India to hone anti-submarine capabilities at Malabar exercise in response to PRC threat
India’s participation in the forthcoming Malabar multilateral defense exercise provides its Armed Forces the opportunity to demonstrate and test capabilities such as anti-submarine warfare (ASW) and Special Operations Forces (SOF) in cooperation with its partners in the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or Quad, according to experts.
Malabar also emphasizes that the Quad, which also includes Australia, Japan and the United States, is united against the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) overreach in the Indo-Pacific.
“The Quad signals strategic convergence between major powers and singles out China as the main adversary,” Prateek Joshi, a defense analyst at the International Centre for Peace Studies, a New Delhi think tank, told FORUM.
In exercises such as Malabar and other multilateral activities related to defense, diplomacy, technology, climate and health, Quad partners “reduce Chinese legitimacy as an Asian hegemon and compel China to change its behavior,” he said.
Indian Soldiers have faced off against Chinese forces in territorial disputes along the nations’ Himalayan border in recent years. Meanwhile, PRC vessels frequently encroach into Japan’s territorial waters around the Japanese-controlled Senkaku Islands, and Australia and the U.S. have been targeted by Beijing’s economic warfare.
India’s Malabar lineup will include a Shivalik-class stealth frigate, a Kamorta-class ASW stealth corvette and a P8I ASW aircraft. The exercise runs November 8-18, 2022, in waters near Yokosuka, Japan, where India will be joined by contingents from the other Quad members. (Pictured: Indian Navy, Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force and Royal Australian Navy ships sail in formation with the U.S. Navy guided-missile destroyer USS Barry during Malabar 2021.)
The ASW drills slated for Malabar are important to India, in part, due to concerns over PRC submarines in the Indian Ocean, Joshi said.
“China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy demonstrated its capability to deploy nuclear attack submarines (SSNs) in August 2015 under the guise of anti-piracy patrols,” he said. “The SSNs can challenge India’s ability to establish sea control.”
A Chinese stealth SSN was deployed at the time with strategic intent, Indian Navy Capt. Anurag Bisen wrote in an August 2022 essay for the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses in New Delhi. Given such vessels are ill-suited for surface operations such as anti-piracy missions, Bisen speculated that the deployment was actually to test the SSN’s capabilities for long-range patrols.
“It is quite possible that the Chinese have developed the necessary infrastructure, expertise and the requisite command, control and communication protocols for prolonged and undetected SSN operations in the IOR [Indian Ocean region],” he wrote.
ASW drills are featured in other naval exercises involving the Indian Navy, said Joshi, including Varuna with France and Konkan with the United Kingdom.
Malabar’s SOF component, meanwhile, builds interoperability and information-sharing among participants to deter and defend against nontraditional threats. “These include anti-terror, hostage rescue, casualty evacuation, anti-piracy and opposed evacuation,” Joshi said. “The Indian Navy is expected to be the first responder in these eventualities in the Indian Ocean, and it collaborates with partner countries to assist IOR countries.”
Overall, he said, the Quad serves as a counter to Beijing’s attempts to seize territory or otherwise unilaterally change the regional status quo, bolstering efforts by traditional U.S. alliance systems and multilateral forums such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
“Under these conditions, minilateral forums like the Quad have emerged as new methods of deterrence,” Joshi said.
Mandeep Singh is a FORUM contributor reporting from New Delhi, India.
IMAGE CREDIT: PETTY OFFICER 3RD CLASS JUSTIN STACK/U.S. NAVY
