Geography and India’s strategic advantage

The Navy said it is building capacity to ensure that whatever capacity China can bring into the region, it has all those capabilities to counter that, at the parliamentary standing committee on defence

India’s central location in the Indian Ocean makes it the natural naval power in that ocean. India can use historical ties, the influence of diaspora communities, and the guarantee of security to increase its naval involvement in both the eastern and western extremities of the Indian Ocean, near the Straits of Malacca and in the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea.
Lord Curzon pointed out that India could veto any rival in Tibet, but India has lost its position there since the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) of China moved into Tibet in 1950. Having lost control of the high ground — literally — in regards to Tibet, there is little India can do to exert influence in that direction, or over a stronger China.
India could shore up its relations with Southeast Asia, which shares both land and sea borders with India and the Indian Ocean.
India’s only foreign military base is located in Tajikistan, which allows it to continue to be involved in Afghanistan and Central Asia.
Modern India is situated between the Middle East, Central Asia, China, Southeast Asia, and the Indian Ocean.
India can also use its central location in the Indian Ocean to become a hub of transportation, communication, and trade.
On the high seas it commands the routes to Australia and the China Sea.
In the case of China, the Navy said China’s coastline is 18,000 km and has other adversaries. So, the number of assets that China can bring into the Indian Ocean is much less.

Building the capacity to match the assets that she can bring into our waters.
India is improving the capacity to have anti–submarine warfare capability enhanced so that the Navy can detect China’s submarines
Air surveillance and surveillance aircraft which can carry out Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) and also carry out anti–underwater surveillance by dropping sonobuoys
The Navy has inducted 12 P-8I long–range maritime patrol aircraft
Navy has significantly scaled up ASW training and cooperation, especially with the Quad navies
India has also taken up capacity building in a big way to assist littoral states in augmenting their armed forces.

The Chinese naval presence in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) has steadily been increasing since 2008 and it now has a naval base at Djibouti in addition to several dual use facilities across the region.
IOR has multiple security challenges as it contains major shipping lines and nearly 1,20,000 ships transit through various choke points. Almost 13,000 ships are in IOR at any point of time and the region is the centre of gravity of piracy and trans–national crimes and also locus of 70% of world’s natural disasters

https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/geography-in-indian-ocean-is-our-basic-advantage-and-we-are-utilising-it-navy/article65240475.ece
https://thediplomat.com/2014/07/geography-and-indian-strategy/

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