Can Cinderella become Godmother: The Indian Navy’s Carrier Goals and More

Notes: 

1.  This piece seeks to develop on the fine primer by Cdr KP Sanjeev Kumar (R)  https://kaypius.com/2021/08/07/thoughts-on-indias-first-indigenous-aircraft-carrier-iac1/ 

but all sins of this independent piece are mine alone and not to be laid at anyone else’s door.

2. Readers who regard islands as “unsinkable aircraft carriers” and/or think in terms of subs vs carriers or shore-based aviation vs carrier aviation, are advised to stop right now and save themselves time and effort. And no it does not matter which great  “expert” echoes your opinion.

3. It seems axiomatic that “advanced”, “world class” capabilities require similar mindsets, processes and professional standards. Easier said than done. The path to realizing IAC-2 will require shedding many old habits. Else it might only come on the back of shedding blood of Indian sailors. 

Au Revoir Cinderella

China no longer affords the Indian Navy the time to play its hitherto largely successful “Cinderella Service” strategy of fighting internal battles slowly but surely. Next on Beijing’s playbook is shrinking the space the Navy operates in.

To win against this external threat the Navy must first jettison its internal strategy. And the contentious, stalled IAC-2 project offers a most visible and concrete opportunity to coalesce a new approach around.

Navy leadership needs to task a “Carrier Mafia” emulating the Fighter Mafia. A key mission would be to aggressively use public advocacy to make the IAC-2 a rallying cause for not just its sea-control doctrine but also the long delayed Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA). Which  results in not a minor but seismic shift towards the Navy. These would be even bigger strategic wins than the carrier program.

Au Revoir Cinderella, hello, not Fairy but Mafia Godmother.

Seize Narrative Control

Navy’s failure to frame the IAC-2 question in doctrinal terms has meant that It is no accident that unintelligent attacks on the IAC-2 have been accompanied by equally unintelligent prescriptions that the Navy abandon sea control in favor of a sea denial-doctrine.

A doctrinal “refresher” might also clear some of the Navy’s own cobwebs - while sea control and power projection might be highly correlated they are not the same thing. The IN’s carriers, just like their PLAN counterparts, have not “projected power” beyond their backyard like the US or French carriers do regularly. An argument that to truly project power in a high threat environment, the IN needs a heavy-hitter like the IAC-2 may need to be made.

This also means less reliance on emotive pro-carrier arguments like “symbol of national prestige/exclusive club of nations” and the clichéd US formulation of “4.5 acres of sovereign territory” that lend credence to criticism that this is just a Navy ego trip. Public advocacy has to be about educating the audience on the finer points of naval warfare and elevating the discussion, not pandering to the lowest common denominator. 

Finally, the Carrier Mafia must draw attention of the public not to the fact that the Navy fails to get the budget that it asks for - no service anywhere gets that, but a more fundamental issue. That it has always been last in the budgetary pecking order, while the USN and PLAN are at No.1 and No.2 respectively.  How many of the navies of the UNSC P5 - India aspires to be P6 - have a similar rank?

All talk of Indian military reform and RMA is hollow until this glaring anomaly is addressed. 

The Cost Conundrum

The most damaging counter to IAC-2 is that indeed the carrier and its airwing will “cost a bomb.” Worse, a project of this complexity and pioneering nature will 100% have major cost/time overruns. Buffeted by the twin forces of a declining economy and a cultural overemphasis on “cheap is best”, the Navy has often attempted to skirt the cost issue, to its detriment. 

The Carrier Mafia must break new ground in India and share costing and budgeting schedules on IAC-2 and its airwing. Perversely, the long Indian decision cycles and ship building times offer more room and juggling of finances than most folks realize.

Let everyone from MPs to defence journalists to keyboard warriors pore over the arcane spreadsheets. There is nothing classified about it, such detailed breakdowns are routinely placed in front of legislators and into the public record in truly “advanced” nations. Public opinion that is easily “weaponized” by carrier critics on the issue of cost might be forgiving when (not if) the Navy misses its cost targets, but has transparency on its side.

It’s not all one-way  though. If the taxpayer is going to fund IAC-2 then the Navy needs to deliver savings elsewhere - both revenue and capex - by shedding non-core missions/assets. Why is the Navy increasingly in the “Coast Guard" business? Who will check the Navy’s own empire builders? Are purely warfighting considerations driving “XXX-ship Navy” targets? 

Ironically, It is a sign of the questionable motivations/competence of many carrier critics that they fail to pin the Navy to the mat on these “non-sexy” issues.

Blue-on-Blue

Speaking of critics with questionable motivations, the Navy and the Carrier Mafia need to either co-opt the IAF or fight it. Barring the rare examples of enlightened, secure members of that tribe who do not see it as a zero-sum game/existential threat, the IAF will use every avenue to nix IAC-2. From their “Frenemy” CDS Rawat to self-styled “airpower evangelists”. The latter have plenty of “critiques” on Indian carrier aviation but when it comes to the IAF they are happy to aid its cover-ups. (Not a scurrilous accusation -easily verifiable on social media)

Co-opting is infinitely preferable. In the past the Navy has negotiated temporary truces with the IAF but a permanent formal settlement on the lines of the US’s Key West/Johnson-McConell agreements is required. Moreover, an IAF-IN doctrinal alignment on “expeditionary” ops is critical, the lack of which Adm Raja Menon recently highlighted in an op-ed. 

In 1983 Chiefs of the US Army and USAF signed an actual MoU - made public in 1984, to bind their services  to the Army-developed but USAF-led Airland Battle doctrine. Real world RMA not just abstract conceptual talk.

More likely, the IN will have to fight the IAF, as it did successfully on the fixed wing MR mission back in the 1970s. The Carrier Mafia might have to channel the controversial  Cdr Nigel “Sharkey”Ward - RN - whose writings exposed the inefficient and ineffective nature of the RAF’s “shore-based” Black Buck missions in the Falklands War. 

It might even have to invoke the loss of Lt Cdr Ashok Roy and his crew when their Alize went down after being bounced by a PAF F-104 in airspace that the IAF did not think worthy of its attention.  The glaring lacunae in the way the IAF’s “maritime strike” squadrons work with the Navy also needs highlighting.

It will get dirty but the IAF continues to sneer at the “supporting” role, even as it simultaneously undermines the organic airpower of its sister services whose raison d’ etre is “support” This would be unacceptable in any truly “advanced” military and must be addressed upfront in any honest discussion about the IAC-2.

Officers and Gentlemen who may balk at such a public airing of dirty laundry and erosion of “military values” are unfortunately out-of-step with a taxpaying public which is increasingly savvy about inter-services spats, and their negative effects on overall national security. Also how does presenting a fake united front by the three services square up with “Integrity” - a core military value?

American Ingredients, Desi Recipe

Both on the airwing and the carrier itself, the US will be in pole position as a “supplier” for IAC-2. A CAATSA-triggered meltdown or similar event can always change equations, and the French with their substantial CATOBAR expertise may well reap the rewards of American folly.

However - and genuine carrier critics and proponents alike must ask the big question - will the Navy be “aping” the US only on hardware or will it also emulate ”unique” US carrier operation practices that make the USN fully leverage the lethality of this warfighting platform?

US law no less mandates that the CO and XO of an aircraft carrier be from naval aviation stream - NA/NFO, the proficiency for each pilot/crew in a US carrier squadron has a high baseline e.g. night ops qualified, and the carrier sustains high tempo air operations during a typical 12-hour carrier “flight ops” schedule.

Not even the French come close on any of these parameters. 

Navy leadership must make some tough calls on the "US model" - attaining some of these standards means spending more money on training and ops. The Navy’s surface warfare community who till date have enjoyed the bulk of “prestigious” aircraft carrier commands will surely be unhappy if no longer eligible.

On the issue of N-propulsion, consider that the USN learnt some expensive lessons on the USS Enterprise, briefly went back to conventional-powered carriers and only later came back with the Nimitz class. Neither is China - no slouch when it comes to taking on complex engineering endeavors, ready to take on the n-propelled carrier just yet..

The already steep learning curve on a CATOBAR carrier would have an added layer of complexity, increasing program risk. Unless there is a Kelly Johnson of Skunkworks fame or another AJ Paulraj (Navy’s sonar guru that went on to win the Marconi Prize) helming the program, the Navy’s current plan to stick to conventional propulsion is wise.

Can the carrier go faster and farther on n-power, sure but it cannot part company with the rest of the surface group that will still be fossil-fueled, as will its airwing. Further, the logistics and time (equals costs). associated with a Refueling and Complex Overhaul (RCOH) of a n-carrier are being glossed over.

Instead, intellectual firepower would do well to focus on how the IAC-2 design is adapted for the Indian Navy’s particular operating requirements and realities. For example, will the Navy’s lack of LPDs require IAC-2 to double as one? Will the lack of an Aegis-class or Kirov-class “arsenal ship” necessitate the carrier be equipped with its own massive SAM arsenal, to cater for an increased aerial threat?

Such decisions will impose real tradeoffs on the airwing size and the primary role of the carrier. However, breaking the “holy heuristic” of 1 aircraft per 1000 tonnes would be fine, if operational realities are thought through.

Pipedream or Realistic Aspiration

Any participant or observer of the Indian National Security “scene” is fully justified if the reaction to the above ramble is one of eye-rolling. However to hard-headed and justifiably jaded “realists” one would offer some empirical precedence of why a Carrier Mafia might work and turnaround the Navy’s fortunes.

In recent history, it has been one of the Navy’s own who is credited with formalizing and popularizing the “Indo-Pacific” construct. It led the US PACOM to rebrand itself and today both the term and construct form the basis of hundreds of papers. op-eds. seminars. Had both the Navy and the officer concerned worked out a royalty arrangement, at the minimum the lease of the MQ-9s might have been paid for!

More seriously, when will the investment that the Navy has made in advocacy vehicles like the NMF pay-off if not for such a high-impact deliverable?

Finally, what about the self-preservation instincts of Navy leadership against playing Godmother to a Career Mafia that will make more enemies?

That ship has already sailed. CDS Rawat delivered a very public snub when he chose a function attended by the UP CM over being present at the Navy Day ceremonies where its fallen are remembered.

If the current trajectory continues of a national mood desperately seeking a naval riposte to China, yet blissfully unaware of how badly Navy’s capability and doctrine have been undermined, no prizes for guessing that it will end badly, and it will be Navy leadership that will be thrown under the bus.