During the Kargil conflict; India using its superior naval capabilities was able to severly restrict Pakistan's ability to import Petroleum.
This was because Pak. was over reliant on Karachi which is close to India. The development of Gwadar with Chinese help has reduced pressure on the Pak. navy to prevent blockade of Karachi. Even if
India were to take great risks to blockade Karachi, it would gain very little unless it could simultaneously blockade Gwadar as well. This whie possible is improbable due to distance between Gwadar and India and hungry mirages with excocet missiles ready to swoop down on Indian vessels as they cross Pak. waters.
I would argue that Pak. needs to do 2 moe things to furher reduce the effectivness of india's blockade threat. Neither strategy calls for more vessels or planes.
Firstly Pak. must create a strategic petroleum reserve modelled on the U.S. reserves. The reserves must hold enough petroleum to meet the needs of Pak. armed forces for at least two weeks. While setting up the reserves would be expensive, once set up the only cost would be forgone interst that the govt. could have earned. The situation would be like keeping money in a non-interest bank. The benefit would be the fact that the effectivness of blockade would be reduced.
Secodly Pak. must improve the highway connecting to Iran and speeding up the time it takes border officials to check and approve goods in transit. By improving land trade with Iran, naval blockade would be less effective because land trade would pick up the slack.
While the most direct action to reduce India's naval threat would be to purchase vessels and planes, it is not always the most cost effective option. As Gwadar port has shown and I am confident a strategic petroleum reserve and better highway with Iran will show that indirect action can be more cost effective and should be considered.
This was because Pak. was over reliant on Karachi which is close to India. The development of Gwadar with Chinese help has reduced pressure on the Pak. navy to prevent blockade of Karachi. Even if
India were to take great risks to blockade Karachi, it would gain very little unless it could simultaneously blockade Gwadar as well. This whie possible is improbable due to distance between Gwadar and India and hungry mirages with excocet missiles ready to swoop down on Indian vessels as they cross Pak. waters.
I would argue that Pak. needs to do 2 moe things to furher reduce the effectivness of india's blockade threat. Neither strategy calls for more vessels or planes.
Firstly Pak. must create a strategic petroleum reserve modelled on the U.S. reserves. The reserves must hold enough petroleum to meet the needs of Pak. armed forces for at least two weeks. While setting up the reserves would be expensive, once set up the only cost would be forgone interst that the govt. could have earned. The situation would be like keeping money in a non-interest bank. The benefit would be the fact that the effectivness of blockade would be reduced.
Secodly Pak. must improve the highway connecting to Iran and speeding up the time it takes border officials to check and approve goods in transit. By improving land trade with Iran, naval blockade would be less effective because land trade would pick up the slack.
While the most direct action to reduce India's naval threat would be to purchase vessels and planes, it is not always the most cost effective option. As Gwadar port has shown and I am confident a strategic petroleum reserve and better highway with Iran will show that indirect action can be more cost effective and should be considered.