Naval Competition Heating Up in Pacific and Indian Oceans, and Russia Must Take Part, Kupriyanov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Dec. 21 – Naval competition among great and regional powers is heating up in the Pacific and Indian oceans, and in this situation, “Russia cannot allow itself the luxury of not having its own well-thought-out ad active naval policy,” Aleksey Kupriyanov says. Otherwise in the new cold war, it “will condemn itself to defeat.

            Speaking at a Moscow conference earlier this month, the head of the South Asia and Indian Ocean program at IMEMO said that the world is heading into a new era of naval competition and that these efforts will play an increasingly important role in determining the outcome of the new cold war (profile.ru/military/pochemu-v-usloviyah-novoj-holodnoj-vojny-rossii-neobhodim-silnyj-flot-977861/).        

            “The past year,” Kupriyanov says, “has given to this process a new impulse” with both littoral states and those further afield building up and putting to sea ever more warships and forming alliances among themselves to counter those they see as threatening their ability to control sea lanes and fishing areas.

            In this situation, the long-dominant American fleet has been pushed to the limit. Its ships have been forced to stay on duty far longer than before, and modernization efforts have thus been put off. Whether the US can rectify this situation in the near term is very unclear given the costs involved, the Moscow scholar says.

            “No one wants war, but everyone is preparing for that outcome,” he continues. At the same time, “the present naval arms race is significantly different from the previous ones.” Earlier, everyone agreed on the measures of power, but now there are competing definitions given the kinds of weapons naval forces can bring to bear.

            And even though the last naval battle of any size took place “almost 40 years ago” in the case of the Falklands, there is one thing that almost everyone agrees on: “the fate of the world again will be decided on the seas” because the oceans are the only theater where powers can move forces right up to the borders of their opponents and keep them there.

             Moscow’s thinking on naval operations continues to rely on Soviet Admiral Sergey Gorshkov’s 1976 volume, The Naval Power of the State. It remains important, but what is even more important is that the Russian leadership recognize that the navy isn’t a luxury even at a time of intercontinental missiles but an essential part of state power.

            Nowhere is its failure to do so likely to have more serious negative consequences than in the Pacific and Indian oceans, Kupriyanov concludes.