Current General Studies Magazine (February 2015)

General Studies - III: Environment and Bio-diversity Based Article (Maritime Challenges before India in the 21st Century)

The strategic analyst community in India, and also abroad, often complains of India being a ‘sea-blind’ country despite its long coastline and a large number of islands. It is, in that sense, interlaced with our colonial past when, indeed, our maritime memory was erased by the Raj. During the British period, the Indian Ocean was reduced to a British Lake being controlled by the Royal Navy commander based in Singapore; this was accompanied by the destruction of Indian shipping industry, as well as the shipping sector itself, as a result of deliberate policy of discrimination by the then British rulers. It is of a piece of the tragic history of India’s colonisation.

That is why the development of capabilities for addressing the maritime challenges for India is of a piece of India’s emergence as an important player in global affairs. And, it is part of the narrative of our freedom struggle when India’s maritime capabilities were projected as a vehicle for the spread of Indian civilisation and for the country to be known as the ‘golden bird’ or ‘soney ki chidiya’. Let me just add that the ancient name of India is ‘Jambudweep’ meaning the ‘island of jamun (black berry) tree’.

Indian coastline is 7516.6 kms of which the mainland peninsular coastline is 5, 422.6 kms. It has 1,197 island territories. Following India’s ratification of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UN CLOS) and the adoption of appropriate domestic laws, an area of 2.013 million square kilometres of Exclusive Economic Zone in addition to 155,889 km² of territorial waters are India’s area of exclusive use; following India’s submission before the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, a further addition of another approximately 1.2 million km² makes the total sea area almost equal to our land area of 3.3 million km².

India shares maritime border with more countries than on its land borders – the Maldives, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Indonesia, Thailand, Pakistan and Bangladesh; it has an unresolved maritime border dispute with Pakistan but, even, where borders are delimited there are frequent instances of illegal fishing due to lack of clarity about the precise alignment, arrest of fishermen, arms-smuggling, including terrorist infiltration, human-smuggling and drug-trafficking. All of these pose continuous threats to national security requiring constant vigil by maritime and other security agencies and have led to tensions with the neighbouring countries, especially Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

‘India's Maritime Military Strategy’, issued by the Indian Navy in 2007, identified the Indian Ocean Region along with its chokepoints and its international shipping lanes which are located close to the peninsular coastline and pass through its island chains, as the primary area of interest and includes, amongst secondary areas, the southern Indian Ocean Region, the Red Sea, the South China Sea and the East Pacific Sea.

The importance of seaborne commerce has increased with the onset of the current era of globalisation at the end of the Cold War in 1991 and expansion of trade relations world-wide. For India, given its heavy energy dependency, petroleum supplies and other essential commodities are brought through these sea lanes. Its trade connections have intensified as has the growing presence of a large Indian diaspora – of recent and of historical origin – in the littoral countries in the Indian Ocean and of the South China Sea. It has a natural interest in the prevailing situation and in being actively engaged diplomatically in these regions. As a rising global power, it also has interests in other water bodies of the world, such as the Mediterranean, the Atlantic and the Arctic Ocean which is also opening possibilities for navigation and exploitation of natural resources such as hydrocarbons.

The Indian Ocean littoral, an area of primary importance for Indian maritime agencies, hosts one third of the world’s population in about one quarter of the world’s landmass; it is rich in minerals reserves and for having 31% of the gas reserves and other oil reserves, precious minerals such as uranium, tin, gold and diamonds. Its littoral comprises countries with extreme diversities in economic circumstances and political stability including some becoming either failed or failing states or having failed regions within them; these factors have caused acute forms of terrorism, including the Jihadist variety, gun-running, human-trafficking, smuggling and other type of criminal activity. The IOR is the locus of 70% of the world’s natural disasters.

Moreover, in conformity with the habitations elsewhere, the Indian Ocean coastal areas have large urbanised populations, extensive economic activity and concentration of industrial establishments. In India’s case, its extensive population concentrations, economic powerhouses and vast coastline play a critical role in our national life as a whole. The state of these coastal areas is being shaped by the urbanisation trends, the quality of urban governance, environment and the climate change challenges.

All of the issues described above touch the very core of global and regional geo-politics and our security and well-being. The end of the Cold War in 1991, entailing the disappearance of the Soviet Union and as a military and economic balancer of the preponderant power of the US, led to triumphalism and unilateralism on the part of the victors of the Cold War resulting in the weakening of the global multilateral security and economic institutions. This outcome of the Cold War also led to either great power interventions in the Indian Ocean littoral or state collapse which led to growing instability in the littoral regions (Iraq, Yemen, Somalia etc.); the West’s ideological triumphalism also led to the 2008 global financial and economic crisis and to the accelerated rise of China with a substantially altered global power politics.

An offshoot of globalisation, namely, the IT revolution and the empowering of the non-state actors, combined with weakened nation states, has created a situation in parts of the littoral which the security analysts describe as the phase of ‘post-Westphalian Long War’ or of ‘irregular’ or ‘asymmetrical’ warfare which requires a different kind of military doctrine for conflict management. The weakened state and multilateral institutions, combined with the surge of the technology, have brought in new factors into global security dynamics, such as quality of governance, science and technology, especially IT and bio-technology and skewed economic growth leading to environmental unsustainability, competition for access to natural resources such as food, water and energy and the impact of their inter-linkages on the security dynamics. The end of the Cold War has also led to the weakening of the formal alliance systems and development of interest-driven cooperation amongst nations. The current phase is also witnessing the emergence of Asian powers, especially China, which is bringing in its own dynamics especially as it is considered by the West as not yet ‘coopted’ into the global system.

The conundrum of transition to the post-Cold War period has been highlighted by the US National Intelligence Council’s (NIC) futuristic report, ‘Global Trends 2030’, published in December 2012. It considers the transition as being characterised by the uncertainty about the US role, the complexity of relationship between governments and diverse set of actors including state and non-state, the difficulty in the estimation of the pace of change and in estimating the framework of relationship between trends, discontinuities and crises necessitating a close focus on the ‘smaller political-psycho-social shifts” which do not get under the framework of grand ideologies like fascism or communism.

Technology and the weakened institutions are, further, facing mutating challenges facing India. Warfare will be conditioned more by precision guided munitions and its "irregular” nature. Naval warfare will be increasingly characterised by modernisation, including submarine buildup, sea-access/denial strategies centred around chokepoints, electronic, cyber space capabilities, NBC weapons and terrorism, piracy, the Jehadist insurgency and, what the security experts call, ‘OODA (‘Observe, Orient, Decide and Act’) Point’ which epitomizes compressed decision-cycles.

The non-traditional threats are also extremely important. Events such as the SARS pandeemic (2003), the Indian Ocean Tsunami (2004) will continue to test capabilities for government response failing which the countries can be destabilised. Climate change, according to analysts, has not been fully understood as regards its security ramifications. The mega-city urbanisation and the youth bulge challenges require better capacities for management and different types of natural disasters, i.e., droughts, crop plagues, prolonged volcanic eruption, soil erosion, new pathogens, including those which can be artificially engineered non-state actors, will have politically disruptive potential.

The maritime agencies involved, that is, the Navy, the Coast Guard, the coastal police, the shipping sector and the Ministry of Earth Sciences, have important roles to play in addressing the entire spectrum of these challenges.

The Indian Navy’s ‘India's maritime military strategy’, published in 2007, speaks of the navy’s force projection role in the Indian Ocean to protect national interests as well as maintain ‘good order at sea’, that is, pursuit of its constabulary role to conduct low intensity maritime operations (LIMO) as well as for anti-terrorism, anti-piracy and anti-trafficking operations. Successive prime ministers have spoken of the Indian Navy acting as the ‘net security provider’ in the Indian Ocean Region. In these roles, it has concerns about the existing balance of power in the region and its future trends. It also has the major function of hosting the sea-leg of India’s nuclear triad so as to ensure that the nuclear deterrent remains credible at a minimum level of weaponisation. Its benign role includes activities such as humanitarian aid, disaster relief, diving assistance, hydrography, non-combatant evacuation operations.

The capacity building for such role involves weapons acquisitions from overseas as well as their manufacture at home: given the scope of the naval procurement programme, there is the compelling necessity for maintaining targeted foreign relations, and for expanding and modernising production capacity at home with contributions from the private and public sector, and, inter-alia, from communications, electronics, IT, space sectors. The capacity building for carrier-based naval formations, nuclear and conventional submarines, naval aviation, satellites et cetera is an imperative necessity. The process of naval modernisation and evolution of its force structures in terms of the evolving challenges have an encompassing range - from national, including strategic, security, the geopolitics and the entire spectrum of non-traditional security threats.

The Indian Coast Guard has come a long way since its establishment in 1978, to countenance practically the same range of threat spectrum as the Indian Navy but at a lower level of lethality. It was tasked with enforcing maritime law, organising security in territorial waters, policing of the exclusive economic zone and to conduct research and rescue operations in an area of 3.9 million km² following ratification, in 2001, of the international convention on maritime search and rescue. Its mandate includes safety and protection of artificial islands and offshore terminals, installations and devices, protection of fishermen at sea, protection of marine environment, assistance to customs and other authorities in anti-smuggling operations and enforcement of enactments in force in the maritime zones. The DG, Coast Guard, functions as the chairman of the offshore security coordination committee, of maritime search and rescue authority and as the lead intelligence agency for coastal and sea borders security. The Coast Guard suffers from capacity constraints due to inadequate procurements. However, it is an active participant in various multilateral and international organisations bringing together various national Coast Guard agencies.

The coastal police organisations, under the various coastal state governments, came into existence following the shock of the Mumbai terror attack of November, 2008. By building capacity as local police to enhance coastal patrolling, a significant gap in security cover for India was sought to be plugged along with better coastal surveillance, including the capacity to track down the fishing boats – a truly gigantic task. It is handicapped by severe financial and capacity constraints, including personnel skills and its growth is affected as well by the threat perceptions of the different coastal states of India.

The shipping sector has, literally, started from this scratch after 1947. The world trade is growing faster than the world output; maritime transport handles 78% of global trade by volume and over 70% of global trade by value. The challenge of maritime shipping and shipbuilding sectors remains quite considerable. So also, the rather stunted state of coastal shipping, despite India’s long coastline and its extended island chains, and still inadequate capacity in the port sector,including port management. The connectivity of ports to the hinterland, requiring rail and road connectivity is acknowledged as a major constraint on India’s growth. India’s national shipping tonnage has fallen as a carrier of our seaborne trade whereas, now, the Indian bottoms are ageing fast and increasingly unsuitable for the changing pattern of seaborne shipping towards supertankers and very large carriers. The government needs to undertake major policy changes to lift the sector in all respects in the face of strong competition from China, South Korea and, to an extent, the Philippines, by treating it as a strategic national sector.

In the non-traditional security threats, characterising the 21st century, are endeavoured to be addressed by the Ministry of Earth Sciences, set up in 2006. It is responsible for development of technology for exploitation and exploration of marine resources, weather services, climate change and geo-hazards, including tsunamis and vulnerability mapping for the purpose; it underlines the need for improving the quality of services provided for each of these activities which require considerable international collaboration. Its further major scientific role is oceanographic studies where it has significant partnership with the International Oceanographic Commission.
All of these maritime capacities are aimed at the entire spectrum of challenges faced by India. The upscaling of these capacities, some to plug the existing gaps and others to keep abreast of the rapidly mutating challenges, is an ongoing process. The potential of these capacities for national well-being, especially of shipping and oceanic affairs, is immense and it is also an important tool for Indian diplomacy. The bolstering of the national security framework is, also, of great significance for regional and global stability.

The conundrum facing India and the region is a combination of the traditional and the non-traditional security threats. Here the instability potential is apprehended by the arrival of China in regional waters and as to whether it will be ‘disruptive’ of the existing order. The opening, however, can be in India seeking the opportunity to address the non-traditional challenges on priority to stabilise the situation in the littoral better with the enhanced beneficial effects for India, and to create favourable atmosphere for CBMs for a stable maritime order. This relatively benign – and, not unfavourable to India - order in the Indian Ocean is not likely to come under threat in the immediate future and the existing regional mechanisms can be deployed more effectively to address both the traditional and non-traditional security challenges.

This gives the opportunity to India to be diplomatically active amongst the littoral countries. One approach, of course, is to strengthen the regional governance organisations like IORA (Indian Ocean Rim Association) and the IONS (Indian Ocean Naval Symposium). Besides, a proactive approach for perception management needs to be developed in the littoral through leveraging our national media, and IT-enabled outreach programmes such as the pan-African e-network project. The need to address the challenges of the growing influence of the states in foreign affairs necessitates the strengthening of the role of MEA’s public diplomacy division. Special capacity-building efforts are needed for our maritime agencies for handling the challenges of non-traditional threats to the region.

The diplomatic environment in the 21st century is undergoing rapid change due to globalisation and other accompanying factors and the, consequent, rapid expansion in the number and the variety of international actors, empowered by ICT and the social media, extending much beyond the traditional NGOs to include the more amorphous civil society groups. There is the resurgence of the traditional geopolitical agenda as the nation states compete for power, resources and, even, territory. There is expansion of regulatory diplomatic agendas which have been expanded by the global financial crisis – regulatory banking, for example - and the whole host of other issues which can be handled only through more effective multilateral governance: these agendas are an outcome of this phenomenon which is likely to endure into the future.

The institutional structures supporting diplomatic activity are, therefore, being modified. The foreign ministries will continue to remain active in managing diplomatic networks and will do this, additionally, through creation of administrative hubs, virtual embassies, "swarming” of resources – rather like the "OODA Point” for the military leaders - from a wide variety of groups for emergency response as well as recourse to "diplomatic reserve”, rather like military reservists for service at short notice as has become the practice in many countries. Changing patterns of diplomatic communication in the contemporary diplomatic environment require a sophisticated understanding of the stakeholders and of the audiences on a particular issue and the recognition of the centrality of public diplomacy. There is the emergence of a new international security agenda which comprises complex international issues beyond the capacity of an individual country, which are highly interdependent and require holistic solutions to be achieved through collaboration between international stakeholders and civil societies. Diplomats would be acting as facilitators and social entrepreneurs between domestic and foreign civil society groups which operate global policy networks. This function will be necessary as conflicts are arising over interference of outside agencies in the domestic affairs of countries. Challenge for diplomats is to juggle the different skill sets required for handling the international security agenda and the more conventional geo-political agenda where the countries compete for power and resources. The diplomatic norms and practices, diplomats have lived by over centuries, are fragmenting and losing their popular currency.

In short, the efforts required for these challenges need to be based on the whole-of-the-government approach and somewhat different kind of institutional thinking – an effort which institutions such as the Central University of Rajasthan are geared well enough to undertake.

Source- Ambassador (Retd) Yogendra Kumar @ Ministry of External Affairs, GoI.

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