CGI of the INS Vikrant
Posted on 04/22/2015 11:21:51 PM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
A new paper by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace argues that India and the United States should collaborate on building New Delhi’s next Vikrant-class aircraft carrier, the 65,000 tons nuclear-powered INS Vishal, expected to enter service in the 2020s.
“Working in concert to develop this vessel would not only substantially bolster India’s naval combat capabilities but would also cement the evolving strategic bond between the United States and India in a truly spectacular fashion for many decades to come,” Ashley J. Tellis, the author of the Carnegie study, underlines.
In January 2015, both countries announced a joint working group to share aircraft carrier technology and design. The Pentagon selected Rear Adm. Thomas Moore, the Navy’s two-star program executive officer for aircraft carriers, to lead the U.S. delegation in discussions. India will be represented by Rear Admiral Surendra Ahuja, a former Indian test pilot. However, so far, the working group has not met once.
Tellis uses the working group announcement as an impetus to push for even closer cooperation between New Delhi and Washington. He assesses that India is more likely to consider deeper defense ties given the growing Chinese naval threat in the Indian Ocean:
[N]o country today would profit as much from collaborating with the United States in carrier design and construction as India at a time when its local dominance in the Indian Ocean is on the cusp of challenge from China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN), which commissioned its first aircraft carrier in 2012.
Tellis offers 5 broad recommendations for U.S. policymakers to consider:
Explore the possibility of equipping India’s carrier with the electromagnetic aircraft launch system (EMALS).
Offer India access to various advanced aviation systems, such as the U.S. Navy’s E-2C/D Hawkeye for airborne early warning and battle management and the fifth-generation F-35C Lightning strike fighter, so as to permit the Indian Navy to secure a combat advantage over its rivals’ air wings.
Consider changes to current U.S. policy to allow for discussions about nuclear propulsion technology in order to, among other things, make the integration of EMALS technology a viable option for India’s next-generation carrier.
Support a partnership between the Indian Navy and the U.S. Naval Sea Systems Command, and U.S. private industry as appropriate, to validate the vessel’s engineering and production designs, imbibe best practices from the U.S. experience when constructing the carrier, and coordinate on sea trials prior to commissioning the ship.
Encourage the conclusion of consulting contracts and memoranda of understanding between Indian shipyards and U.S. industry to assist India in incorporating advanced construction techniques when building its new large-deck carriers.
Some of the recommendations, such as India acquiring the F-35C, can be discarded right away, since India is still tied to the Perspective Multi-role Fighter (PMF) project (see: “What’s the Status of the Indian-Russian Fifth Generation Fighter Jet?”) and, despite setbacks, is unlikely to abandon it.
Other suggestions, however, like equipping India’s carrier with the electromagnetic aircraft launch system (EMALS), appear more realistic. “I’m optimistic about cooperating with them on that,” U.S. Defense Undersecretary for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics Frank Kendall, recently told Reuters.
Conversely, despite all of the rhetoric, the core of the problem remains that there is no common strategic vision between the two nations. The China threat alone will not suffice to convince a deeply skeptical Indian foreign policy elite of the need for deeper cooperation with the United States at the risk of alienating Beijing.
The omnipresent “China threat” is one of the usual arguments in the playbook used by D.C.-centric hedgehog analysts suffering from the “Gathering Storm Syndrome” (I wrote about it here and here), but an argument that unfortunately fails on many analytical levels. At the end of the day, we are likely to see some level of Indo-U.S. technical cooperation; however, as long as New Delhi and Washington cannot align their core security interests in Asia, prospects for a closer partnership are slim.
CGI of the INS Vikrant
India gets it from us, or it goes to another camp to get help.
Keeping India in our camp would seem the better option.
I don’t want it in Putin’s camp.
Short answer?
Yes.
BRICS stands for Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa. That would seem to indicate that fomenting conflicts between India and China may have become a sort of a hopeless task.
If US gets involved, like it usually does in every single conflict out there, it is going to be fighting for India against best friends, the Chicoms.
they are smart polite and are running our tech. better keep em close.
It may not be a perfect situation, but India is in a good location to be an ally. If at all possible, I agree with you.
I am no geopolitical whiz, but it is fairly clear we have a lot more in common with India than China, and far less in conflict.
It would be a lot cheaper, and a lot faster, to build a death swarm of off-the-shelf drones armed with off-the-shelf ship killing tactical nuke missiles.
Indy has long been lost to the Muzzies. 5 years too late IMO.
We may have no choice. We will need them when China starts to move—in force—for their own Co-Properity Sphere (ie Empire)—They will need cheap resources—like Oil. They will move south to Vietnam and mayla, Indonesia, and even Burma—Only India and Japan stand in their way. We will have only two choices—Let China have the east and Pacific, or fight. I wonder if we have the will anymore. We may even lose Guam and Hawaii to the New Chinese Empire.
AGREED.
The world is quickly becoming a MUSLIM/ISLAM vs. EVERYONE else. Check the history of how India’s Hindu population(800,000,000) deal with its minority Muslim population(200,000,000). If/When the Indian Muslims kill/attack Indian Hindus the retaliation is a hundred to a thousand fold.
Ask yourself why a population of Muslims nearly as large as the population of the entire US remains relatively quiet within India.
Well, the more the U. S. recedes around the world, the more likely this is to happen.
Folks are sleep-walking who urge a pull back.
Agreed, we should be making India one of our best friends in Asia. Only they have the man power to come close to countering the Chinese advantage in man power. I got the impression Bush was trying to do this but obumbler has screwed up every alliance we have ever had so who knows where this stand currently.
Maybe it’s just me, but this:
Explore the possibility of equipping India’s carrier with the electromagnetic aircraft launch system (EMALS).
Bothers me. You know why? EMP. If an EMP takes out the EMALS, you’re billion dollar carrier is dead. It can’t launch cover, it can’t launch attackers, it can’t LAUNCH.
If it’s a life or death event, I prefer mechanical to electrical every single time.
/for example, I work at a university, and there was talk of moving the emergency phones from copper landline to wireless VOIP. There are SO many things out of our control with wireless, I could not in good conscience be for this. I don’t care if it saves money from having to run two phone systems - it saves money from the big old lawsuit when some student gets hurt, or worse, and the RF was all jacked up because of whatever and the emergency phone wouldn’t dial the police department.
For some reason little is reported about the attacks on Christians in India.
There are these "BRICS" meetings etc but they are little more than photo-opportunities.
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