It's time to arm Myanmar just like we armed Pakistan! Sri Lanka and Bangladesh will also help bring down the elephant.
You chinese have a pretty big mouth.Dont underestimate your enemy.That's what you Sun TSU taught you.Dont forget him in your arrogance.Even a week Government like ours should not be underestimated.For your reading plesure.
Asia Times Online :: India extends Malacca Strait reach
India extends Malacca Strait reach
By Sudha Ramachandran
BANGALORE - The commissioning of a naval base in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands will allow India to assert itself more forcefully in the Malacca Strait, one of the world's most important waterways and a relatively weak point in China's geopolitical strategy.
Indian Naval Ship Baaz, which means "hawk" in Hindi, was inaugurated last week at the Great Nicobar's Campell Bay as India's southernmost and easternmost naval air station. The Andaman and Nicobar Islands, a chain of 572 islands dangled across the eastern exit of the Bay of Bengal, are around 650 nautical miles away from Visakhapatnam, the headquarters of the Eastern Naval Command on the Indian mainland.
The Baaz station, at the southern end of the chain, allows India to
keep a hawk-like eye on the strategically important Malacca Strait, through which 80% of China's crude and oil imports from the Middle East and Africa must pass, along with fuel imports for Japan and South Korea.
Since adopting the "Look East" policy in 1990, Delhi has strengthened its diplomatic engagement and trade with Southeast Asian countries, and increasingly East Asian countries. The role of its navy in projecting power far from its shores is growing, driven in part by Indian ambitions to be a significant player in the emerging Asia-Pacific security architecture.
Indian media reports have drawn attention to the new naval air station's role in "countering China's moves" and keeping an "increasingly assertive" China in the Indian Ocean region under check. Indian analysts warn that robust Sino-Myanmar naval co-operation could at some time in the future translate into Chinese ships securing a more permanent presence in the Bay of Bengal and the Indian Ocean.
Although it is not a Malacca Strait littoral, India is contiguous to the strait. Indira Point - the southern tip of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands - is about 90 nautical miles from Indonesia's Banda Aceh. Baaz will improve India's capacity to monitor security of waters running into the Malacca Strait.
INS Baaz falls under the Andaman and Nicobar Command (ANC), India's first integrated air and sea command, set up in October 2001 as part of a national security revamp in the wake of 1999 Kargil conflict with Pakistan.
The setting up of Baaz must be seen in the context of the eastern command and increasingly the ANC as the focus for India's strategic planners, whereas in the past the navy's western command was considered as its sword arm. Hitherto, Carnic Island was the Navy's forward operating base in the region. Baaz, 300 nautical miles south of Carnic Island, will now become the new forward operating base.
While Baaz significantly enhances India's strategic reach, the development of a new naval station is part of an overall "island development plan" underway in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
The islands are already home to naval bases at Port Blair and Car Nicobar, and air bases are fully operational at Diglipur, Port Blair and Carnic. As part of the plan, runways at Campbell Bay and Shibpur are being extended and three more operational turnaround bases for warships are being established in the archipelago. New airstrips are being constructed at Kamorta and Little Andaman, while the existing runways at Port Blair and Car Nicobar are being upgraded. The Indian Army, too, is moving to add another battalion to the 108 Mountain Brigade based there.
At Baaz' inauguration last week, Navy Chief Admiral Nirmal Verma described it as being "blessed with a brilliant strategic location". Indeed, Baaz overlooks the Six Degree Channel, a strip of water separating India's Great Nicobar from Indonesia. Much of international shipping entering or leaving the Malacca Strait must pass through this channel.
The Malacca Strait, at 900 kilometers long one of the world's most important waterways, links the Indian Ocean with the South China Sea and Pacific Ocean as well as the economies of East Asia with those of the Middle-East and Europe. The strait's centrality to maritime trade is evident from the fact that 50,000 merchant ships and 40% of the world's trade sails through it annually.
At its inauguration, the naval chief said that one of Baaz' primary functions is to provide information based on airborne maritime surveillance. "Maritime domain awareness is the key to effective and informed decision-making in the maritime arena. Despite numerous advancements in the field of information gathering over sea, airborne surveillance, using aircraft and UAVs [unarmed aerial vehicles, or drones], remains invaluable," Verma said.
At present, Baaz is equipped to operate light to medium-sized aircraft capable of short-field operations from its kilometer-long runway. There are plans to nearly double the runway length.. The air station will soon start operating heavier military planes from the Indian Air Force fleet, such as the just-inducted Hercules C-130J Super Hercules meant for Special Forces' operations.
Besides facilitating India's monitoring of maritime and other vessels in the region, Baaz will guard against piracy. According to data provided by the International Maritime Bureau, piracy incidents in the Malacca Strait dropped from 38 reported incidents in 2004 to none in 2011. Still, the waterway's vulnerability to piracy or terrorist attack remains high.
Baaz will also enhance India's capacity to monitor its 600,000 sq km of exclusive economic zone (EEZ) in the Andaman and Nicobar region. The EEZ here is roughly 30% of the country's total EEZ and rich in resources.
In April this year, India commissioned INS Dweeprakshak ("defender of islands" in Sanskrit), a new naval base at Kavaratti in the Lakshadweep Islands in the Arabian Sea. Dweeprakshak and Baaz will now act as India's western-most and eastern-most sentinels situation on its territory.
Given the deep wariness of the Malacca Strait littoral nations to outside powers becoming involved in providing security in the strait, India has been careful to avoid stepping on their toes. It has preferred a co-operative approach that doesn't impinge on their sovereignty concerns.
India has also been engaging in greater maritime cooperation with South East Asian and East Asian countries, including the Malacca Strait littorals through the Milan series of naval exercises, co-operative patrols and other navy-to-navy linkages with them. The Indian navy has exercised with the navies of Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia since the early 1990s. Indian naval officials say that in the event of a crisis in the Malacca Strait, if its littorals were to request India's help, Baaz will be ready to become involved.
Sudha Ramachandran is an independent journalist/researcher based in Bangalore.