A new battle for sea supremacy

The current geopolitical shake-up led by the Trump-led US will come into full play in the Indian Ocean soon and has a direct bearing on India’s national security. According to K M Panikkar, India’s foremost naval historian, India never lost its sovereignty until it lost control of the Indian Ocean.

Despite a revolution in military affairs, nautical science, and nuclear physics, the international security architecture rests at sea based on a concept called the command of the sea. The global character of the world order is derived from the seas which connect us all and divide us all.

This concept has transformed since the turn of the 19th century when the world, for the first time, became a closed political system after nearly a century of British-held command of the sea following the battle of Trafalgar in 1805.

Since this time, Britain could cherry-pick islands and naval bases around the world in denial to its peer competitors and thus lay the foundation of a maritime world order. The balance of power within the international system is decided by the status of the command of the sea, and is a relative theory of power. The command of the
sea is achieved by its denial to others.

The simultaneous rise of the US, Japan, Italy, and Russia during the fag end of the 19th century challenged the notion of the command of the sea. Britain had to form an alliance, the first, with an Asian country – Japan (1902-23) – which was sought to be dismantled by the US during the Washington Naval Conference (1921-22). Japan made history by defeating the Russian Navy at the Battle of Tsushima in 1905. Russia’s inability to concentrate its naval forces due to limitations of distance led to the US realise the importance of the construction of the Panama Canal. The US Navy’s ability to concentrate its naval fleets from the Atlantic and the Pacific granted it the naval supremacy at the sea which underpins the world order after the mantle shifted from Britain to the US since the end of World War II in 1945.

Along with a US-led global alliance structure, major adaptations in international law and military operations and strategy continued to preserve the idea of the command of the sea which remained only partially challenged by the Soviet Union during the Cold War years. With the fall of
the Soviet Union, the brief era of a unipolar order
under the US was challenged with the fielding of anti-access and area-denial (A2/AD) weapon systems
by land-based powers such as Iran, China, and Russia. Yet, the major challenge came with the economic rise of China which translated into the largest investment in its navy.

The rise of China

Within a short time, China’s naval modernisation along with a land-based sea denial weapon system led to a situation where China had absolute sea control in the Western Pacific in scenarios short of war. This situation called for the US to initiate the pivot to Asia policy under the Obama administration. China responded by taking historical initiatives such as Belt and Road which aimed to challenge the international order. Japan, most threatened by China’s rise, initiated its policy of creating an arc of freedom and prosperity around the rim of the Eurasian continent as early as 2007.

In recent times, the US’ naval supremacy has been challenged to the extent that the command of the sea is now disputed and requires major adjustments to the US military deployment from the Euro-Atlantic theatre to the Pacific theatre. This requires freeing itself from its alliance commitments in Europe and a tactical peace agreement with Russia. This challenge stems from the structure of the world and the impossibility to project power simultaneously in the Eastern and Western hemispheres.

With the Eurasian continent linking East and West remaining hostile, the US will have to depend on the Indian Ocean as the strategic link between the Pacific and the Atlantic. This calls for the US to first deny the Indian Ocean to any hostile powers, especially China which, according to many naval experts in India, is at the cusp of making its naval presence in the Indian Ocean permanent.

This is a historical opportunity in the making at India’s doorstep where it enjoys the absolute advantage as a resident naval force and is well-disposed to shape events to ensure its rise as a great power.

(The writer is a lecturer at Sichuan International Studies University, China)