Sea piracy is not a recent phenomenon. The coastal piracies of Ireland in the medieval era to the most recent Somali mission of capturing the oil supertanker, Sirius Star, owned by Saudi Armco is a long and thrilling story. Hollywood has often glorified the “wild and fearsome pirate captain” in their movies. In fact you can see a ‘one eyed pirate’ off the coast of San Diego and even take a picture with him. Few can imagine that sea piracy is a very real and increasing problem for the modern shipping. Today, Abdi Sheikh of Reuters reports from Mogadishu, Somalia, “An Indian warship destroyed a pirate ship in the Gulf of Aden and gunmen from Somalia seized two more vessels despite a large international naval presence off their lawless country”. This is a very serious situation and requires world attention.
“The Sirius Star was seized 450 nautical miles southeast of Mombasa, Kenya, far beyond the gangs’ usual area of operations. The Sirius held as much as 2 million barrels of oil, more than a quarter of Saudi Arabia’s daily exports, and had been heading for the United States via Cape of Good Hope.” -reports Sheikh. He further elaborates, “The Sirius Star was seized despite an international naval effort, including by NATO, to guard one of the world’s busiest shipping routes. Warships from the United States, France, Russia and India are stationed off Somalia”. This should primarily be an Indian responsibility. From the Cape of Good Hope to the Straits of Malacca, the dominant naval presence must be Indian to keep our influence unchallenged. India would hate to see either Chinese or Russian initiative.
India refuses to grow-up and assume its strategic responsibilities. If we do not develop a strong and forward looking naval posture, we would regret it for the rest of this century. This is an Indian opportunity and we must not let it pass! India has no choice but to build a blue-water-navy, atleast 10 times the size that we have today. Indian Navy needs 10 Aircraft Carrier Battle Groups by 2047. These battle groups consist of a carrier, its embarked air wing, and various escorts-cruisers, destroyers, frigates, attack submarines and attached logistics ships. The cost of each group could be as much as $20 billion to $30 billion in today’s value. This could be achieved by allocating $1 billion a month towards Indian Navy for the next 40 years. Alternatively we would have China fill in the void. Just THINK about it!
Filed under: International Tagged: | 450 nautical miles, Abdi Sheikh of Reuters, Aircraft Carrier Battle Groups, Blue-water navies, Cape of Good Hope, coastal piracies of Ireland, Gulf of Aden, Indian Navy, Indian warship, Mogadishu-Somalia, Mombasa-Kenya, Oil Supertanker Sirius Star, one eyed pirate, San Diego, Saudi Arabia, Saudi Armco, Sea piracy, Sirius Star, Somalia, Straits of Malacca, wild and fearsome pirate captain
Good thinking, I actually wrote something similar yesterday. The Indian ocean has become China’s playing field as well because of its strategic commodity interests in Africa. India would do well to develop its navy and take on a bigger role because this is our own backyard.