# India's Warship Boom Is Hiding a Bigger Problem |S3| Ep 55

An episode of [In Our Defence](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1617244439), 26 Jun 2026, 1 h 04 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/72946793/26_jun_26_defense_mix_26_june_128.mp3

India appears to be in the middle of a naval shipbuilding boom. Destroyers, frigates, submarines, anti-submarine vessels and support ships are entering service with striking regularity. But commissioning ceremonies tell us what India decided to build years ago. They do not necessarily tell us what is being ordered for the 2030s and 2040s. In this season finale episode of In Our Defence, host Dev Goswami and national security expert Sandeep Unnithan examine how the Indian Navy became unusually capable of designing, integrating and supervising the construction of its own warships. The two decode the Navy's alphabet soup of Project 15B, Project 17A, Project 75I, Project 76 and the proposed next-generation programmes. The two also ask whether India risks losing the continuous production rhythm required to build complex destroyers, frigates and submarines. Smaller vessels may keep shipyards occupied, but can they preserve the skills and supply chains needed for the next generation of frontline combatants? And finally, the two get to the larger strategic argument: what kind of Navy does India actually want? Should it focus on controlling the waters close to home, dominate key parts of the Indian Ocean, operate from Africa to Southeast Asia, or develop a more expeditionary force? Does India need a third aircraft carrier or would submarines, escorts, maritime aircraft and unmanned systems provide greater value? Because before India decides which ships to build, it must decide what it expects its Navy to do. Tune in! Produced by Taniya Dutta Sound mixed by Aman Pal

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: This is India Today Podcasts.
[0:05] Speaker 2: Welcome to season three of Another Defense, the podcast that
[0:08] Speaker 2: takes you inside the world of conflict. I'm your host,
[0:12] Speaker 2: Deve Goswami, and every week I sit down with experts
[0:16] Speaker 2: and retired officers from the Army, Navy, and Air Force
[0:19] Speaker 2: to decode all things to do with India security and
[0:23] Speaker 2: explore what it truly means to serve. Get ready for
[0:27] Speaker 2: stories of strategy, sacrifice and strength.
[0:32] Speaker 1: This is in Our Defense.
[0:35] Speaker 2: Welcome to a No Defense. Before we begin this episode,
[0:39] Speaker 2: a short announcement for our listeners and viewers, this is
[0:42] Speaker 2: going to be the last episode of the season of
[0:44] Speaker 2: A Defense Season three. We're taking a break for a
[0:47] Speaker 2: while and we'll be back soon. And it's precisly why.
[0:51] Speaker 2: I think the topic that we are go to discussed
[0:55] Speaker 2: on this episode with some deep is going to be
[0:58] Speaker 2: pretty interesting and I think pretty apt. By the way,
[1:01] Speaker 2: how are you?
[1:04] Speaker 1: And the uh?
[1:05] Speaker 2: It's uh, the service that is I think the closest
[1:08] Speaker 2: to you you are you are a Navy child. It's
[1:12] Speaker 2: the closest to you the Indian Navy.
[1:14] Speaker 1: UH.
[1:14] Speaker 2: And also in Our Defense over the three seasons actually
[1:17] Speaker 2: has focused a lot on design development, procurement of new weaponry,
[1:23] Speaker 2: of upgradation of existing weaponry. We've I think, talked a
[1:28] Speaker 2: lot about the Air Force and the Air Force's problems,
[1:31] Speaker 2: the missing squadrons and the delays in acquisition stuff like that.
[1:36] Speaker 2: We've talken about the Rocket Force. We've talken about army tanks.
[1:41] Speaker 2: We've talken about different types of army. We've talked about
[1:44] Speaker 2: armies restructuring in previous seasons, not as much season three. Uh.
[1:49] Speaker 2: But I've always felt that I haven't spent spent a
[1:51] Speaker 2: lot of time talking about the Navy, which I think
[1:54] Speaker 2: if you think about the Navy would complete about the
[1:56] Speaker 2: real life as well, you know how much?
[1:59] Speaker 3: Yeah, so far away from BELI that's what I keep saying.
[2:02] Speaker 2: Silent the smallest service, however, they defend a vast coastline.
[2:07] Speaker 3: And I think what the most recent.
[2:10] Speaker 2: War, the US around War, which thankfully is on a
[2:13] Speaker 2: pause right now and hopefully going towards the final piece deal,
[2:16] Speaker 2: has taught us and has shown us, is that perhaps
[2:19] Speaker 2: the Indian Navy's role is a lot more important than
[2:23] Speaker 2: I think what conventionally was understood, which is exactly why
[2:27] Speaker 2: I think what you had pitched that we discussed this
[2:29] Speaker 2: week is very interesting because over the course of this
[2:32] Speaker 2: season especially, we've talked about how the Navy is sort
[2:36] Speaker 2: of like the torch bearer when it comes to learning
[2:38] Speaker 2: from how to develop, design and build equipment within India
[2:44] Speaker 2: on your own terms, at your own time. So our
[2:47] Speaker 2: readers and listeners would have, sorry, listeners and viewers would
[2:49] Speaker 2: have gotten a sense that everything's hunky doory with the Navy. However,
[2:52] Speaker 2: you have sort of a different I won't say a
[2:55] Speaker 2: different view on that, but you have identified something that
[2:58] Speaker 2: you think is a gap that's coming up very soon,
[3:00] Speaker 2: something that you talked about. It may not be an
[3:04] Speaker 2: extremely alarming situation, or perhaps it is, but something that
[3:06] Speaker 2: different needs discussing, which is the fact that and we've
[3:10] Speaker 2: discussed this once previously, that the Navy, UH, when it
[3:15] Speaker 2: comes to the Navy, UH, its equipment takes a long
[3:18] Speaker 2: time coming. So orders that you placed today, orders that
[3:21] Speaker 2: you think of today, designs that you developed today, these
[3:24] Speaker 2: will come up only in the next decade or so.
[3:26] Speaker 2: It's not as.
[3:29] Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, the complex machines that take time to.
[3:33] Speaker 2: Build, yeah, years and years.
[3:34] Speaker 3: Uh.
[3:35] Speaker 2: We are recording this episode just a few days after
[3:38] Speaker 2: three ships were commissioned, just a couple of months before
[3:41] Speaker 2: a couple of more ships will be commissioned in a
[3:44] Speaker 2: in a year, actually in a period of two three years,
[3:46] Speaker 2: when you've seen multiple ships, some that needs being commissioned
[3:49] Speaker 2: by the Indian Navy. And this will continue. However, the
[3:52] Speaker 2: point that you flagged to me, the point that you
[3:54] Speaker 2: wanted to talk about on this episode, is what's going
[3:56] Speaker 2: to happen maybe two decades from now, because you haven't
[4:00] Speaker 2: really ordered anything now to start designing building and that
[4:05] Speaker 2: will come.
[4:06] Speaker 3: Yeah, So you know they as you said, the last
[4:09] Speaker 3: three years, you've seen the primacy of India's ceilions of communication,
[4:13] Speaker 3: why they matter, and you realize that we may have
[4:17] Speaker 3: a lot of contested land boundaries. Therefore, we are kind
[4:20] Speaker 3: of a continental power. We are army heavy. But at
[4:23] Speaker 3: the same time, you're critically dependent on the seas for everything,
[4:26] Speaker 3: you know, for our energy, for our sustenance, for commerce, trade, commerce,
[4:32] Speaker 3: everything something like you know, the figures are all there.
[4:34] Speaker 3: Eighty percent of trade by value, ninety percent by volume,
[4:39] Speaker 3: more than eighty percent of our energy supplies, everything flows
[4:42] Speaker 3: through the seas. And if you don't have your own
[4:46] Speaker 3: a strong navy, if you don't have a strong merchant mary,
[4:50] Speaker 3: which is your own vessels, commercial cargo, vessels, containers, tankers,
[4:56] Speaker 3: all of that. You're in you know, as they say,
[5:01] Speaker 3: you're up in a s creek without a paddle, right.
[5:05] Speaker 3: So the thing is that if India were to say that,
[5:09] Speaker 3: for instance, what we saw the Straits of Homus, right,
[5:12] Speaker 3: Indian flag ships will be allowed passage, some of them were,
[5:16] Speaker 3: but then a lot of our cargo does not. Well, yeah,
[5:20] Speaker 3: they don't come on Indian flagships. We have so few
[5:23] Speaker 3: of them. The majority of them are foreign flag vessels.
[5:26] Speaker 3: So it could be an American ship, it could be
[5:27] Speaker 3: a British ship, it could be a Western own shape
[5:29] Speaker 3: or something, and the Iranians will say, there's no way
[5:31] Speaker 3: we're going to let these go. So we may have
[5:34] Speaker 3: great relations with Iran, but they will not allow ships
[5:37] Speaker 3: of a particular kind of thing, you know. That's one
[5:39] Speaker 3: of the scenarios. So you need to have a very
[5:41] Speaker 3: strong merchant marine. You need to have a very strong
[5:45] Speaker 3: Indian navy, right, And so these are the two things
[5:48] Speaker 3: that we are looking at in the last three years
[5:50] Speaker 3: as there's been a kind of revival and you've seen
[5:53] Speaker 3: that when the Huthis began firing the first missiles onto
[5:58] Speaker 3: merchant shipping in the Gulf fade in. That is when
[6:01] Speaker 3: we woke up and realized, oh my god, more than
[6:03] Speaker 3: ninety percent of our vessels, more than ninety percent of
[6:06] Speaker 3: our cargo is on foreign flag vessels, so we are
[6:09] Speaker 3: acutely vulnerable. We don't have inner ships. Our trade is
[6:13] Speaker 3: you know, growing exponentially, but we don't have Indian vessels
[6:16] Speaker 3: to carry those things. So it's really important. So there
[6:19] Speaker 3: you see the government then bringing in a ship building policy,
[6:23] Speaker 3: you know, rolling out incentives to build make in India
[6:25] Speaker 3: and all of that, and those are beginning to kick in. Now.
[6:29] Speaker 3: The naval thing is slightly different. The Indian Navy has,
[6:32] Speaker 3: as you mentioned, it has been a torch bearer of indigenization.
[6:36] Speaker 3: So when I talk to my friends in the navy,
[6:39] Speaker 3: the retired admirals and they talk about indigenizations, say, we've
[6:42] Speaker 3: been doing it for fifty years. You know, we were
[6:44] Speaker 3: literally the first people to start this entire thing of
[6:48] Speaker 3: making India indigenize, design, build your own ships. And it's
[6:52] Speaker 3: not just slogans. They put in all of these structures
[6:56] Speaker 3: in place, all the direct traits of design, direct traits
[6:59] Speaker 3: of engineering warship. You know, overseeing teams VESCI, which is
[7:04] Speaker 3: your looks at the electronics and communications and all of
[7:08] Speaker 3: that of ships. They've gone into real nuts and boats. Right,
[7:13] Speaker 3: they've done the entire thing. They've been doing it for
[7:15] Speaker 3: about fifty years. Now comes the point when you mentioned
[7:19] Speaker 3: like three ships commissioned in one day by the Prime Minister.
[7:22] Speaker 3: It's only the second time I believe that thing has happened.
[7:24] Speaker 3: But and this year we're going to see a lot
[7:27] Speaker 3: of more commissionings, right. I think the next frigate also
[7:30] Speaker 3: is going to be commissioned. You're going to have the
[7:31] Speaker 3: fourth SSBN, the Aristudan being commissioned, many other things. More
[7:36] Speaker 3: than a dozen ships are going to be commissioned. So
[7:39] Speaker 3: we have something like fifty warship submarines being built in
[7:44] Speaker 3: shipyards and will be commissioned in the next couple of years.
[7:47] Speaker 3: But here's the problem. There's an equal number of ships
[7:50] Speaker 3: that are struck in the planning stages. Right. You have
[7:55] Speaker 3: proposals that have been doing the rounds for several years.
[7:58] Speaker 3: And you know, I think these are policy related issues'
[8:01] Speaker 3: you've gone after you know, one particular program, something happens,
[8:05] Speaker 3: the whole program gets rebooted and goes to the start
[8:08] Speaker 3: line again. So because we are so processed driven and
[8:12] Speaker 3: you don't fault them because you know, any deviation from
[8:15] Speaker 3: process immediately, you know, people get blacklisted in you know,
[8:18] Speaker 3: so everyone wants to play safe. When your process oriented,
[8:22] Speaker 3: when you're so focused on process rather than outcomes, then
[8:27] Speaker 3: you see programs going into a you know tailspin, like
[8:31] Speaker 3: for instance, two big areas of concern conventional submarines. You've
[8:35] Speaker 3: been talking of Projects seventy five India for close to
[8:38] Speaker 3: two decades and the money that you've allotted to that
[8:42] Speaker 3: program is laughable today when you look at it, because
[8:44] Speaker 3: in twenty years the allocations, the inflation has been is
[8:48] Speaker 3: gone through the roof. So if you're looking at like
[8:52] Speaker 3: a thousand crow or two thousand cow pubmarine back then,
[8:54] Speaker 3: you're looking at ten thousand crows today, more than ten
[8:57] Speaker 3: thousand crows. So that's how things play out. And there
[8:59] Speaker 3: is you know, there is a there is a financial
[9:01] Speaker 3: implication to all of these decisions that are not taken
[9:04] Speaker 3: in time. So what I was telling you there is
[9:07] Speaker 3: that now for the first time in many years, while
[9:10] Speaker 3: it is really impressive, you have many ships coming online
[9:14] Speaker 3: being commissioned into the Indian Navy. There is also a vacuum.
[9:19] Speaker 3: That is, for the first time in many years, you
[9:21] Speaker 3: do not have an aircraft carrier, you do not have
[9:24] Speaker 3: a frigate, a destroyer, and a conventional submarine been built
[9:29] Speaker 3: in a yard. I'm not talking of the ships that
[9:31] Speaker 3: have already been built, have been launched that are on
[9:34] Speaker 3: seat trials. Several of them are the SSBN is on trials.
[9:38] Speaker 3: The last frigate that is a Vendhagree is on trials.
[9:41] Speaker 3: These will join quickly. But shipbuilding is a is a
[9:45] Speaker 3: is an assembly line concept. You know, you've got to
[9:48] Speaker 3: have ships coming out at regular intervals. Now, what is
[9:50] Speaker 3: going to happen because you haven't taken those decisions in
[9:53] Speaker 3: the last couple of years, decisions for a new generation
[9:57] Speaker 3: destroyer that's a Project eighteen, a new generation frigate which
[10:01] Speaker 3: is the P seventeen Bravo. All of these decisions, they've
[10:05] Speaker 3: been in the pipeline. They were supposed to have been
[10:07] Speaker 3: sanctioned in the late twenty eighteen nineteen. They've been delayed
[10:11] Speaker 3: for various reasons. And because of that, you're going to
[10:14] Speaker 3: see a gap. Now. The way of doing that, you know,
[10:19] Speaker 3: is to speed up to you know, reduce the gap
[10:22] Speaker 3: is to speed up your ship's construction. But then you
[10:25] Speaker 3: run into a roadblock there as well, because you have
[10:28] Speaker 3: your five private sector shipyards right four under the mod
[10:32] Speaker 3: and one under the Ministry of Surface Transport, which are
[10:36] Speaker 3: essentially in another day and age. There's still you know,
[10:40] Speaker 3: many of them are back in the eighties and in
[10:44] Speaker 3: the nineties in an era when you didn't have a
[10:46] Speaker 3: lot of competition technology. They haven't been upgraded to a
[10:49] Speaker 3: certain extent. They still continue to build ships the way
[10:52] Speaker 3: they did for all these years, and that's one of
[10:54] Speaker 3: the reasons that a lot of people have noted that
[10:57] Speaker 3: it takes so long to build ships, especially the capital ships,
[11:01] Speaker 3: anything between seven to eight years for a frontline frigate
[11:04] Speaker 3: or a destroyer. The rest of the world does it
[11:07] Speaker 3: in half the time. So the Koreans can do it
[11:09] Speaker 3: in about four years, four or five years. The Chinese
[11:13] Speaker 3: do it in two and a half years. The Chinese
[11:16] Speaker 3: are on another planet literally when it comes to warship
[11:19] Speaker 3: building because they have created this, you know, b moth
[11:23] Speaker 3: of a ship building enterprise, which is they've combined all
[11:26] Speaker 3: their shipbuilding organization. They were essentially only two now they're
[11:30] Speaker 3: just one which now accounts for, believe it or not,
[11:34] Speaker 3: something like seventy percent of the world shipbuilding. The Chinese
[11:38] Speaker 3: are they are they control there's a there's a ship
[11:42] Speaker 3: that's been launched in China. I read somewhere every nine hours.
[11:46] Speaker 3: That's the rate of you know, ship construction. And again,
[11:50] Speaker 3: you know, I think we've discussed this in the past
[11:51] Speaker 3: as well. They've that. One of my friends, who was
[11:55] Speaker 3: looking at satellite imagery of Chinese shipyards was telling me that,
[11:58] Speaker 3: you know, the interesting thing about them, there is no
[12:01] Speaker 3: difference between civil and military. There are no walls. In
[12:04] Speaker 3: our case, you will have a wall, say coachin shipyard
[12:07] Speaker 3: is building an aircraft carrier, there'll be a wall. They'll
[12:09] Speaker 3: be building the aircraft carrier on this set. On that side,
[12:11] Speaker 3: they'll be building a commercial vessel right, whereas in their
[12:14] Speaker 3: case everything is one. It's perfect civil military fusion. And
[12:19] Speaker 3: they've come very late into the party, by the way,
[12:21] Speaker 3: They've been doing this for only about post nineteen ninety
[12:25] Speaker 3: nine or so. And the ability to you know, really
[12:29] Speaker 3: pump in resources, human resources, you know, invest in technology,
[12:36] Speaker 3: and to look at it, to look at building in
[12:39] Speaker 3: a holistic manner and not just you know, okay, this
[12:42] Speaker 3: is a destroyer yard, this is a frigate yard, this
[12:44] Speaker 3: is a merchant shipping line, the merchant shipping yard, you
[12:48] Speaker 3: know that kind of They're looking at it as a
[12:50] Speaker 3: big picture kind of thing, and that is why they've
[12:52] Speaker 3: been able to capture the world market for shipping. In
[12:55] Speaker 3: our case, we are non existent as a commercial ship nation. Right,
[13:01] Speaker 3: we've woken up. Now when it comes to the military
[13:04] Speaker 3: ship building as well, you have five shipyards which have
[13:08] Speaker 3: about fifty odd projects under construction, which to my mind
[13:13] Speaker 3: is inefficient. Right, you should be building far more ships
[13:17] Speaker 3: than you are presently, and not just building for India,
[13:21] Speaker 3: should be building for the rest of the world as well. Now,
[13:24] Speaker 3: because you are in you know, a different era, you're
[13:27] Speaker 3: not able to compete with the rest of the world.
[13:30] Speaker 3: So if you go out with a great frigate design,
[13:32] Speaker 3: for instance, an el Greek class, if somebody wants an
[13:34] Speaker 3: el Gree class from you, or say one of the
[13:37] Speaker 3: Serreu class OPVs from you as a light frigate, the
[13:41] Speaker 3: minute you start courting the time and cost, you're noncompetitive.
[13:45] Speaker 3: You can't compete with say the Korean yard or even
[13:49] Speaker 3: a Chinese yard that can you know, give it in
[13:50] Speaker 3: half the time. So people are very mindful of this,
[13:53] Speaker 3: and I think there's a lot for us to wake
[13:56] Speaker 3: up and you know, take remedial measures before it's too late.
[14:02] Speaker 2: And I'm going to circle back to the maybe the
[14:04] Speaker 2: factors or the factor that is the reason for this
[14:07] Speaker 2: slowing down of ship building. But before we do that,
[14:10] Speaker 2: Before I do that, I wanted you to sort of
[14:13] Speaker 2: give us a picture of what the Navy looks like
[14:16] Speaker 2: right now, what the Navy is going to look like
[14:19] Speaker 2: in the next decade when you have those fifty odd
[14:21] Speaker 2: ships that will be commissioned, that are currently under either
[14:24] Speaker 2: trials or are being built, And what should the Navy
[14:29] Speaker 2: of maybe twenty years from twenty five years from now
[14:31] Speaker 2: look like in terms of what sort of upgrades you
[14:33] Speaker 2: would expect, you would think should be there in the
[14:36] Speaker 2: ships that we have. And the reason I asked that
[14:38] Speaker 2: also is because unlike the topies that we discuss and
[14:41] Speaker 2: like let's say tanks and like let's say fighter jets,
[14:44] Speaker 2: those are really simple, I mean compared to speaking, equipment
[14:49] Speaker 2: equipments for our listens and viewers to picture, whereas for
[14:53] Speaker 2: the Navy, it's it's sort of a very confusing mess
[14:56] Speaker 2: for me. You know when I was doing my research.
[14:58] Speaker 2: First of all, you have frigates, and then you destroyers,
[15:00] Speaker 2: and then if aircraft carriers, you have different kinds of submarines.
[15:03] Speaker 2: And then you have these inane names that they've given
[15:06] Speaker 2: to them. You have the Project eighteen, the Project seventeen.
[15:09] Speaker 3: BRA or the number five. Yeah.
[15:12] Speaker 2: I mean for me, it was just like I won't
[15:15] Speaker 2: be able to keep track of this. So I think
[15:17] Speaker 2: for our listenism viewers so that they can understand what
[15:20] Speaker 2: we're talking about, what does the navy have right now,
[15:23] Speaker 2: what is it getting in the near future, and what
[15:25] Speaker 2: sort of developmental upgrades do you think we might miss
[15:28] Speaker 2: out on with this slowing down off.
[15:30] Speaker 3: Well, yeah, good question, Dave. And you know here, here's
[15:32] Speaker 3: what the navy looks like currently. It has two aircraft
[15:36] Speaker 3: carrier battlegroups. So the naval strategy, maritime strategy, India's maritime
[15:40] Speaker 3: strategy centers around the carrier battle groups. So we have
[15:43] Speaker 3: two aircraft carriers. One is the inis Vikrant and the
[15:47] Speaker 3: other one is thes So the idea is that when
[15:50] Speaker 3: a carrier sails out, she has aircraft embarked, a squadron
[15:55] Speaker 3: or so of mid twenty nine case, which will be
[15:57] Speaker 3: replaced in Ducos by the rapheles, and the carrier is
[16:02] Speaker 3: going to be escorted by frigates and destroyers of the
[16:05] Speaker 3: Nilgirie class and the Delhi class. Now, frigates and destroyers
[16:09] Speaker 3: are generally vessels that are in excess of six thousand
[16:13] Speaker 3: tons displaced over six thousand tons, have large weapon loads
[16:18] Speaker 3: of missiles, surface to surface missiles and surface to air missiles,
[16:22] Speaker 3: so they provide the screen around the carrier, so they
[16:27] Speaker 3: protect the carrier from uh, you know, long range anti
[16:30] Speaker 3: ship missiles and you know, other warships for instance, So
[16:34] Speaker 3: those kinds of things. So then you also have fleet tankers.
[16:38] Speaker 3: You have fleet tankers, and then you have of course
[16:41] Speaker 3: many other you know, support vessels like hydrographic survey ships
[16:44] Speaker 3: and missile boats, corvettes, shallow water as w craft, minesweepers
[16:50] Speaker 3: as in mine hunters, mcmv's mind countermeasures. We just realized that,
[16:54] Speaker 3: you know, because of the Iranian crisis in the Strait
[16:58] Speaker 3: of Hormones. So the Navy it's made up of a
[17:01] Speaker 3: multiple platforms. And of course you're looking at submarines, very
[17:04] Speaker 3: very important conventional submarines which operate closer to the coast.
[17:08] Speaker 3: They used in you know, choke points and those kind
[17:11] Speaker 3: of things, which incidentally, the Iranians didn't use. They had
[17:13] Speaker 3: three submarines, they didn't use any of them. They threatened
[17:16] Speaker 3: to use their midjured submarines. But you have conventional submarines,
[17:19] Speaker 3: then you have nuclear power attack submarines, and you have
[17:23] Speaker 3: you know your SSBNs which are generally political weapons SSPN
[17:27] Speaker 3: strategic weapons, so they won't be part of the fighting
[17:31] Speaker 3: force fighting which is the battle force of the Indian
[17:33] Speaker 3: naval warship thing. Then you will have other kinds of
[17:37] Speaker 3: warships like landing platform docs lpds. That is another area
[17:42] Speaker 3: that the Navy's trying to build up, which are basically
[17:44] Speaker 3: mini aircraft carriers. There are about twenty thousand tons. They
[17:47] Speaker 3: carry a lot of helicopters, soldiers so that you can
[17:51] Speaker 3: you know, launch assaults on islands, beaches, those kinds of things.
[17:56] Speaker 3: So the Navy right now is there are a few
[18:01] Speaker 3: gaps in its force structure. It does not have enough submarines.
[18:05] Speaker 3: It just got about a dozen odd submarines and all
[18:08] Speaker 3: of them are really old except for six. All the
[18:10] Speaker 3: submarines are excess of twenty years twenty twenty five years,
[18:14] Speaker 3: So that is one vulnerability. Mcmvs I pointed out, you
[18:18] Speaker 3: don't have mind countermeasure vessels now. The problem is that
[18:22] Speaker 3: as your older warships start to retire, like I'm looking
[18:27] Speaker 3: at say the Brahmaputra class, which started to be inducted
[18:31] Speaker 3: more than twenty five years back, and even the Delhi
[18:34] Speaker 3: class completes three decades next year nineteen ninety seven. So
[18:38] Speaker 3: Innus Deli is like the grandfather of all the ship
[18:42] Speaker 3: designs that we see in the navy today, whether it's
[18:44] Speaker 3: the Shivali class or you know, the other classes that
[18:47] Speaker 3: followed the Irons. Deli itself is going to be thirty
[18:50] Speaker 3: years and on an average ship has the life of
[18:52] Speaker 3: about thirty five years or sit. But the Russian ships
[18:55] Speaker 3: have done in excess of that. So it remains to
[18:57] Speaker 3: be seen if the Delhi can continue beyond thirty five years.
[18:59] Speaker 3: But it's generally about thirty thirty five years for these
[19:02] Speaker 3: large ships. So as these ships go out of service,
[19:05] Speaker 3: you have to replace them quickly with newer acquisitions. And
[19:09] Speaker 3: because you haven't ordered them now, and given their built
[19:14] Speaker 3: times of five six seven years, there's going to be
[19:16] Speaker 3: a gap in your capabilities now ten years down the line,
[19:20] Speaker 3: the navy that you're going to see saying that twin
[19:24] Speaker 3: mid thirties or so is going to be roughly what
[19:27] Speaker 3: I've just described it will be. It will have two
[19:31] Speaker 3: carrier battle groups. Vikramada of course, will be long in
[19:35] Speaker 3: the tool closing. Now, yeah, it's closer time. It's the
[19:39] Speaker 3: nineteen eighty seven that's going to come forty years. Yeah,
[19:42] Speaker 3: so next year is going to be forty years of
[19:44] Speaker 3: the Vikramadya began life as the Goshkov and it's only
[19:49] Speaker 3: going to be downhill after that. So you've got to
[19:52] Speaker 3: look at if you need a carrier centric navy, then
[19:55] Speaker 3: you've got to start building your replacement for Vikramaditya like yesterday.
[20:00] Speaker 2: You have to start building it yesterday.
[20:02] Speaker 3: So don't go for a big cat. I mean, if
[20:05] Speaker 3: this is what naval planners say that, look, we're not
[20:06] Speaker 3: going to go for that sixty seventy thousand ton ship.
[20:09] Speaker 3: Go for a say, a forty forty five thousand ton
[20:12] Speaker 3: ship of the kind that you have today, like a
[20:14] Speaker 3: sister ship of the Wikaranth, like a ICEE one Alpha
[20:19] Speaker 3: or something as they call it. But now, because you're
[20:22] Speaker 3: not able to decide on so many things. Your new
[20:24] Speaker 3: generation destroyer is also being worked upon because they've realized
[20:29] Speaker 3: that you need to carry a lot more missiles than
[20:31] Speaker 3: you have in the past, so you need to make
[20:35] Speaker 3: it into some kind of an arsenal ship, you know,
[20:37] Speaker 3: heavily defended more missiles. You know, instead of the regular
[20:41] Speaker 3: about a dozen two dozen missiles, you need to carry
[20:44] Speaker 3: fifty sixty missiles. So ships are becoming more as the
[20:48] Speaker 3: threats are like you know, almost concurrently happening, and you're
[20:53] Speaker 3: unable to freeze your designs, which is why this is
[20:56] Speaker 3: taking long. And then of course there are issues in
[21:00] Speaker 3: design capacities. So we have some very good directorates, but
[21:05] Speaker 3: many of them are not they're understaffed, they don't have
[21:11] Speaker 3: the personnel, are not in you know, triple digits or
[21:14] Speaker 3: in the thousands. So you need more designers if you're
[21:18] Speaker 3: going to start to design so many different classes of ships,
[21:21] Speaker 3: you need to have overstaffed design teams who can manage
[21:25] Speaker 3: these kind of designs, multiple designs, so you don't have
[21:28] Speaker 3: that that is a bottleneck. There's a capacity bottleneck there.
[21:31] Speaker 3: And someone was telling me that one of our foreign
[21:35] Speaker 3: partners came and said that why is it that a
[21:37] Speaker 3: country of one point four billion people cannot have a massive,
[21:42] Speaker 3: you know, design bureau because the vest works on huge
[21:46] Speaker 3: design bureaus. The Chinese, for instance, they've gone down the
[21:48] Speaker 3: Western path. The Americans they have thousands of ship designers.
[21:53] Speaker 3: I mean, of course, technology has reduced the need for
[21:55] Speaker 3: so many of them, but you've got to have large teams.
[21:59] Speaker 3: So that is bottleneck. Now there are other little bottlenecks
[22:03] Speaker 3: that are holding you back, and that is of course
[22:06] Speaker 3: the technology part of it. Where again this iron is
[22:09] Speaker 3: Deli which I spoke about, which came into service almost
[22:12] Speaker 3: three decades ago. Ideal ship. If you look at it, huge,
[22:17] Speaker 3: six seven hundred tons, you know, a great mix of weapons, sensors, helicopters,
[22:23] Speaker 3: two helicopters, you know, Russian missiles, all of that. But
[22:27] Speaker 3: then if you look at the mix of the ship
[22:29] Speaker 3: Ukrainian gas turbines, Russian missiles, Russian censors, Israeli censors, American helicopters.
[22:37] Speaker 3: In today's world in twenty twenty six, you know your
[22:42] Speaker 3: red lights alarms will go off. Supply chain supply chain
[22:47] Speaker 3: issues again, that's right, So you know in today's that
[22:50] Speaker 3: would have worked well in the nineties, right in the
[22:53] Speaker 3: flat earth and the globalized village of the nineties. But
[22:56] Speaker 3: in today's weaponized supply chain world, it won't work. That
[23:00] Speaker 3: is why I think while the Navy has made this
[23:02] Speaker 3: very ambitious statement, I mean it's a big thing to
[23:05] Speaker 3: say about. A couple of years back, they said by
[23:08] Speaker 3: twenty forty seven, all of our ships are going to
[23:11] Speaker 3: be adminaberg. We are going to be completely self sufficient
[23:13] Speaker 3: in worship, building, designing, and construction, which would mean everything
[23:18] Speaker 3: insider ship, you know, machinery or sensors, missiles. They're getting there,
[23:24] Speaker 3: but there are still some gaps that they need to cross.
[23:28] Speaker 3: And the biggest one is guess what propulsion propulsions. It's
[23:34] Speaker 3: a problem across Yeah, it's the engine. It's the gas turbine.
[23:38] Speaker 2: Ship engine.
[23:39] Speaker 3: Gas turbines. We don't make them yet. We have a
[23:43] Speaker 3: problem with tank engines, we need a we have a
[23:45] Speaker 3: problem with you know, fighter jet engines, and we have
[23:48] Speaker 3: a problem with warship gas turbines. Now we've substituted many
[23:54] Speaker 3: of the Ukrainian gas turbines now in subsequent ships with
[24:00] Speaker 3: American gas devines. Now you don't want to go there, right,
[24:03] Speaker 3: you want to build your own. So that is also
[24:07] Speaker 3: being worked on. But I think that needs to be accelerated.
[24:10] Speaker 3: Those programs need to be accelerated. BHL is working on
[24:13] Speaker 3: one such program. Kid Loscar has also been activated. So
[24:16] Speaker 3: we don't have we don't do the diesels either, right,
[24:19] Speaker 3: dependent on the Americans commins for diesel engines German diesel engines.
[24:24] Speaker 3: So now we're getting kid Loscar, so unique program. Seventy
[24:27] Speaker 3: percent funded by the Navy, thirty by the by kid Lostcar.
[24:31] Speaker 3: So this is something that you really need to go
[24:33] Speaker 3: And if you want to go for that all Indian
[24:37] Speaker 3: Navy of you know, twenty forty seven purely upmnever, then
[24:41] Speaker 3: you have to start investing in these capacities. You need
[24:45] Speaker 3: to you know, these vulnerabilities, these gaps where you're importing systems,
[24:50] Speaker 3: sensors and all that, you need to take care of that.
[24:53] Speaker 3: And also, I mean, very quickly to add to what
[24:56] Speaker 3: you said, I mean, what is the Indian Navy of
[24:58] Speaker 3: the future, what should look like twenty years down the line.
[25:03] Speaker 3: I think you need to have a lot more manned
[25:06] Speaker 3: and manned teeming. You know, you need to have more
[25:09] Speaker 3: unmanned surface vessels, unmanned underwater vessels, those kinds of things.
[25:14] Speaker 3: Underwater drone swarms. You should start investing in those technologies
[25:19] Speaker 3: big time, and not so right now, it's there, right,
[25:23] Speaker 3: there is a USV component, there is a a UUV component.
[25:29] Speaker 3: But they're very small. They are, in a sense, what
[25:33] Speaker 3: missile boats were in the Indian Navy in nineteen seventy one,
[25:37] Speaker 3: nineteen seventy seventy one. They were seen as curiosities, like, oh,
[25:42] Speaker 3: what's this. Oh, it's a very compact little warship. It
[25:45] Speaker 3: carries four anti ship missiles, it's got a radar, it's
[25:48] Speaker 3: got this, It does everything, and it can destroy a
[25:51] Speaker 3: ship five times its size because it's got these massive missiles. Right,
[25:55] Speaker 3: But at that time, people didn't realize that this is
[25:58] Speaker 3: the way the world was going to it in the
[26:00] Speaker 3: sixties and seventies, that it was a matter of time
[26:03] Speaker 3: before all big gunships were obsolete. Right today, half a
[26:08] Speaker 3: century later, you're looking at the possibility that if somebody
[26:12] Speaker 3: weaponizes unmannsurface vessels quickly enough, then you're looking at a
[26:18] Speaker 3: point when large warships could become obsolete. Right. Imagine this
[26:23] Speaker 3: thing of an elephant being surrounded by a pack of
[26:26] Speaker 3: hinas they're literally relentlessly coming at it and they could
[26:30] Speaker 3: bring an elephant down. So you know, that thing could
[26:33] Speaker 3: be adapted to the that analogy could be adapted to
[26:36] Speaker 3: the maritime world as well. You're looking at low cost
[26:39] Speaker 3: swarming technologies us vs UUVs. The Iranians have demonstrated that,
[26:46] Speaker 3: but there's a caveat there. They've used choke point warfare
[26:49] Speaker 3: in the State of Hormones and in the Babel Manda.
[26:53] Speaker 3: But these are essentially landforces projecting maritime powers, and they're
[27:02] Speaker 3: doing so because they today have the capability to strike
[27:05] Speaker 3: far out at sea. Earlier you were you know, it
[27:08] Speaker 3: was what twenty nautical miles or so right, it was
[27:11] Speaker 3: so the ease that all used to come out coastal
[27:14] Speaker 3: waters were you know, literally the extent of a cannon
[27:18] Speaker 3: shot or a utlery shell falling. And today you have
[27:21] Speaker 3: the ability to strike a target one thousand kilometers from land.
[27:25] Speaker 3: So the game is completely changed. So therefore, the Indian
[27:29] Speaker 3: Navy of the future, that is two decades since that
[27:32] Speaker 3: two zero four to seven navy, must be a navy
[27:35] Speaker 3: that is capable of influencing the land battle, of course,
[27:41] Speaker 3: but without making itself vulnerable to the land based vectors
[27:47] Speaker 3: like missiles, drones, you know, an aircraft. You know, it
[27:51] Speaker 3: could either be heavily defended like the Project eighteen, or
[27:56] Speaker 3: you could possibly look at something like a sub mercible battleship.
[28:02] Speaker 3: I'm just thinking of Blue Sky thinking here, or Blue
[28:05] Speaker 3: Ski Blue Sea thinking. You know, a battleship that's a
[28:09] Speaker 3: semi submerged that you can't pick up and then which
[28:12] Speaker 3: rises up, which does battle and then vanishes like a submarine,
[28:15] Speaker 3: you know, like a submersible warship. That kind of those
[28:18] Speaker 3: kind of concepts be looked at, teaming up with US vs.
[28:23] Speaker 3: U uvs. Those kinds of things, because the seas of
[28:27] Speaker 3: the future are going to be extremely hostile to any
[28:31] Speaker 3: power that wants to project power out at see, your
[28:34] Speaker 3: large ships are going to be very easily tracked. I
[28:37] Speaker 3: mean there's like a god's eye view now you have
[28:40] Speaker 3: with commercial satellites, and this is now going to go
[28:44] Speaker 3: into the seabed as well. The the bottom of the ocean. Uh,
[28:48] Speaker 3: the undersea is one of the last refuges for platforms
[28:52] Speaker 3: like submarines and all that. But the way technology is moving,
[28:56] Speaker 3: the rapidity with which it's moving, that antage would also
[29:00] Speaker 3: be neutralized. So therefore you have to look at ways
[29:03] Speaker 3: of staying ahead, surviving, you know, enabling your forces to
[29:09] Speaker 3: spread out, Project bar and these are all the kind
[29:12] Speaker 3: of this is the kind of research that the Americans
[29:15] Speaker 3: and the Russians and the Chinese are certainly doing. So
[29:18] Speaker 3: we need to again, what do we need to do
[29:20] Speaker 3: that We need some kind of a technology development mission
[29:26] Speaker 3: for maritime warfare capabilities to look beyond just what we
[29:30] Speaker 3: have today. So you know how technology development happens today
[29:34] Speaker 3: is that I have you know, a project you know
[29:38] Speaker 3: eighteen destroyer. I need to create gas turbines for it,
[29:41] Speaker 3: or electric propulsion or you know, directed energy weapons. All
[29:46] Speaker 3: of it is focused on the warship itself, the platform itself.
[29:49] Speaker 3: But my argument is that you need to look at
[29:52] Speaker 3: it beyond just a platform. Look at technologies, look at
[29:55] Speaker 3: capturing technologies which then can be adapted to various other platforms.
[30:00] Speaker 3: You know, rather than looking at a platform thing, look
[30:02] Speaker 3: at it as capturing technologies which can be used across
[30:05] Speaker 3: the board. And why just the Navy, maybe the Army
[30:08] Speaker 3: could use it as well. The Air Force could find
[30:10] Speaker 3: a use for it. So that kind of thing is
[30:12] Speaker 3: what you need. And for that, again, you need money, resources,
[30:18] Speaker 3: You need people.
[30:19] Speaker 2: People, yeah, yeah, but I get your point you're saying basically,
[30:21] Speaker 2: like you know, it's not about you shouldn't think in
[30:24] Speaker 2: silos in terms of don't focus on developing a particular
[30:28] Speaker 2: generation of fighter jet engine, focus on developing.
[30:31] Speaker 3: Propulsions, technology apps. It will then.
[30:33] Speaker 2: Apply to all different you.
[30:35] Speaker 3: Know, you're right, You're so right. If we've been thinking
[30:37] Speaker 3: of that, We've been talking about this for so long,
[30:39] Speaker 3: and you know, we just get caught on, oh, we
[30:42] Speaker 3: need an engine for the lca is Scala sk SKALG
[30:48] Speaker 3: and then you know that's why we got caught in
[30:49] Speaker 3: this whole thing. Whereas what we need is a is
[30:52] Speaker 3: like a national mission thing for say, you need propulsion
[30:57] Speaker 3: for a range of platforms that you would need a
[30:59] Speaker 3: light engine thing for a you know, light combat aircraft,
[31:03] Speaker 3: you need a medium combat aircraft, you need a transport aircraft,
[31:06] Speaker 3: you need a long range vanitime petrol. Those kind of
[31:09] Speaker 3: things you need to do and standardize. So again, you know,
[31:12] Speaker 3: it's a thing of breaking silos. It's all about working together.
[31:16] Speaker 2: Yeah, right right, we'll talk more about this, especially this
[31:19] Speaker 2: one question I think that needs to be answered to
[31:21] Speaker 2: sort of, you know, perhaps fill all the gaps that
[31:24] Speaker 2: we've been discussing.
[31:24] Speaker 3: But after a quick break.
[31:26] Speaker 4: India cultivates about thirty point five million hectares and the
[31:29] Speaker 4: oil seeds and produces around forty three million tons of
[31:33] Speaker 4: raw oil seeds. When crushed, that yields roughly thirteen million
[31:39] Speaker 4: tons of edible oil or cooking oil. And this is
[31:44] Speaker 4: the figure you should watch up for. India's demand is
[31:47] Speaker 4: around twenty nine million tons and rising. That means that
[31:52] Speaker 4: fifty six percent, or more than half of India's cooking
[31:56] Speaker 4: oil requirements is important. Fifty six percent of it is important.
[32:01] Speaker 4: Despite all the efforts since independence, we are importing enormous amounts.
[32:07] Speaker 4: This is a staggering dependence. It is also one of
[32:11] Speaker 4: the India's one of India's costliest import items. Why is
[32:16] Speaker 4: demand rising because incomes are rising die It's a changing process.
[32:22] Speaker 4: Food consumption is expanding and restaurants and food businesses are multiplying.
[32:27] Speaker 4: So India's cooking all needs have multiplied. The import basket
[32:32] Speaker 4: has also shifted.
[32:38] Speaker 2: Welcome back, before the break, we've talked about what the
[32:41] Speaker 2: Indian navy looks like right now, what the Indian Navy
[32:43] Speaker 2: will look like in a few years to come, when
[32:45] Speaker 2: the ships that are being milt right now will come
[32:47] Speaker 2: into commission.
[32:49] Speaker 3: Uh.
[32:50] Speaker 2: And that's you know, a very sort of a hunky
[32:53] Speaker 2: doory good picture that you that.
[32:54] Speaker 5: You with some gaps, yeah, some gaps, but the larger
[32:58] Speaker 5: issue that you pointed out is that you haven't taken
[33:00] Speaker 5: the decisions that you ought to have taken, perhaps n yesterday,
[33:03] Speaker 5: which will ensure that some more advanced ships keep coming
[33:07] Speaker 5: to you maybe two decades from now.
[33:09] Speaker 2: It's sort of like the Summarine episode we did when
[33:12] Speaker 2: you described the Navy's lost decade because of decisions that
[33:16] Speaker 2: were not taken a couple of decades ago. You have
[33:18] Speaker 2: this last one decade where you haven't had a lot
[33:20] Speaker 2: of submarines, and you still won't have a lot of
[33:22] Speaker 2: something coming in the next few years. Some of the
[33:26] Speaker 2: projects that were supposed to be up back then are
[33:28] Speaker 2: just now about just about sort of you know, gathering
[33:31] Speaker 2: pace and taking off, and those submarines will end up
[33:34] Speaker 2: coming only perhaps ten to fifteen years.
[33:36] Speaker 3: Down the line.
[33:38] Speaker 2: And this is I think that double edged sword when
[33:41] Speaker 2: it comes to the Indian Navy, because warships submarines, at
[33:46] Speaker 2: least in India. You've talked about China, which where they
[33:49] Speaker 2: don't take time, they take years to come. They require
[33:52] Speaker 2: a lot of investment money wise as well, which also
[33:55] Speaker 2: means that something that you've ordered you can't just like,
[33:58] Speaker 2: you know, ten years later, say up to So my
[34:02] Speaker 2: question is some deep for you to be able to
[34:04] Speaker 2: take the kind of decisions that you need to take
[34:06] Speaker 2: right now When you say that in terms of destroyers,
[34:09] Speaker 2: do you want them to carry ten x more missile
[34:12] Speaker 2: for example, according to which you will have to make
[34:15] Speaker 2: the design changes. Do you want three aircraft carriers? Do
[34:18] Speaker 2: you want? Are you okay with this two? One for
[34:20] Speaker 2: their abiency, one for the Bay of Bengal. Questions like these,
[34:24] Speaker 2: I think can only be answered when you have a
[34:26] Speaker 2: national policy for your Indian Navy. What do you envision
[34:33] Speaker 2: your navy for? Are you seeing the navy purely as
[34:37] Speaker 2: a defensive force cut China comes to our backyard? Will
[34:40] Speaker 2: be there to protect our coastline?
[34:42] Speaker 1: Uh?
[34:43] Speaker 2: We definitely not. Do not look at the navy as
[34:46] Speaker 2: like the US does. It's not an experientially force that
[34:48] Speaker 2: wants to go all across the globe and there or
[34:52] Speaker 2: are we just okay sort of you know, straddling between
[34:55] Speaker 2: the tip of Africa and Singapore and controlling that that
[34:57] Speaker 2: that's our backyard, you know, as long as things are
[35:00] Speaker 2: find over there, we're okay with that. Or do you
[35:02] Speaker 2: also want the ability to be able to go to
[35:04] Speaker 2: the South China Sea and tell China, hey boss, if
[35:06] Speaker 2: you you know, come and interfere with my staff in
[35:09] Speaker 2: our backcard, we are also able to come here. It's
[35:11] Speaker 2: only then do you know the kind of ships, the
[35:14] Speaker 2: kind of summary is, the kind of aircraft carriers, the
[35:16] Speaker 2: capacity of fish you need, you and you want? Do
[35:20] Speaker 2: we have that clarity?
[35:21] Speaker 3: We have a national maritime strategy, of course we do.
[35:25] Speaker 3: But what we need to have is, you know, a
[35:29] Speaker 3: national strategy at the from the very top. The Navy
[35:32] Speaker 3: has its strategy worked out, but we need the political
[35:35] Speaker 3: vision from the top to say that this is what
[35:38] Speaker 3: I envisage the Indian Navy doing in the next two
[35:41] Speaker 3: or three decades. Right, So then you you build the
[35:46] Speaker 3: force that will fit those roles largely if you want
[35:49] Speaker 3: to say, project power from As of now, we understand
[35:53] Speaker 3: our area of responsibility as being from the Red Sea
[35:56] Speaker 3: to the Malacastrey, do you and we saw this expanding
[36:01] Speaker 3: in the next ten or twenty years as Indian trade grows,
[36:05] Speaker 3: as the threats increase as the Chinese Navy comes in,
[36:08] Speaker 3: what are the responsibility, what are the duties of the
[36:11] Speaker 3: Indian Navy going to be, and most importantly, what are
[36:14] Speaker 3: the kind of conflicts that you're going to be facing
[36:17] Speaker 3: in the future and with whom. So based on these
[36:21] Speaker 3: then you can draw you know, based on this kind
[36:24] Speaker 3: of a strategy and overarching grand strategy that you will
[36:27] Speaker 3: be able to then draw down the precise kind of
[36:30] Speaker 3: assets that you need for carrying out this mission. Now
[36:37] Speaker 3: you look at the way the Iranians have worked their
[36:39] Speaker 3: entire strategy. They realized, I mean, I'm not a big
[36:42] Speaker 3: supporter of the regime in Iran, but then you have
[36:47] Speaker 3: to look at how they economized their war fighting strategy
[36:52] Speaker 3: based on what their strengths. So they played to their strengths.
[36:56] Speaker 3: So when Trump says repeatedly that I sat the entire
[37:00] Speaker 3: Iranian Navy and I sank the Iran I destroyed the
[37:03] Speaker 3: Iranian Air Force, was That's not what Iran fights wars
[37:06] Speaker 3: with small boards. Those are yeah, well mines. They fight
[37:10] Speaker 3: with the kind of asymmetries that you look down upon,
[37:14] Speaker 3: And which is why there was a section of the
[37:16] Speaker 3: US Navy. I remember reading these large essays and policy
[37:22] Speaker 3: papers from the nineties in U snips where they would
[37:26] Speaker 3: talk about the need for literal warfare. We need to
[37:28] Speaker 3: go in there looking precisely at the Iranian threat. This
[37:32] Speaker 3: is that we don't have assets that can go into
[37:35] Speaker 3: these areas and fight. We don't have conventional submarines because
[37:38] Speaker 3: our essaysens the big monster submarines six seven thou tone things,
[37:43] Speaker 3: and they can't operate in these shallow waters. So we
[37:46] Speaker 3: need those kinds of capabilities. Now, Iran understood its vulnerabilities.
[37:51] Speaker 3: It knew how much money it had, how much technology
[37:54] Speaker 3: it had, and it focused on ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, drone.
[38:00] Speaker 3: This is the kind of war fighting that they envessaged.
[38:03] Speaker 3: And they buried all their assets underground, all their bases,
[38:06] Speaker 3: all their missile cities are so called three four missile
[38:09] Speaker 3: cities that they have. They buried them deep underground. And
[38:12] Speaker 3: because they had to bury them, they needed TUNNELNK capacity.
[38:15] Speaker 3: Because they needed tunneling capacity, they had to build companies
[38:18] Speaker 3: that specialize in tunneling, and therefore you had companies like
[38:21] Speaker 3: Tunnel Stars and all that. So their thing is their
[38:25] Speaker 3: worldview came from a place understanding where they were and
[38:29] Speaker 3: that they would have to fight by themselves. And if
[38:33] Speaker 3: you look at it, in the last twenty years or so,
[38:36] Speaker 3: their investments have paid off. Today they're able to walk
[38:39] Speaker 3: out of a conference with the United States. Right, you'll
[38:42] Speaker 3: have Vans looking around with money and sherrif you know,
[38:47] Speaker 3: clueless because the Iranians about Iranians don't care. They know
[38:50] Speaker 3: they're holding the cards. Right. So this kind of a
[38:53] Speaker 3: strategy is something that we should be looking at. And
[38:57] Speaker 3: you cannot do everything. You cannot be the US Navy
[39:00] Speaker 3: and the Chinese Navy and the Russian Navy at the
[39:03] Speaker 3: same time. You have to be the Indian Lady Navy.
[39:06] Speaker 3: And therefore you have to figure out what is the
[39:08] Speaker 3: best bang for the buck that I would get great
[39:12] Speaker 3: Nicobar Island project for instance, Again we've discussed this on
[39:15] Speaker 3: your show. I've called it the most consequential infrastructure project
[39:20] Speaker 3: that India has ever attempted in eighty years because I
[39:23] Speaker 3: see the location of the g and I and I
[39:26] Speaker 3: know it's going to be like a Pearl Harbor kind
[39:28] Speaker 3: of project, and Pearl hubor not in the sense of
[39:30] Speaker 3: the Japanese attacking the US Navy, but it is what
[39:34] Speaker 3: US Pacific power today is revolves around Hawaii and Pearl Harbor.
[39:39] Speaker 3: The reason the United States is a Pacific power and
[39:41] Speaker 3: today they're calling it back on why because they are
[39:43] Speaker 3: a Pacific par right, we are an Indian Ocean par
[39:47] Speaker 3: We do not have the ability to control events from
[39:50] Speaker 3: far out into the Indian Ocean, which is one thousand
[39:53] Speaker 3: kilometers plus, which is the andermen Intokoba Islands and Great
[39:58] Speaker 3: Nicobar Island is that jewel in the crown of India,
[40:03] Speaker 3: in the far eastern part of India where you actually
[40:08] Speaker 3: end up becoming like an Ica and country because you
[40:10] Speaker 3: have such a strong presence there. Now you need a
[40:13] Speaker 3: navy that will operate out of there. And I would
[40:16] Speaker 3: think that even the numbers that are being projected right now,
[40:19] Speaker 3: they're looking at about two hundred ship navy, you would
[40:22] Speaker 3: need far more ships than just that. Do you want
[40:25] Speaker 3: all of these ships to be manned? Well, you could
[40:28] Speaker 3: look at optionally manned ships. You need to have a
[40:32] Speaker 3: combination of platforms and all that. But the fact is
[40:35] Speaker 3: that in the middle of the twenty first century there
[40:39] Speaker 3: are only going to be three naval powers. The Chinese,
[40:43] Speaker 3: of course, insure numbers. They are the largest. They've overtaken
[40:46] Speaker 3: the US Navy in terms of numbers, they are almost
[40:49] Speaker 3: four hundred ships. There will be five hundred ships by
[40:51] Speaker 3: the end of this decade. The US Navy in terms
[40:53] Speaker 3: of tonnage, yes, they're much bigger, eleven aircraft carrier strike groups.
[40:57] Speaker 3: No power has ever had this kind of you know navy,
[41:01] Speaker 3: and we are number three. Now we are a distant number.
[41:06] Speaker 3: We need to catch up. We need to come into
[41:08] Speaker 3: that league of the United States and China because they
[41:12] Speaker 3: are today where they are as economies, because they've invested
[41:17] Speaker 3: so heavily in maritime power. We unfortunately see one fifty
[41:23] Speaker 3: two hundred is group, but we are not building those
[41:26] Speaker 3: kind of assets that we will need to you know,
[41:29] Speaker 3: project power outwards. And this again comes about to that
[41:33] Speaker 3: definition and what what have you defined your core interests
[41:36] Speaker 3: as there's still not a lot of clarity in the
[41:40] Speaker 3: Great Niccoba Island project. You see the kind of debate
[41:42] Speaker 3: that's coming out of there. This is something that you know,
[41:45] Speaker 3: everyone should have kind of immediately jumped into and said, yes,
[41:48] Speaker 3: we own it. But then the flip side for that
[41:50] Speaker 3: is that all projects in India, especially the civil military project,
[41:56] Speaker 3: they start as civil kind of things we don't want
[41:58] Speaker 3: to alarm too many people. So you have a conventional
[42:01] Speaker 3: you have a civilian nuclear program, which then quickly becomes
[42:05] Speaker 3: a military program. Then you have a commercial infrastructure project,
[42:10] Speaker 3: which is connectivity along the borders, which is also good
[42:14] Speaker 3: to move troops. So similarly, you have the G and
[42:16] Speaker 3: I as well, which is a transhipment port like Singapore
[42:20] Speaker 3: and Klang and the others. It's all for cargo, but
[42:22] Speaker 3: then you also have a military component to that. So
[42:25] Speaker 3: I think that's how we kind of operate because we
[42:27] Speaker 3: don't want to, you know, alarm too many people. And
[42:29] Speaker 3: I don't see us doing, say the kind of things
[42:32] Speaker 3: that the Iranians choke point warfare, and that's that's literally
[42:36] Speaker 3: not in our DNA. But if push comes to shove,
[42:40] Speaker 3: then that is an option that we must retain because
[42:45] Speaker 3: lots of you know, maritime analysts like Admiral Raja men
[42:49] Speaker 3: in Monte Kana and Admiral Conti, they've all said this
[42:53] Speaker 3: that we need to retain the sea advantage, especially the
[42:59] Speaker 3: maritime advantage in the Indian Ocean region, because that is
[43:01] Speaker 3: one very powerful card that we have to play against
[43:04] Speaker 3: the Chinese. Because if you look at the way India
[43:07] Speaker 3: is structured. It's literally like a dagger, you know, pointing
[43:10] Speaker 3: into the Indian Ocean region, and it is for us
[43:13] Speaker 3: to create those assets, those platforms, those capabilities, networks. Most importantly,
[43:19] Speaker 3: we have very good overwater detection capabilities. We have the this, uh,
[43:28] Speaker 3: the the white shipping monitoring facilities that the Indian Navy has,
[43:34] Speaker 3: which is to monitor all these UH vessel traffic. Uh.
[43:39] Speaker 3: We don't have that for the undersea domain, the underwater
[43:43] Speaker 3: domain awareness the surface you know, domain awareness. You have
[43:47] Speaker 3: those Maritime Fusion Center here in gurgau I s Rawi,
[43:51] Speaker 3: which fuses all the data from you know, all the
[43:53] Speaker 3: same sensory platforms on the surface. But we're still building
[43:57] Speaker 3: those underwater domain awareness.
[43:59] Speaker 6: No.
[44:00] Speaker 3: So I think that is one big area and I
[44:02] Speaker 3: think this is where I see India in the Indian
[44:06] Speaker 3: Navy in the next two decades. Yeah right.
[44:09] Speaker 2: Uh So you know a question linked to this is
[44:12] Speaker 2: that debate of their second aircraft carrier. And my question there,
[44:17] Speaker 2: or rather a point, is it really a debate?
[44:20] Speaker 6: See?
[44:20] Speaker 2: The thing is I would accept it was a debate
[44:23] Speaker 2: if you had two brand new aircrafts right now and
[44:26] Speaker 2: you could then say keep a hah now we're debating
[44:28] Speaker 2: whether we need a third one because you know, they
[44:30] Speaker 2: have very very expensive point taken on the point of expense.
[44:33] Speaker 2: But like we discussed before the break, I became other.
[44:36] Speaker 2: THEA is not brand new. It's actually a second hand.
[44:39] Speaker 3: Shift from Russia.
[44:40] Speaker 2: It's going to retire at some point, so it will
[44:42] Speaker 2: need replacing. And like you said that, if you want
[44:45] Speaker 2: to replace it when it's about to retire, you better
[44:48] Speaker 2: have started building the replacement yesterday. That's that's what it happened.
[44:52] Speaker 2: Because again this supposed debate is you're looking.
[44:55] Speaker 3: At a gap there in the carriers I think in
[44:57] Speaker 3: the not so distant future, maybe a couple of years
[44:59] Speaker 3: down the line, and you're going to see a probably
[45:02] Speaker 3: one carrier navy again back to what it was many
[45:04] Speaker 3: years back. And you know, the KMA will not say,
[45:08] Speaker 3: I mean, the Navy is not likely to decommission her
[45:11] Speaker 3: very quickly. She will not say as often as she
[45:14] Speaker 3: would have once. But then there's a there's a gap
[45:17] Speaker 3: in your capabilities and you have to kind of quickly
[45:19] Speaker 3: work on the kind of platform that you see that
[45:23] Speaker 3: is able to project that kind of aerial power from
[45:26] Speaker 3: far out at see whether you want to do it
[45:28] Speaker 3: with only manned aircraft? Do you want to do it
[45:31] Speaker 3: with man unmanned aircraft? Mean, like, you know, you have
[45:34] Speaker 3: the mumpty concept that's ucabs, or you have drones or
[45:39] Speaker 3: a combination of all three. Is something that I'm sure
[45:42] Speaker 3: the Navy is working on, Their design bureaus are working on,
[45:46] Speaker 3: you know, precisely this kind of ship that a lot
[45:48] Speaker 3: of other navies are looking at. So because you know,
[45:51] Speaker 3: I think the last five years or so they've has
[45:54] Speaker 3: been a bit of a wake up call, a shake
[45:57] Speaker 3: up call for a lot of designers and stuff, because
[46:00] Speaker 3: are conventional way of war fighting has changed completely. I mean,
[46:05] Speaker 3: you're looking at entire armies turning into drones. You're looking
[46:10] Speaker 3: at drones doing all of the heavy lifting in the
[46:14] Speaker 3: first initial hours of combat, especially when it comes to
[46:18] Speaker 3: you know, the land warfare thing. You've seen smaller navies
[46:22] Speaker 3: or non existent navies like Iran holding off the American Navy,
[46:26] Speaker 3: keeping them far away from Iranian shores and therefore reducing
[46:30] Speaker 3: the number of fighter sorties that they can generate because
[46:33] Speaker 3: they're so far out at sea. So these kind of
[46:36] Speaker 3: things have I think created a lot of you know,
[46:40] Speaker 3: forced a lot of designers to rethink platforms, and I
[46:44] Speaker 3: think that is also one of the reasons to blame
[46:47] Speaker 3: for this lag in construction, because you're trying to what's
[46:50] Speaker 3: the next big thing going to be, Like, yeah, we
[46:52] Speaker 3: don't know it carrier is relevant anymore. We don't know.
[46:56] Speaker 3: It doesn't look like it's going to be. They're going
[46:58] Speaker 3: to be large targets, and therefore you need to have
[47:01] Speaker 3: escorts that are even more heavily armed. But I think,
[47:04] Speaker 3: you know, it's too early to pronounce the demise of
[47:08] Speaker 3: the aircraft carrier. I think it's there for some more years.
[47:14] Speaker 3: It's only the kind of platforms that it will carry,
[47:17] Speaker 3: the kind of escort vessels that will have around it,
[47:21] Speaker 3: or you know, is it going to be a return
[47:24] Speaker 3: to the old times when the Japanese were launching fighter
[47:28] Speaker 3: jets from their submarines, so they had those heavy submarines
[47:33] Speaker 3: that were launching fighter aircraft to attack short targets. So
[47:37] Speaker 3: that was eighty years back. That was a you know,
[47:39] Speaker 3: thinking eight years back. So are we going to go
[47:41] Speaker 3: back down the line? No one really knows. But this
[47:44] Speaker 3: is why precisely we need to invest in these kind
[47:47] Speaker 3: of cipritties, design bureaus that will do this kind of
[47:51] Speaker 3: blue sky thinking. And this has to happen from the Navy. Look,
[47:55] Speaker 3: you can't, you know, leave it to any other agency
[47:59] Speaker 3: to say no, not even the DRD of a live matter.
[48:01] Speaker 3: Because finally, as we've seen with this example of the ATV,
[48:05] Speaker 3: which again we've discussed it two shows back that the
[48:09] Speaker 3: ATV is a success. It was precisely because the Indian
[48:14] Speaker 3: Navy was driving it. You have to have the navy
[48:17] Speaker 3: drive this, you know, future warfare uh, you know future
[48:20] Speaker 3: platforms appreciation, uh, you know, program to see what kind
[48:26] Speaker 3: of navy you will have twenty years down the line.
[48:29] Speaker 3: And then therefore you know, build on and then move
[48:33] Speaker 3: resources and you know, budgets away from your current existing
[48:37] Speaker 3: fleets towards those you know, future combatants, and you have
[48:41] Speaker 3: to start designing those kinds of things, and you need
[48:43] Speaker 3: to do a lot more. You need to invest a
[48:45] Speaker 3: lot more I think in this uh, in these technologies
[48:49] Speaker 3: than you were doing in the past. So if you're
[48:51] Speaker 3: looking at naval revolutionary the revolution in naval ship building
[48:58] Speaker 3: one point zero, which in context begins roughly from nineteen
[49:02] Speaker 3: seventy two onwards with the inis NIELGRI, I think we're
[49:06] Speaker 3: looking at a second, you know, revolution in naval ship
[49:10] Speaker 3: building in starting as of now, given the kind of
[49:15] Speaker 3: you know, threats and you know the technologies that have
[49:18] Speaker 3: come in. So you've got to start designing that future
[49:21] Speaker 3: navy now. And for that you have to invest a
[49:23] Speaker 3: lot more in structures, in organizations, in human resources, and
[49:28] Speaker 3: maybe even in AHI for all, you know, to get
[49:31] Speaker 3: to that point and then start building these out quickly.
[49:37] Speaker 3: You can't be building you know, ships in eight year
[49:40] Speaker 3: and ten year cycles. One ship eight years, you know,
[49:44] Speaker 3: handmade perfection, which will come a decade later. You know
[49:48] Speaker 3: that that kind of thing is not going to work anymore.
[49:49] Speaker 3: You have to upgrade shipyards. You need to start investing
[49:54] Speaker 3: in you know, modular construction. And it sounds funny because
[49:57] Speaker 3: most of the shipyards in the West, Odd you know, Japanese, Chinese,
[50:02] Speaker 3: they're all into modularship construction. They just make these prefitted
[50:07] Speaker 3: blocks and they just weld them together and that's how
[50:09] Speaker 3: they're able to. Yeah, if we're doing it the old
[50:13] Speaker 3: fashioned way, you know, we build the whole ship, we're
[50:15] Speaker 3: just you know launching it. And then certain shipyards they
[50:18] Speaker 3: don't have the depth because they're not designed for ships
[50:21] Speaker 3: of this class. So therefore, uh, you've kind of maxed
[50:25] Speaker 3: out pretty much the kind of ships that you can build,
[50:28] Speaker 3: so that you have to launch them light, or you
[50:30] Speaker 3: have to launch them on a pond too, or you
[50:32] Speaker 3: have to look at other things so that where you know,
[50:34] Speaker 3: whereas the other issues like that. So then you have
[50:36] Speaker 3: to take the call on do you really need five
[50:38] Speaker 3: shipyards or do you just need one ship building agency
[50:41] Speaker 3: with five shipyards, you know, and which then allocates you know, manpower,
[50:46] Speaker 3: technology resources based on the kind of orders that they
[50:49] Speaker 3: have and then takes on foreign export orders. I mean
[50:53] Speaker 3: a country of India size and economy of our size,
[50:56] Speaker 3: if you're not exporting warships, then you're as say, dead
[51:00] Speaker 3: in the water. When it comes to cultivating you know, leverages,
[51:05] Speaker 3: your soft par thing takes a beating. You don't have
[51:07] Speaker 3: anything to sell, You don't make anything that the world wants,
[51:10] Speaker 3: you know. So this is something that you really need
[51:13] Speaker 3: to overcome. And that is why I think this laser focus,
[51:17] Speaker 3: this second generation reforms that need to come into worship
[51:22] Speaker 3: building and all that that will take care of a
[51:24] Speaker 3: lot of these issues.
[51:25] Speaker 2: And I guess we have the questions and the issues
[51:28] Speaker 2: that these reforms need to address. We just perhaps don't
[51:31] Speaker 2: have the full answers, yes, which is something that can
[51:34] Speaker 2: only come when you, like you said, if you have
[51:36] Speaker 2: that laser focus and if you have those bureaus and
[51:38] Speaker 2: teams working actively to find you those answers right suddenly
[51:44] Speaker 2: plus point on this episode and sort of a tangent,
[51:47] Speaker 2: but it kind of goes with our discussion, especially the
[51:50] Speaker 2: point about how the Indian Navy sees and itself in
[51:53] Speaker 2: terms of what part of Indian Ocean does it control?
[51:56] Speaker 2: Does it control the whole of it? Are just some
[51:58] Speaker 2: of it? And you know, something came to a mind
[51:59] Speaker 2: when you were talking about it. Though, people who know
[52:03] Speaker 2: search and rescue, people who know maps and how big
[52:06] Speaker 2: and vast the Indian Ocean is, they might laugh at
[52:07] Speaker 2: what I'm about to say, But still it's a point
[52:09] Speaker 2: I think that is worth making. Is back a few
[52:13] Speaker 2: years ago when Commander on Bilash Tommy was taking part
[52:16] Speaker 2: in the in the in the across the Globe race.
[52:19] Speaker 1: Uh.
[52:20] Speaker 2: He was you know, in a in a yacht that
[52:22] Speaker 2: was completely very low tech, that was the stipulation of
[52:25] Speaker 2: the race. He met him with an accident. Now the
[52:27] Speaker 2: accident happened Indian Ocean. Uh, the first ships to respond
[52:31] Speaker 2: to it, but the Australian Royal, Austlian Navy ships, a
[52:33] Speaker 2: French fishery ship was the one to rescue him and
[52:37] Speaker 2: take him to a French or arch plego, which is
[52:40] Speaker 2: when finally an Indian Navy warship bridge reached and sort
[52:43] Speaker 2: of brought him back home. Now again, like I said,
[52:45] Speaker 2: people who know such interscue and the map of the world,
[52:47] Speaker 2: they'll be like cabal right like in my point being,
[52:49] Speaker 2: if the ocean is named after ya, and your own
[52:53] Speaker 2: navy is not the first responded to your own back
[52:55] Speaker 2: then he was an active officer of the need by
[52:57] Speaker 2: the way your own officer taking but in a race,
[53:00] Speaker 2: then that's sort of a bad headline for you. But anyway,
[53:03] Speaker 2: that's just to sort of you know. But as the
[53:05] Speaker 2: point that we tried to make, so the tangent I
[53:07] Speaker 2: wanted to end the episode on was what the US
[53:10] Speaker 2: did last week, purely optics. Though I think they've renamed
[53:14] Speaker 2: their Pacific Command back to Pacific Command. It was briefly
[53:18] Speaker 2: briefly as for eight years it was called the Indoor
[53:21] Speaker 2: Pack on the Indoor Pacific Command. This happened under I
[53:24] Speaker 2: think when James Trattis was the Yeah, James Matters was
[53:27] Speaker 2: the Defense secretary under year Trump. So when this was done,
[53:31] Speaker 2: I think I remember quote. I didn't have the exact code,
[53:34] Speaker 2: but I'm paraphrasing him. General Mattis had talked about how
[53:37] Speaker 2: this was an acknowledgment of the realities of how the
[53:41] Speaker 2: area of operations of the US's Specific Command looks because
[53:45] Speaker 2: it actually has a lot of the part of a
[53:47] Speaker 2: lot of the Indian Ocean in it as well. Now
[53:51] Speaker 2: Secretary Hexseth has just come and said, you know, we're
[53:53] Speaker 2: going back to the Pacific Command name. Very interestingly, the
[53:56] Speaker 2: announcement happened just a few hours before Trump met pmod
[53:59] Speaker 2: Yes in France. Sixteen months is what this is, sixteen
[54:03] Speaker 2: months after the last met face to face. Purely optics.
[54:07] Speaker 2: I know, the renaming doesn't make any change on the ground,
[54:10] Speaker 2: I know, but the timing, the need to make the move,
[54:15] Speaker 2: what do you.
[54:16] Speaker 3: Make of that? It's the Chinese. I mean, the Chinese
[54:18] Speaker 3: have been flagging this all the time. They were very
[54:21] Speaker 3: uncomfortable with the indoor packcorm usage, which suggested that you know,
[54:25] Speaker 3: there was some Indian Ocean and therefore India in this
[54:28] Speaker 3: whole thing. And it's this giant conspiracy to corral China
[54:32] Speaker 3: and you know, to tie down and the cord, and
[54:35] Speaker 3: so they saw all of these things happening. So I
[54:39] Speaker 3: think it's just to reach out to the Chinese and
[54:42] Speaker 3: to tell them, you know that, look, we are still
[54:45] Speaker 3: focused on the Pacific. We don't want to team up
[54:48] Speaker 3: against you, and we respect your sentiments and you know
[54:52] Speaker 3: that kind of things. But as you said, it doesn't
[54:54] Speaker 3: really matter what you call it, because if China goes
[54:57] Speaker 3: in and tries to grab Taiwan, the United States will
[55:00] Speaker 3: will go and you know, hit them. It might be
[55:02] Speaker 3: it might not be the indoor packorm that will attack,
[55:05] Speaker 3: but it will be the Pacific Command. So it doesn't
[55:08] Speaker 3: really matter what you call it. The Americans are not
[55:11] Speaker 3: going to change their you know, battle strategy. If China
[55:17] Speaker 3: goes in and tries to capture a one trillion dollar
[55:19] Speaker 3: economy and you know, subsume it, the Americans will react
[55:23] Speaker 3: and they will retaliate. So I think it's this is
[55:25] Speaker 3: just kind of optics. But you know that point that
[55:28] Speaker 3: you mentioned, it's a sore point for me. Come Tommy,
[55:32] Speaker 3: being rescued by a foreign vessel, I kind of you know,
[55:36] Speaker 3: I This keeps replaying in my mind. I've discussed this
[55:40] Speaker 3: with Commander Tomy's a friend. Now. You know, my thing
[55:44] Speaker 3: was when this incident happened, I immediately, I mean, look,
[55:48] Speaker 3: I said, look, we need to send us our long
[55:51] Speaker 3: range aircraft to see seventeen and launch marine commandos and
[55:54] Speaker 3: go and you know, rescue them. And it turns out
[55:57] Speaker 3: that this was the plan that there was some very
[55:59] Speaker 3: good coas officers, very senior, now the best para jumper
[56:05] Speaker 3: was it immediately come up with this thing and they said, look,
[56:07] Speaker 3: this is what we're going to do. We're going to
[56:08] Speaker 3: jump in. We're going to rescue him, get him into
[56:10] Speaker 3: a boat, and we will then wait for you know,
[56:13] Speaker 3: rescue that The fact is that they were very keen
[56:15] Speaker 3: that the Indian Navy be the first to respond and reach,
[56:18] Speaker 3: but then it was overruled because the top brass thought
[56:23] Speaker 3: it wouldn't look nice if the rescue team. I mean,
[56:26] Speaker 3: I asked this of the chief at that time. I said,
[56:29] Speaker 3: so why didn't you do this? This was the you know,
[56:31] Speaker 3: the the quickest thing that you could have done. He says, no,
[56:35] Speaker 3: you know, there was c states were high, it was
[56:37] Speaker 3: very risky, and you ran the risk of the rescue
[56:40] Speaker 3: team itself being in trouble. So they took up you know,
[56:43] Speaker 3: considered decision, and they looked at all the factors, and
[56:47] Speaker 3: of course they are far more equipped to take a
[56:49] Speaker 3: decision than I am. I mean, I'm just a journalist writer.
[56:53] Speaker 3: But again, you know, that thing is still in the
[56:56] Speaker 3: back of my mind that it was a French vessel
[56:59] Speaker 3: that rescued him and took him to I think was
[57:01] Speaker 3: it an Australian.
[57:03] Speaker 2: The French territory.
[57:04] Speaker 3: The French territory that he was taken to, was monitoring
[57:08] Speaker 3: the risk, that's right, and so we were we reached
[57:10] Speaker 3: a few days late. I think it was the thrickon Darkash,
[57:13] Speaker 3: one of those frigates that went there. But this thing
[57:15] Speaker 3: always kind of plays on my mind, and I still
[57:20] Speaker 3: wonder that, several years later, do we have the ability
[57:23] Speaker 3: to launch in adverse weather conditions and to rescue someone
[57:27] Speaker 3: and to bring him back safely home, to extract him
[57:30] Speaker 3: from the surface of the sea and bring him I
[57:33] Speaker 3: haven't got an answer to that yet, but it is
[57:35] Speaker 3: to my mind one of the big sore points for
[57:39] Speaker 3: me that you know, you had a naval officer there,
[57:41] Speaker 3: we could have rescued him, because you know, these are
[57:44] Speaker 3: those things that the world looks at, yes, very carefully,
[57:49] Speaker 3: when it comes out in such difficult rescues, if they
[57:53] Speaker 3: are attempted, like for instance, look at the way the
[57:56] Speaker 3: Americans went and got their down pilots out in the
[58:00] Speaker 3: middle of Iran. They went in, they launched one hundred aircraft,
[58:03] Speaker 3: they got him back, and all that. We could have
[58:05] Speaker 3: done the same for Commander to me. I'm not to
[58:08] Speaker 3: say we were at war or anything, but you know,
[58:11] Speaker 3: when navies do that, when nations do that, that's that's
[58:16] Speaker 3: that's exactly how you project power. Everybody is watching you,
[58:19] Speaker 3: and everyone else will say, oh, look, one naval officer
[58:23] Speaker 3: was stuck in the remotest part of the world's Indian Ocean,
[58:26] Speaker 3: and the Indian Navy went and got it. So I
[58:28] Speaker 3: think it was a it was a lost opportunity that
[58:33] Speaker 3: we could have you know, got commanded to me back.
[58:36] Speaker 3: Of course he's back, he's still fighting fit and still
[58:39] Speaker 3: rearing to rearing to go. But I wish we could
[58:43] Speaker 3: have done it with the Indian Navy doing it. Yeah,
[58:46] Speaker 3: either a mad.
[58:47] Speaker 2: Guy to suff suffer the kind of injuries he did,
[58:50] Speaker 2: I think he had to get some sort of titan
[58:52] Speaker 2: in rodgs and certed into and he's still sailing by
[58:55] Speaker 2: the vesils. He retired from the Navy saying, Boss, I
[58:57] Speaker 2: want to sail and he's no.
[58:59] Speaker 3: I mean, you know, I tell a lot of my
[59:02] Speaker 3: friends this that I see in Commander to me the
[59:06] Speaker 3: spirit of the early Europeans who said that, you know,
[59:10] Speaker 3: let's go out there and look for land. If if
[59:15] Speaker 3: the Ottoman Empire has blocked our access to the riches
[59:18] Speaker 3: of Asia, let's find a sea route to it. And
[59:22] Speaker 3: that decision, which they took more than five hundred years back,
[59:25] Speaker 3: half a million year ago, they made the modern world.
[59:29] Speaker 3: And this is the spirit that you know, you can't
[59:31] Speaker 3: say that, oh, you know, anyone who goes on the power,
[59:34] Speaker 3: they will lose their cast. They will do this. So
[59:36] Speaker 3: that's how we kind of, you know, we mentally blocked
[59:38] Speaker 3: our maritime consciousness by you know, saying all these kind
[59:42] Speaker 3: of things. And I see in the madness of the
[59:47] Speaker 3: you know, the what most Indians would say, madness, what
[59:51] Speaker 3: Commander told me, relentless he wants to go out to sea. Sale.
[59:55] Speaker 3: You know, he's taken such a you know, his body
[59:58] Speaker 3: is taken such a beating We call him titanium to
[1:00:00] Speaker 3: me because of his implood. But he's still out there
[1:00:03] Speaker 3: and I see in him that spirit and till the
[1:00:06] Speaker 3: time we don't find that spirit which we've seen in
[1:00:10] Speaker 3: flashes in the past. The Cholas they ruled for almost
[1:00:13] Speaker 3: a thousand years, almost a millenniare and they were like
[1:00:16] Speaker 3: for them, the seas was like their home. It was
[1:00:19] Speaker 3: an extension of their land territories. And they would constantly
[1:00:22] Speaker 3: be sailing going and capturing, you know, Kadaram and battling
[1:00:27] Speaker 3: with the Sivija Empire and battling pirates. So it came
[1:00:30] Speaker 3: very naturally to them. So we will never become a
[1:00:33] Speaker 3: maritime power when until the time that we have that spirit.
[1:00:38] Speaker 2: Yeah, the Marathas also to an extent, I think.
[1:00:40] Speaker 3: Yeah, the Marathas were there, and of course they've been
[1:00:43] Speaker 3: recognized there, the Marathas the navies on the yeah it's
[1:00:48] Speaker 3: on the navy flag. But they were they weren't there
[1:00:51] Speaker 3: long enough, right, you know, they were there for about
[1:00:54] Speaker 3: more than just about a century. It was a century
[1:01:00] Speaker 3: five thousand years civilization. But I would think that if
[1:01:04] Speaker 3: they've had more time, they would start venturing out further.
[1:01:07] Speaker 3: They would have built the ships that could have kind
[1:01:09] Speaker 3: of prevented the colonization of India. Because the colonization of
[1:01:14] Speaker 3: India was effected by the Europeans who came from this
[1:01:19] Speaker 3: es and because we didn't have any power that could
[1:01:22] Speaker 3: go out and counter them and to stop them and
[1:01:25] Speaker 3: to you know, do battle far out at sea, they
[1:01:30] Speaker 3: continued coming. And that's how India was enslaved. I mean
[1:01:33] Speaker 3: more than two centuries. We were enslaved by the British
[1:01:36] Speaker 3: because we didn't have a strong maritime power. So I
[1:01:39] Speaker 3: think that is one of the lessons from history. And
[1:01:42] Speaker 3: this is going to be India's century. I mean, if
[1:01:46] Speaker 3: you look at it, like I said, three pars the US,
[1:01:49] Speaker 3: China and India, and it is for us to you know,
[1:01:52] Speaker 3: make the most of it. Yeah right.
[1:01:55] Speaker 2: I think that's the perfect point on which to end
[1:01:57] Speaker 2: this episode on the Great Chat as always and also
[1:02:01] Speaker 2: ending the season. Thanks a lot for being on the season.
[1:02:04] Speaker 2: Have I think learned some great sort of you know,
[1:02:08] Speaker 2: lessons and of lessons from you, so thanks so much.
[1:02:13] Speaker 3: Thanks for having me, Dave. It's always been a pleasure,
[1:02:14] Speaker 3: and thanks to all our viewers who have waited for it.
[1:02:18] Speaker 3: The episodes of In Our Defense and good luck to
[1:02:21] Speaker 3: you all.
[1:02:21] Speaker 2: That's it for the seasons in our defense. Stay tuned.
[1:02:25] Speaker 2: The news is in media back very soon, bybye.
[1:02:34] Speaker 1: In a world of contested borders and silent battles, one
[1:02:43] Speaker 1: voice cut through the noise. Was Israel able to achieve
[1:02:48] Speaker 1: its aim?
[1:02:49] Speaker 2: When Israel bombed Iran? Do you think that Chinese army
[1:02:54] Speaker 2: is at war with itself?
[1:02:57] Speaker 6: Joined veteran war correspondent God of Seventh, one of India's
[1:03:02] Speaker 6: most trusted voices in defense journalism.
[1:03:05] Speaker 2: Namaskar and jahind I'm God of Seventh.
[1:03:08] Speaker 6: Listen to Chuck review with God of Savon on India
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[1:03:21] Speaker 1: Stay alert. The war for truth start here.

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