Pax Indica: India’s Indigenous Aircraft Carrier and the future of carrier aviation

On Sept 2, 2022, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi commissioned India’s first Indigenous Aircraft Carrier (IAC), INS Vikrant. The IAC project represents a monumental stride in Indian defence capabilities, and shows that India is ready to break free of its current dependence on Russian defence equipment. The IAC is a vessel conceptualised and built entirely in the 21st century and it represents changes in defence planning and thinking from the Cold War. This reflects a changing strategic calculus in the Indo-Pacific. As India seeks to assert its growing military might and step onto the world stage as a truly global power, it may well be required to take on different responsibilities to preserve the current international order.

Naval aviation, as a concept, has existed since the mid-19th century, but it was not until the First World War that navies began actively deploying aerial vehicles from the decks of their ships. The initial attempts began with balloon carriers (to carry reconnaissance balloons) and seaplane carriers (conventional warships with space to carry a seaplane and a crane to assist in deployment and recovery of the seaplane from the ship’s deck). These first attempts were moderately successful, but the first arguably real successful aircraft carrier, HMS Ark Royal, deployed seaplanes during the Gallipoli campaign. Ark Royal played a reconnaissance role and directed fire from the landing fleet’s naval guns, onto Ottoman positions to support the advancing infantry. Experiments at deploying aeroplanes from flat-top ships had begun in earnest since 1909/1910, having been developed from the seaplane carrier, the first ship to be built with features akin to modern carriers, HMS Furious, also saw action during the First World War. Furious, a Courageous-class battlecruiser, was modified during construction with the intent of being used to launch and recover fixed-wing aircraft – with features such as a hangar and a take-off deck in the fore section. Later in the war, Furious was further modified with the removal of her aft turret and installation of a recovery deck in the aft section, but the two decks remained un-connected around the superstructure area – in other words, not the structure we are presently familiar with for an aircraft carrier. The disconnected decks also meant that aircraft had an extremely small margin for error, especially on landing, having only a limited length of deck to land on, and denying aircraft in distress ample rolling distance to abort, go around and re-attempt landing. Launching aircraft also had limited length of deck to run up on. Following lessons learned from the experiments on the utility of full-length with HMS Argus and Eagle, Furious was also fitted with a full-length contiguous deck. Japan and the United States Navy (USN) soon followed suit with carriers of their own in the interwar period, commissioning them as Hōshō (purpose-built as an aircraft carrier) and USS Langley (cargo ship converted to function as a flat-top carrier). Despite the limitations imposed by the Washington Naval Treaty of 1921, the major seafaring powers all continued to experiment with aircraft carriers, and more importantly, carrier aviation. (MacDonald, 1964) (Lehman and Wills, 2021)

Carrier aviation truly came into its own during the Second World War. Carriers saw action in both Atlantic and Pacific theatres of combat. Though they were renowned for supporting merchant shipping and submarine hunting operations in the Atlantic, it was in the Pacific where aircraft carriers demonstrated their true power. Japan was the first to demonstrate the massive strike capability of carrier-borne aircraft with their raid on Pearl Harbour on Dec 7, 1941 – and the Doolittle raid served to accomplish the same. The USN soon asserted its superiority in carrier aviation at the Battle of Midway, as USN torpedo bombers, dive-bombers, and fighter aircraft decimated the Japanese task force that sought to capture Midway – the result of a successful intelligence operation conducted by US Naval Intelligence to seek and locate the Japanese fleet steaming towards Midway to invade the islands. In two days, American aircraft cost the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) four fleet carriers, one heavy cruiser, and damaged another heavy cruiser and two destroyers. Many historians have speculated that Midway was the turning point that effectively broke the IJN’s back, having cost them so dearly in terms of both ships, trained aircrew and maintenance personnel. Though it would take more months of hard fighting before the US Navy gained naval and air superiority over the Pacific, Midway had proven, beyond any doubt, the immense strike capability that carrier aviation, with sufficient intelligence and a well-trained air wing could accomplish – and in the same strain, how significant the loss of carrier aviation capabilities would be to the accomplishment of war goals. Carriers continued to be developed, quite rapidly, even after the cessation of hostilities in 1945. (MacDonald, 1964) (Lehman and Wills, 2021)

Today, carriers come in all shapes and sizes, covering everything from amphibious assault ships/landing helicopter docks to mammoth nuclear powered supercarriers like the American Nimitz and Ford classes, and the French Charles De Gaulle. Naturally, it has followed that any power seeking to assert itself, flex its military muscles, and build a true blue water navy, needs an aircraft carrier, preferably one that is indigenously built. (Singh, 2022) From a strategic perspective, an aircraft carrier is not only indicative of the technological sophistication of a country’s military, as well as its seafaring capabilities – carriers are vulnerable and require a strike group of escort cruisers and destroyers to provide defensive capabilities which carriers generally lack a full suite of – but its ability and willingness to project power. A carrier, quite obviously, is physically imposing, given that it is little but a floating airfield. In foreign waters, either to aid an ally or deter an adversary, its very presence is the physical manifestation of its home country’s will and dedication to a given cause, ie, force projection. It serves a psychological element too, much like what was theorised by Lidell Hart, the famous theoretician of tank warfare, (Hart, 2008) about the advent of the tank in the First World War – that it unsettles an adversary by sheer force of its size. Once anchored, a carrier can remain in theatre for virtually unlimited periods of time, given sufficient resupply and at-sea maintenance, which provides a remarkably more permanent presence than flying airplanes overhead or conducting sorties.

More critically, in an increasingly interconnected and globalised world, the carrier is by far one of the most valuable assets in conducting Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR) missions around the world. The fact that aircraft conducting rescue sorties need only return to the ship, anchored just offshore, rather than to an airbase reasonably far away from the disaster zone, ensures a much higher tempo of operations. Not needing to deploy aircraft from a base also ensures a lower operational cost, without needing to move critical maintenance infrastructure to the forward base – whereas on the carrier, those systems are already aboard and forward deployed. Being able to conduct HADR operations at a high tempo with little encumbrance is a significant demonstration of a country’s goodwill and diplomatic soft power.

So why is India’s IAC so important, you might ask. The reason is quite simple: it upsets the balance of power. (South China Morning Post, 2022)

Though there are many who would seek to disparage proto-realist theories surrounding the balance of power, we would do well to remember that much of that framing has come from the European frame of reference. Asia is still undergoing the European moment of rising power competition from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and India, the (relative) underdog is seeking to assert itself as the new Asian power. (Kissinger, 2015) The underlying assumption at the outset of the 21st century was that Asia, or more accurately the world at large would be subject, through massive Chinese participation in international institutions, to a form of the old Pax Sinica order. However, the attempted (re)assertion of China’s historical hegemony over East and Southeast Asia, as a byproduct of an aggressive brand of Chinese exceptionalism, does not a Pax Sinica make, not in the modern state system. (Johnston, 2018) An assertive China intuitively calls for a counterweight, perhaps one with a softer touch, and a relatively unblemished history with respect to relations with the rest of Asia – in other words, India. Apart from Pakistan (and now, China), India carries little to no baggage with respect to its relations with the rest of Asia, and given its sheer size and thereby, potential for growth, is the natural counterweight to an aggressive China - and more than likely, its successor as the continent’s pre-eminent power.

Former Indian Foreign Minister Shashi Tharoor has argued for a Pax Indica, in keeping with the tenets of the traditional Indian foreign policy machine – respect for international rules and norms, participation in international institutions, preservation of human rights, non-alignment and most importantly, cooperation over conflict and the preference for the soft touch wherever possible. Even India’s most aggressive foreign policies, generally aimed at Pakistan, reflect the posture of a sleeping elephant more so than a crazed bull elephant. Throughout most of its history, India has acted with a soft touch, opting to use force with extreme caution and proportionality, and preferring diplomatic avenues instead. To that end, India has few enemies in the modern world, a great many partners and friendly nations, and a handful of (potential) allies – by way of its almost stubborn adherence to its historical policy of non-alignment. (Tharoor, 2016)

So why is India’s place as the next in line for the Asian throne and its historical soft-touch military approach important? As observers have noted, Vikrant is not a supercarrier – nor is it intended to be. It carries an air wing of 30 MiG-29K (naval variant) fighter jets, a handful of helicopters and a crew complement of 1700, as compared to the USS Gerald R. Ford’s 5500. (Singh, 2022) The smaller crew complement, even compared to a ship of a similar size, is the result of increased automation and computerisation of systems – reflective of the thinking of a modern, technologically advanced naval force. (Peri, 2022) Modernity is the key phrase here, not just in terms of technical systems, but indeed, operations. With India’s historical preponderance to avoid war, and culminate goodwill instead, as well as a history of engagement with a variety of humanitarian missions, Vikrant is the perfect blend of historical soft touch and an aggressive edge for the present day. Like all aircraft carriers, Vikrant is ideal for launching humanitarian missions to far-flung corners of the globe and rendering immediate aid to disaster-struck areas. As a technologically advanced ship, it is sufficiently assertive as a symbol of Indian technological advancement and readiness to step into its own on the world stage. As a carrier with an operational air wing comprised of helicopters and strike fighters, it provides a strike capability with a range limited only by the ship’s supplies. In this regard, Vikrant is more advanced and capable than the similarly sized America-class amphibious assault ships which are only capable of carrying helicopters and V/STOL airframes. Yet, the fact that it is not a supercarrier, or even as large as China’s latest Liaoning carrier, suggests that the establishment strain of the soft touch is still pervasive despite what Prime Minister Modi’s more bombastic statements might suggest. Yet, equally importantly, Vikrant’s relatively small(er) size suggests that in wartime, if it is sunk and lost to enemy action, it can be replaced, fairly quickly and easily, much like the USN’s Essex-class carriers that the U.S. produced 24 of during the Second World War. As much as tactical survivability is important, easy replication and replacement are equally important during wartime, because the warfighting capability of a nation should not ever hinge on the survival of a sole platform for the duration of hostilities. The smaller a carrier is, the easier it is to replace – and with more automation, fewer lives, and technically trained sailors are lost, which presents far less of a blow to the fleet if the worst should come to pass.

In a similar strain, Vikrant also has far less of a resource and logistics footprint than a supercarrier. Until such a time when India is able to place nuclear power plants on board ships, it would be wise to continue producing smaller carrier that require fewer resources like food and fuel for a given length of deployment than their larger, and conventionally powered Chinese counterparts. Many will argue that the Royal Navy’s Queen Elizabeth-class is hampered by the same issue - but we ought not forget that the Royal Navy has perfected its at-sea replenishment logistics machinery over decades of deployments around the world, while China has yet to flex its naval muscles beyond its immediate backyard. (Forces News, 2022) India may yet avoid falling into the potential trap of insufficient resources to keep its carrier at sea if it keeps up with smaller carriers until such a time when it builds up a sufficient fleet auxiliary and can power its carriers without relying on expendable fossil fuels.While the place for the supercarrier remains, the future of carrier aviation rests in the small carrier - a smaller strike capability than a supercarrier, yes, but they are lighter, easier to refit and deploy, easier to replace, and consume far less in terms of resources and logistics chains. In other words, ideal for new naval powers seeking to truly test their blue water mettle as their military manufacturing complexes catch up to their geostrategic needs and goals.

There is no doubt that Vikrant will be a capable warfighting machine once sea trials have been completed, and that in years to come, it will be the basis upon which India will continue to develop her carrier fleet. Yet, while many will continue to criticise the Indian Navy for not building a larger carrier (which, given Indian technological prowess, is more than likely to be possible), there is a method behind the seeming madness. The future of Pax Indica rests on the assumption of an India that is sufficiently aggressive and militarily strong – no more, no less. To the world, a carrier with strike capabilities, but not more than that of a small country’s entire air force, projects restraint -, a crucial ingredient in a world where every major power seems hell-bent on aggressive posturing and playing a very fast, very loose game of chicken. Vikrant and its size are the quintessential expression of the old military adage that “amateurs talk tactics, professionals talk logistics” being far less encumbered with replenishment needs than China’s Liaoning – crucial for still-young naval powers as they build their capabilities. An India that wishes to maintain a sustainable rise to the Asian throne of political and military predominance must not run before it can walk - and Vikrant is walking along just fine.

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