff, Admiral Muhammad Asif Sandila, was on April 23, 2012 the chief guest at the commissioning ceremony of PNS Azmat, Pakistan’s first fast attack craft (missile) at the Xinggang Shipyard in Tianjin, China. Admiral Sandila said that the contract for acquiring FAC-Ms included the construction of a second FAC-M in Pakistan by the end of 2012 by Karachi Shipyard & Engineering Works (KSEW). It may be recalled that the PN’s then Chief of the Naval Staff Admiral Noman Bashir was the Chief Guest on September 20, 2011 at the launching ceremony of PNS Azmat at Xingang Shipyard. Each FAC-M, displacing 260 tonnes and armed with eight C-802 anti-ship cruise missiles, is manned by a crew complement of 20. It was in late February 2010 that the PN had issued a restricted tender to the state-owned China Shipbuilding & Offshore International Company Ltd (CSOC) for the procurement of two FAC-Ms that would each have a length of 60 metres, radius of action equal to or greater than 500 nautical miles, maximum speed of 30 Knots, and be equipped with a surface/air search radar, optronic fire-control director, twin 25mm machine guns, a 30mm machine gun, and countermeasures dispensers.

In December 2010, Xinggang Shipyard was selected to fabricate the two FAC-Ms. Keel-laying of PNS Azmat, costing some US$50 million, took place on March 1, 2011. Its harbour trials commenced in October last year. The second FAC-M is now being fabricated under licence at KSEW.

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