Joe Shearer
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I have been studying recent developments, and they seem very interesting, from several points of view. What you say is insightful, and consistent with what they are doing. Clearly, they are equipping themselves to move even further away from the original Maoist concept, and smaller, more agile, greater technology using forces are indicated.
My assessment, as you will find from the laconic comments already made, is similar: they will loom and threaten but do nothing directly unless some signal act of stupidity and violent aggression is committed, which affects their naval assets - the sinking of one of their surface ships, for instance. And I think they will take care to position such a ship in a strategic and protective location, but not do anything further unless that ship, or that squadron, coming to that, suffers serious damage.
True. But will there be naval vessels of any third country in a sensitive port when war is imminent? If you recall, there were only third party commercial vessels in Karachi Harbour in 1971. And there were no notices of blockade sent out, which is a legal requirement. Please see the attachment below:
BLOCKADE AS AN ACT OF WAR
By Christopher Greenwood
Under the traditional concept of blockade, a belligerent was entitled to proclaim a blockade of all or part of the enemy’s coast and to use warships to enforce that blockade. There was no legal obligation to comply with a blockade, but any merchant ship, whether belligerent or neutral, that was intercepted by the blockading State while attempting to run the blockade was liable to capture. Following the decision of a prize court, ship and cargo became the property of the blockading power. The traditional concept of the blockade was confined, therefore, to the law of naval warfare. Blockade today is a technical legal term that most people, including lawyers, use without much precision to describe a variety of conduct beyond maritime operations.
In order to be lawful, a naval blockade had to be formally declared and had to be effective, that is to say it had to be properly enforced by warships of the blockading State. At one time this meant stationing warships just off the coast of the State that was subject to blockade, but by the time of the two World Wars, blockades were often administered from a long distance. An effective blockade allowed a belligerent to cut off all maritime commerce between its enemy and the rest of the world. The purpose was not only to prevent goods from reaching the enemy (to a large extent that could be done without a blockade in any event) but also to prevent the enemy from exporting to the outside world and thereby sustaining its war economy. Blockades were used to great effect during the American Civil War and the two World Wars, but since 1945 there have been very few instances of anything that could properly be described as a blockade in this technical sense.
Today, however, the term blockade is frequently applied to maritime operations undertaken at the behest of the United Nations Security Council. The council has on several occasions authorized warships to intercept shipping suspected of violating economic sanctions. Following Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990, for example, Resolution 661 imposed a ban on imports to, or exports from, Iraq and occupied Kuwait. Shortly afterward, Resolution 665 authorized states with naval forces in the region cooperating with the government of Kuwait to intercept shipping suspected of violating these sanctions. The result was in many ways very similar to that of a wartime blockade. Warships from several navies intercepted over ten thousand vessels between the summer of 1990 and the end of hostilities, and all maritime trade with Iraq and Kuwait was effectively cut off.
I suspect you will see a far lower posture in the SCS than people have expected, and you will also see a great deal of ambivalence in Indian postures relating to the SCS. There is a strong political sentiment against directly opposing China and endangering the increasing trade and commerce with that country, and the prevalent right-wing propensity to adopt belligerent postures at the drop of a hat may see a great deal of modification. Putting it very clumsily, the balance will possibly move to a point worse than it was five years ago, but will not be as bad as it was in the 60s to the 90s of the last century.
But all this interest and sometimes angry response to a straightforward point made, which any one planning a major development will carry in mind.
