MESSAGE TO INDIA SPECIAL EDITION
UPDATE MARCH 15, 2015: In the year since this message was posted the Indian Navy's operational safety record has greatly improved. One could point to a variety of changes made in policy, or procedures but the main reason for the success is the same as the reason that has propelled the success of this navy to the front rank of world navies. This improvement and every past success is due to the hard work, dedication, and skill of the Indian Navy Officer and Petty Officer Corps. -GO TIGERS!
A FEW WORDS FROM OUR EDITOR IN CHIEF: It Is Very Difficult To Disseminate A Message Over The Week End To A New Audience. The Indian Navy Has Long Been A Frequent Subject Of News Coverage And Analysis On This Site, But We have Had Few Readers From India. Many Naval Professionals Share Our View Of The Indian Navy As A Rising World Class Navy. Unfortunately Few Realize That This Navy, One Of The Very Few In The World To Have Mastered The Complete Range of Skills Such As Air Craft Carrier Operations, Underway Replenishment, Nuclear Submarine Operations, Submerged Missile Launches, etc. Is Actually India's Smallest Armed Service. We Are Still Trying To Reach The Indian Audience In The Wake Of Their Navy's Recent Rash Of Fatal Accidents. We Appreciate Any Help Our Visitors May Be Able to Give Us In That Regard.
We departed from our usual practice of posting one to four new posts a day and from changing out our home page and notices for the "Weekend Edition". Just below this post is a NEWS FLASH concerning two naval events in India that we published late last week. In that post we penned a message for the Indian people that we feel is long overdue about their navy. We refrained from re-positioning our HOME PAGE and NOTICES or any additional posts through Monday in the hopes that this message, which is just below this post, would be read. We urge all of our readers, especially our naval professionals, to read the post and if you know anyone in India to forward it. On Tuesday we resumed normal editorial practice but placed a link in the Home Page so that anyone looking for the posts on the Indian naval accidents can go directly there and not have to scroll through all of the subsequent daily posts.
There were many posts the past two weeks due to other events and the developments in the Ukraine that our dashboard counter indicates our readers have not yet discovered. We will resumed our normal practice on Tuesday. We are back to our usual practices, but hope that through the direct link at the home page which we will leave up for several weeks all of India will have read and considered our message.
Due to the fact that India has had to bury some naval heroes recently, and their Chief of Navy has resigned, we fear that their government and media have not adequately explained that the fallen were more than industrial accident victims. They were pursuing an incredible goal that the entire navy has been pursuing collectively, sometimes at grave personal risk, and success is almost within their grasp. Every Indian has a stake in the success of their navy in this pursuit of excellence. We hope that our message as outside observers may help the Indian media, politicians, and most importantly voters and tax payers put these recent naval events into perspective. We are great admirers here of the professionalism ,teamwork, and courage of the entire Indian Navy from admirals to seamen apprentices. We think it is time for India as a nation to see their navy through the eyes of outside naval professionals. Please, if you have any Indian contacts pass our message on. If you are a reader in India please pass our message on.
If you are part of the Indian media or government and you find the message useful you already have our permission to reprint all or part of it in any media you like, link to it, quote from it, paraphrase it; anything that you feel helps spread the message. If you disagree with our message please express that disagreement in our COMMENTS SECTION just below the post.
God bless the Indian Navy and the nation that has commissioned it. The Indian Navy is appearing on the world stage at just the moment when it is most needed.
Johnas Presbyter
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ReplyDeleteThanks again! You might be interested in this: http://trishul-trident.blogspot.com/2014/03/the-blind-leading-blind.html?showComment=1394429071593#c4964571939588948468 This comment tries to explain the reason being the recent incidents, and the overall thread deals with Indian Navy's sub upgrade program.
ReplyDeleteDear Author,
ReplyDeleteYour article is quite encouraging and timely, especially in this difficult period. I agree with you that there is very limited awareness in India about the Indian Navy, partly because of the continental nature of most of our threats. On top of that, when India is buying these naval platforms by paying through its nose and at the cost of poverty elimination and economic growth, any accidental damage definitely disheartens people.
The oncoming siege of India, is more than obvious to Indian people. We can see 2.25 million army breathing fire on our neck from North, another half a million army from west and both of them are equipped with nuclear weapons. If that is also added by more than hundreds of ships and nuclear submarines in the Indian Ocean, with local bases, the garrote would be complete and be threatening India's existence itself. The recent discourse indicating the US Navy's withdrawal from Indian Ocean, owing to diminishing energy interests in Middle East, have increased this fear. In addition, Chinese scholars have begun discussing G-2 (Bipolar) led world and a different international political structure from the present one, under which all other nations will have to abide by Chinese rules in this region. Islamic terrorism is a kind of bonus in this regard.
You can imagine the Indian threat perception and a possible dangerous future. That's why when the Indian Navy makes mistakes, people become quite angry. In addition, we have also heard from some US Navy's exchange officers that the work ethics are poor in Indian Navy and still a sort of classism and centralisation of decision making is followed. The nation is not much aware of the actual status of the Indian Navy. That's why it feels betrayed at times during accidents and the feeling has grown after the kilo class submarine disasters.
Maybe the future of India will be different, but you never know how everything will turn out.
Thanks for your outside expert opinion though.
Best Regards
Atul
Thank You Atul:
ReplyDeleteThe fact is that the United States has the proven reserves now to be the world's leading oil and gas export nation. Only short sighted Federal policies keep it from assuming that position immediately. However eventually the Obama administration will have to release the reverse engineering permits for the LNG terminals allowing us to export natural gas at the rate we need to. The new oil reserves are mostly on private lands so the radical environmental movement won't be able to keep this new oil off the market much longer. So indeed the Indian Ocean has become less vital to U.S. national interests. But less important is not unimportant and that's where the U.S.finds itself in the unusual position for a super power of actually being under the defense umbrella of someone else. All criticisms of work ethic, classism, and centralization of decision making aside, the United States has judged the Indian Navy
as more than adequate to protect most of the Indian Ocean by its self. Until the politicians release the oil and gas and let it do its job for our economy we are still paying off the debts of past Federal ill conceived policies with armed forces dollars. As India well knows no service is as cost intensive as a world class navy. Despite all of the odds against it, India has one now. We don't doubt given India's ancient culture that classism and central decision making are probably still a retarding factor to progress. But we can't buy the opinion of some of our exchange officers on scene about the "poor work ethics" in the Indian navy. India's navy could have only gotten where it is in the time that it had, with the limited resources available to it through near superhuman effort. This why whenever we laud the progress of the Indian Navy we always salute both the commissioned officer corps and the ratings or Petty Officer Corps. Without the skilled ratings the best laid plans of the commissioned officer corps amount to just that plans. We see the plans becoming reality every day. Perhaps its time for the Indian commissioned officer corps as well as the Indian public to give the petty officers their due credit and recognition. The operational tempo is high but the Commissioned officers are hardly having to drive the ratings with a whip. As we stated, the operational tempo is high because the whole navy from seamen to admirals are aware of a looming potential "Siege of India". The United States Navy had to over come serious cultural issues at various times, the Indian navy will overcome its own internal cultural shortcomings as well. Only the loss of the support of the people can defeat your navy. If the siege never comes it will be because the Indian armed forces including the Navy have achieved a state of deterrence. If it appears to the Indian nation that deterrence is impossible , not just terribly difficult it may be time to reconsider non aligned status. There are others who face the Dragon as well. The United States may be reducing its naval foot print in the Indian Ocean but if India's non aligned status were to change perhaps an Indian naval redoubt could be established at Diego Garcia. It would be very difficult even for a combined and coordinated assault from both the Islamic terrorist states and the dragon to hit Diego Garcia and mainland India at once. If they did hit Diego Garcia it would automatically be an act of war against the United States and Britain and much of the common wealth. One way or the other, deterrence is possible. Democracy is messy, institutional cultures as well as civilizations change relatively slowly. Just because we admire the "Tigers" as we like to call the Indian Navy, for their accomplishments to date doesn't mean that we don't see the clinks in their armor. We happen to believe that the armor will hold. Only the people of India can take the armor away. We have confidence that the "Tigers" will not fail if the people are behind them.