Around Asia
Gordon G. Chang
India Goes Shopping for Submarines
16 April 2015
India is in the market for subs, but it’s having trouble buying the best ones. Indian Defense Minister Manohar Parrikar, during a two-day meeting in Tokyo at the end of last month, reportedly asked his counterpart there, Gen Nakatani, to offer to sell six of Japan’s Soryu-class diesel models. The Japanese, according to a source in the Indian Defense Ministry speaking to Defense News, were “non-committal.” The apparent hesitance suggests that New Delhi might want to rethink the application of its “Buy and Make in India” program.
Buy and Make, as a practical matter, requires foreign arms firms, before selling advanced weapons to India, to joint venture with Indian firms. In general, Tokyo does not appear to be dead set against sharing technology or building subs in foreign yards. Japan, after all, will probably be producing Soryus in Australian yards in the near future. India’s facilities, however, are hardly world-class. The “Indian shipbuilding industry has limited capacity and a track record that is less than stellar,” says Alessio Patalano of King’s College London. Moreover, Tokyo is likely concerned about India’s poor track record in working with foreign arms manufacturers.
New Delhi is caught in a dilemma. Like other large emerging nation, India wants to be able to design and build its own armaments. It can develop that capability, but only over the course of decades. At the same time, it feels threatened by China and believes—correctly—it needs sophisticated weapons now.
The Indian political establishment has made the predicament even worse by restricting foreign investment in the defense industry, further retarding progress. The country, to put it mildly, has an unenviable history of developing weapons. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is cautiously relaxing ownership rules but has not gone as far as is needed.
Until it can design and build world-class subs, India will have to depend on others. Soryu-class subs have a short 20-year service life and are not currently configured to carry Indian-made missiles, but they are otherwise ideal for New Delhi’s purposes. The Japanese subs have a longer range and are quieter than the French, German, and Russian models expected to participate in India’s competition.
Some argue the sophisticated Soryus are too advanced for India, but that view is wrong. Indian submariners are, in coming decades, going to be shadowing Chinese subs around the Indian Ocean and perhaps in the seas beyond. China is quickly building a large submarine force—currently bigger than the American one, according to the US Navy—and fast upgrading its technology. India needs the best boats it can acquire.
At present, India has only 14 submarines, and one of them is leased from Russia. In 1986, the country had 21. China now operates more than 70.
Soon after becoming prime minister last May, Modi cancelled a proposal he inherited from the predecessor government to purchase subs made abroad, insisting that the seller produce them under the Buy and Make program. Given India’s urgent needs, the cancellation was probably a mistake, especially in light of the long delays that have already plagued India’s submarine-building programs.
Yet the nationalist leader knows when to bend the rules. Faced with an urgent need to counter the Chinese air force, Modi agreed this month to purchase 36 French-made Rafale fourth-generation fighter aircraft, foregoing Buy and Make requirements for the large order.
If the prime minister can make an exception for out-of-date aircraft, he certainly should do so for state-of-the-art subs.
http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/blog/gordon-g-chang/india-goes-shopping-submarines
