Cold War Shadows In The Indian Ocean

Since the end of the Cold War in 1991 there has been a major shift in naval power in the Indian Ocean. With the demise of the Russian fleet (seen as an Indian ally) and the rise of Chinese naval power, India has sought cooperation from a growing U.S. Navy presence in the area. This is all about keeping Indian naval power supreme in the Indian Ocean. The rising Chinese threat is seen as more than India can handle alone. With Indian inability to expand, or even maintain their current naval power more help has to come from somewhere.

 

While India was technically neutral during the Cold War, India was generally hostile to the United States and quite cozy with Russia. India still has good relationships with Russia, but the Russians have no fleet to speak of these days and suddenly the Americans are seen as potential allies. In part this is because the anti-American slant was more the product of Indian post-colonial nationalism (that was generally anti-Western) and infatuation with socialism. Both those policies proved failures and, while many Indian politicians do not accept the shift to a market economy and better relations with the West, these changes have happened anyway. 

 

But above all this there is China, which has already taken some disputed territory on the Indian border and claims still more. Chinese ships (both commercial and military) are more frequently seen in the Indian Ocean. Chinese shipping firms have refurbished ports throughout the region and manage them to handle growing Chinese trade with the countries where these ports are located. The Chinese presence cannot be ignored and the Indians are now welcoming the Americans.

 

Yet there won’t be a lot of Americans. The U.S. defense budget is declining and so is the size of the American fleet. Most of the U.S. naval presence in the Indian Ocean is in and around the Persian Gulf and is there mainly to curb growing Iranian aggression. The only major American base actually in the Indian Ocean is Diego Garcia (a 44 square kilometer island 4,700 kilometers south of Afghanistan). 

The U.S. Navy maintains a base in Bahrain in the Persian Gulf and several Gulf states host American warplanes. What India wants is some American warships closer to the Indian coast. That does not seem to be happening soon enough to influence the Chinese fleet moving into the region.

Hired Guns Tame The Somali Coast

At the moment there's a booming market in security guards for merchant ships plying the waters off Somalia and adjacent areas (Gulf of Aden, Red Sea, western Indian Ocean, Straits of Hormuz). While many ships get by on-the-cheap by forming convoys that are guarded by warships of the international anti-piracy patrol, others have schedules that preclude waiting for a convoy to form. Most of these ships are now using a detachment of 4-5 armed guards, which cost them about $40,000 for the short trip through pirate invested waters.

It's not just the armed former soldiers and marines now riding on the most choice targets that scare off the pirates, but also all the dozens of boats (the size of seagoing fishing boats) that ferry the armed guards between African and Arabian ports to the ships to be guarded. The pirates have learned to keep clear of these boats as well, as they are full of heavily armed men willing to undertake some target practice before reaching their merchant ship and going on duty.

The rapid growth in the use of armed guard (who were on ten percent of large ships a year ago, and some 70 percent now) and more aggressive operations by the international anti-pirate patrol have caused ship captures by pirates to decline by two-thirds this year. The reduction in ransom money has led to a collapse of the economic boom in and around the northern Somalia port towns where the pirates were based. There are now a lot of unemployed pirates and those still at sea have to proceed much more cautiously.

Iran expects to equip Gulf ships with missiles soon

Iran expects to equip its ships in the Strait of Hormuz soon with shorter-range missiles, a Revolutionary Guards commander was quoted as saying, in the latest apparent warning to the West not to attack it over its disputed nuclear program.

The Islamic Republic has threatened to shut the Strait, the conduit out of the Gulf for 40 percent of the world's seaborne oil trade, if Western sanctions aimed at curbing its nuclear works block its own crude exports.

The European Union plans to impose a total embargo on Iranian oil from Sunday and has told Tehran that more punitive steps could follow if it keeps defying U.N. demands for limits nuclear activity that could be of use in developing bombs.

"We have already equipped our vessels with missiles with a range of 220 km (136 miles) and we hope to introduce missiles with a range of over 300 km (186 miles) soon," Ali Fadavi said, the semi-official Mehr news agency reported on Friday.

"We could target from our shores all areas in the Persian Gulf region, the Strait of Hormuz and the Sea of Oman."

Iran is about 225 km (140 miles) at its nearest point from Bahrain, where the U.S. Fifth Fleet is based, and about 1,000 km (625 miles) from its arch-enemy Israel. Tehran's longest-range missile, the Sajjil-2, can fly up to 2,400 km (1,500 miles).

Iran's military and security establishment often asserts its strength in the region, particularly in the Strait of Hormuz, the world's most important oil transit channel carrying supplies from Gulf producers to the West.

But it has increasingly flexed its military muscle in the face of U.S. and Israeli warnings that last-resort military action against Iran cannot be ruled out if diplomacy and sanctions fail to resolve the nuclear dispute.

In January, the Islamic Republic said it had successfully test-fired what it called two long-range missiles.

Earlier this month, the Iranian navy announced plans to build more warships and increase its presence in international waters such as the Gulf of Aden and northern Indian Ocean.

Iran denies Western suspicions that it is trying to develop technology and material required to produce nuclear weapons, saying it needs the know-how solely to generate electricity.

Tehran has said it would retaliate for any attack with missile strikes against Israel and U.S. assets in the Gulf.

A third round of nuclear talks between world powers and Iran on June 18-19 aimed ultimately at curbing Iranian nuclear activity in exchange for sanctions relief failed to ease the stalemate. With that process seemingly close to collapse, Israel renewed veiled threats to hit Iranian nuclear installations that it considers a mortal threat.