Naval exercises indicate deepening India-us ties
India emerging as key ally to the US in securing the Indian Ocean Region
nNEW DELHI: As four Indian naval ships participated in a two-day joint exercise with American supercarrier USS Nimitz off the Andaman coast this week, another supercarrier USS Ronald Regan teamed up with the navies of Australia and Japan to carry out a similar exercise 4,000km away on the mouth of the contested South China Sea.
The official statements did not name China, but the two exercises make it clear that -- at a time when Beijing is moving to expound the Middle Kingdom concept, and the US is emerging at the bulwark against it in the South China Sea and beyond -India will be a principal ally to the US in securing the Indian Ocean Region while Japan and Australia will be key to protecting the Pacific region.
“This would be a Quad exercise by default,” a military commander said, referring to the four-country Quadrilateral security dialogue in which the US plays the lead role.
The exercise with the Indian Navy -- it gains further significance in the backdrop of the Ladakh standoff -- was conducted beyond the Six Degree channel which separates Great Nicobar from Banda Ache in
Indonesia’s Sumatra. The USS Nimitz, which reaches more than 23 stories high from the keel to the top of the mast, was coming down from the South China Sea into the Strait of Malacca.
The Nimitz carrier strike group, consisting of flagship USS Nimitz, Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruiser USS Princeton and Arleigh Burkeclass guided missile destroyers USS Sterett and USS Ralph Johnson took part in the drills. India was represented by INS Rana, INS Sahyadri, INS Shivalik and INS Kamorta.
Simultaneously, USS Ronald Regan conducted the trilateral military exercise as a show of naval might in the Philippine Sea on the doorstep of the disputed South China Sea.
“Throughout the cooperative exercise period, participants will operate and train together, exercising integrated maritime operations in an all-domain warfighting environment,” the US Navy said in a statement, pointing that the exercise would help their response “to any situation”.
The four navies that participated in the two exercises -- US,
India, Japan and Australia -will be in the Indian Ocean in November as part of the expanded Malabar naval exercise led by India. Australia is expected to be formally invited to the exercise soon.
China claims much of the neighbouring South China Sea, though the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei also have overlapping claims in the waters. The US, in a marked change in stance on China’s disputes in the South China Sea, had described Beijing’s pursuit of offshore resources “completely unlawful” and condemned its “campaign of bullying to control” the disputed waters.
The message that put China at the centre of the US’S focus was reinforced by defence secretary Mark Esper late on Tuesday.
Esper explained the presence of the US supercarriers in and around the South China Sea “to back up the sovereignty of friends and partners and to reassure them that we will be there to defend those things” in the face of “China’s bad behaviour”.
Mark Esper said the exercise in the Indian Ocean reflects the shared commitment of the US and India to boost naval cooperation in support of a free and open Indo-pacific.