THE BIG GAME AND MAKE ANALYSIS

[HAIDER]

U r opinion?

 

[Contrarian]

A very nice picture.

There is some problem though. The main sea trade route going from below Sl is going to change. A canal is being built between the mainland India and SL, which would make all the sea trade in this area(which is the maximum in the world) pass through Indian waters.
This would mean that virually most of the worlds oil would pass through this area.

The project is called Sethusamudram.

Not only would India make money from this, it would increase the IN's response time in any area by a HUGE margin. Estimates puts that the Eastern and Western fleet unification time, after the canal is built would be reduced by more 50%. This would be also be an ideal pen for hiding submarines.

And yet, after all this, SL's importance will greatly diminish with the completetion of this project.Not that that matters, SL is important to India.

As you can see, its a strategic goldmine, this project, in terms of benifits to India.

 

[HAIDER]

Now why Chinese are taking interest in Lanka and Jaffna is very stratigic region. I think this conflict will grow, if both parties in Lanka will not sit on table.

 

[zraver]

interesting, a couple of things I don't quite feel comftrable agreeing wiht but it does show whynbthe area is so strategically vital and highlights a couple of flash points quite nicely.

 

[BATMAN]

mainland India and SL

What the hell does this suppose to mean? I never came across this theory before, OR is it just the begining of new propaganda.

 

[Ababeel]

It seems US is trying to circle China through Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and Japan in the east and through the Central Asian States and Gulf States in the west.
I don't know how long this Gulf Arab States will facilitate the biggest enemy of Palestinians. They are also jeopardizing their own oil wealth's safety.
Pakistan may capitalize emmensly in this great game as US will not dare or think any more to isolate Pak in future, otherwise China is going to get more and more foothold in Pakistan, specially Gawadar and it will reward Pakistan economically and militarily.

 

[Ababeel]

A very nice picture.

There is some problem though. The main sea trade route going from below Sl is going to change. A canal is being built between the mainland India and SL, which would make all the sea trade in this area(which is the maximum in the world) pass through Indian waters.
This would mean that virually most of the worlds oil would pass through this area.

The project is called Sethusamudram.

It seems just apropaganda as nobody will like to pass through this Tamil Tiger infested route. Also only a few countries which are economically or from trade point of view very weak (Bangladesh, Burma only) are situated in north of this route. Otherwise the southern route is the only viable safe and short route for going towards the strait of Malacca the artery of trade in this region.

 

[Neo]

I second that.

Malay why would international traders want to traverse via Indian canal when sailing around Lanka is m ore logical choice?

 

[Contrarian]

Because it saves them a LOT Of time for the ships.

For big ships, it saves around 650 kms for big ships. Not to mention, it would actually provide a sea navigable route from India's western sea board to the eastern sea board. The ships going for BD, Myanmar, Bhutan(lanlocked), China etc would most definitely use this route.

China is building a pipeline from Myanmar to China, which would transport oil unloaded at Myanmar ports taken directly to China from there eliminating the ned for ships to go further saving CONSIDERABLE time and money for China. Those ships too would use this canal, and the demand because of China would be huge as well.

This route would also provide additional safety to the ships because of the IN.

Oh! And this is just for the international routes, the HUGE HUGE amount of sea trade between the Eastern and the Western coast of India would benifit immensely from this canal. This would save a HUGE amount of foreign exchange and time for India, this would benefit the private shipping industry as well.

BTW Mr kbagdadi, this route is not LTTE infested, you should know that the canal would be regulated obviously, not ship would be able to enter without permission, etc. Not to mention, this would be territorial waters of India, and further not to mention that LTTE would not attempt to jeopardise Indian interests, because its the IN which is choking them atm, they would not antagonise India.

This canal has been demanded to be created since a LONG LONG time, right from the late 1800's. The feasability study has been done. It has been found economically very viable. There are only some environmental concerns, which have also been addressed.

Apart from all this, there is also the strategic significance of this canal, which is another aspect altogether.

 

[Contrarian]

Here...an article on the Sethusamudram project.

This was published in the Daily Mirror in 2004.

Geo-Strategic Implications of Sethusamudram

The Sethusamudram Project has generated some controversy again. The litany is that the project has far reaching strategic and economic implications for Sri Lanka. But few have elaborated on why it is so.The articles you see in the local press are largely on the adverse ecological impact it would have on SriLanka and its maritime environs.

The Sethusamudram Project has a very important geo-political dimension too. It would give India a firm grip on one of the world's most strategic and busiest sea-lanes. This would eventually give India very remarkable leverage in its relations with China,Japan and the US.

All the oil supplies to Southeast and East Asia that originate in the Middle East are shipped from ports in the Red Sea or the Persian Gulf. The sea-lanes from here converge in the Arabian Sea and then pass throughthe Gulf of Mannar and curve off the western, southern and southeastern coast of Sri Lanka.

This sea-lane then turns northeast through the Bay of Bengal towards the Malacca Strait. Eighty percent of Japan's oil supplies and sixty percent of China's oil supplies shipped on this sea-lane. Almost half of the world's container traffic passes through the choke points of this sea-lane and its branches in the Indian Ocean.

The Sethusamudram Project will create an unavoidable by-pass that would inevitably divert this sea traffic through India's own maritime waters. The strategic importance of this by-pass should also be understood in the light of New Delhi's ambitions for becoming the Indian Ocean's predominant naval power.

As we all know K.M Panikkar, the architect of India's naval doctrine, argued in his works more than fifty years ago that New Delhi should recognise the significance of the Indian Ocean for the development of its commercial activities, trade and security ('TheStrategic Problems of the Indian Ocean' and 'India and Indian Ocean'- published in 1944-1945)

Regretting the "unfortunate tendency to overlook the Sea in the discussion of India's defence problems",Panikkar remarked: "India never lost her independence till she lost the command of the sea in the first decade of the 16th Century".

Advocating that the "Indian Ocean must remain truly Indian", Panikkar suggested the Albuquerque-style security of India by firmly holding distant places like Singapore, Mauritius, Aden and Socotra, the arid island off the coast of Yemen. He also emphasized broadening of the political hemisphere of the Indian State, so as to include Ceylon and Burma for defence purposes. Cautioning against the Chinese thrust, he wrote that the "movement towards the South may, and in all probability will be reflected in the naval policy of resurgent China".

In later years, another popular Indian author, K.B.Vaidya, in his work - 'The Naval Defence of India' -keenly supported the ideas of Panikkar. He said, "Even if we do not rule the waves of all the five oceans of the world, we must at least rule the waves of the Indian Ocean". He further emphasized that India must be supreme and undisputed power over the waters of the Indian Ocean. He argued for the creation of three self-sufficient and full-fledged fleets to be stationed at the Andamans in the Bay of Bengal, at Trincomalee in Ceylon and at Mauritius guarding the western and eastern approaches to the Indian Ocean.

However, until the seventies India was largely pre-occupied with the defence and security of its mainland and invested little in naval power.

Two events at the time jolted defence planners in Delhi to take a more serious view of the Indian Ocean neighbourhood in terms of India's security.

One was the acquisition of Diego Garcia by the US and the other was America's decision to send the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise to the Bay of Bengal in December 1971 in a show of support for Pakistan during the Bangladesh war.

The first thing New Delhi did in reaction to these apparent moves by the US to assert its power in the Indian Ocean was to begin a process to legally define and settle all its maritime boundaries with countries to its south, east and southeast.

Delhi signed the first agreement with Indonesia in 1974, which settled the boundary between Great Nicobar and Sumatra. In 1977, the boundary line was extended both into the Indian Ocean and into the Andaman Sea by another agreement. In the same year, the boundary between India and Thailand in the Andaman Sea was negotiated and an agreement was signed in June 1978,which entered into force in December 1978. In February1978, the tri-junction point between India, Indonesia and Thailand was settled at official level in Jakarta.

The agreement was signed in June 1978 and came into force in March 1979. The maritime boundary agreement with Myanmar was ratified in 1987. The maritime boundary agreements with Sri Lanka were concluded in1974 and 1976 (Maritime Zones Law, No. 22 of 1976). Atri-junction treaty defining the boundaries of Maldives, Sri Lanka and India was also signed during this period. (The dispute between India and Bangladesh over New Moore Island came to nought after it wasswept under the sea)

And parallel to this, India, with the support of its ally USSR, began a campaign for a nuclear free Indian Ocean. The campaign was aimed at preventing the US from developing Diego Garcia into a major base for nuclear weapons. Sri Lanka supported India during the Non Aligned Movement summit in Colombo in 1976 to adopt a resolution criticizing the US for developing a nuclear weapons base in Diego Garcia.

However, New Delhi's naval ambitions remained somewhat muted until the fall of the Soviet Union, which had provided a safety umbrella to India in the larger Indian Ocean theatre.

But today India feels that it has to defend itself on its own. In recent years the importance of sea-lane security has become paramount in the thinking of Indian naval strategists. New Delhi's plans for rapid economic growth depend of safe, uninterrupted supply of energy to feed the country's burgeoning industry and fast expanding automobile market.

(Energy Security is a relatively new discipline inIndia but is fast catching on among a handful strategic thinkers in Delhi) Therefore the Strategic Defence Review of Indian Navy,published in 1998, stipulated four specific tasks for the immediate future:

1) Sea based deterrence

2) Economic and energysecurity

3) Forward presence and

4) Naval diplomacy. The four tasks are interconnected.

One of the man reasons why countries develop and maintain large navies is to defend or dominate sea-lanes that are vital to their survival. Nations that have blue water navies are in a position to control sea-lanes, junctions and choke points(straits) in all the oceans of the globe (A navy with trans-oceanic sailing power is called a blue water navy. A navy that can patrol the immediate oceanic neighbourhood off its maritime zone is a brown water navy)

New Delhi has been able to postpone massive investments in a blue water navy by developing the natural forward defences in either side of peninsular India - in the Lakshadweep Islands in the Arabian Sea and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands in the Bay of Bengal.

The Malacca Straits is the second busiest sea-lane in the world. And most of the ships approach the Straits through the 10-degree channel, which bisects the Andaman Islands from the Great Nicobar Islands.

Therefore Delhi has made huge investments in developing its forward military presence on the islands as it gives it dominance over the second busiest sea-lane choke point. The strategic importance of the islands has been a historical fact.

During negotiations for India's independence, the Muslim League demanded that the Andaman islands should be an integral part of Pakistan for geographical and strategic reasons. It expressed the fear that if India controlled the islands and the vital sea-lanes, India could prevent the Pakistani ships from sailing from West Pakistan to East Pakistan. It must also be pointed out that sections in the British Defence establishment wanted the islands to be detached from India.

They wanted the Andaman and Nicobar Islands to be made into a separate Crown Colony, which would, in turn,safeguard the strategic interests of the far-flung British Empire. However, this did not materialise due to stout opposition from Nehru who had Mountbatten's support on the matter.

The responsibility for the security of the Bay of Bengal, including Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and also the waters extending to the six littoral states in the region - Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand,Malaysia, Indonesia and Sri Lanka - was vested for along time with the Indian Navy's Eastern Naval Command based in Visakhapatnam.

In August 1998, New Delhi decided to establish a Far Eastern Marine Command at Port Blair in Andaman,independent of operational control from Visakhapatnam.The idea was further modified in favour of a Joint Service Command in October 2001. The Command will be headed by the three Services in rotation and will function directly under the Chief of Defence Staff of the Indian armed forces.

There are plans in New Delhi to develop Port Blair as a strategic international trade centre and for building an oil terminal and trans- shipment port in Campal Bay (Great Nicobar islands) to cater to increasing maritime trade in the region.

India, while thus consolidating its forward position and grip on the entrance of the Malacca Strait,ensured that no external power could dominate the vital sea-lane further southwest in the Bay of Bengal by signing the Indo-Sri Lanka Agreement (ISLA). TheLetters of Exchange in the ISLA preclude anyone except India from using Trincomalee - a strategic port necessary for dominating the sea-lanes that emanate from the Malacca choke point.

However, quiet moves by China since the late eighties to develop safe line of energy supply from the Persian Gulf to the South China Sea set off alarm bells in Delhi. India appears to fear this line of supply defined by the strategic facilities that China has developed along this route could give Beijing naval advantage in the region. This concern should be seen in the light of the fact that China has developed naval facilities on the Greater Cocos Island, which is part of the Andaman Archipelago but belongs to Myanmar.

China has built a naval base in Bandar Abbas on Iran's coast on the northern side of the Hormuz Strait in the Persian Gulf. (One need not elaborate on the importance of the Hirmuz Strait to world oil trade).

Further east on the Pakistan coast China is building a dual-purpose naval facility in Gwador. The next stop on this line of supply are Maldives and Sri Lanka.

China negotiated a deal with Maldives from 1999 to build a base in Marao one of the largest islands of the 1192 a tolls that make up Maldives. It lies 40 kilometres from Male. The base deal was finalised after two years of negotiations when Chinese PM Zhu Rongji visited Male on 17 May 2001 on his four nations South Asian tour.

The Marao base will not be operational until 2010.Beijing will use Marao Island for 25 years on lease and pay back Maldives in foreign currency.

An Indian defence reporter, sounding the alarm at the time, wrote: "Coral islands make fine submarine pens.The People's Liberation Army - Navy (PLAN) proposes to deploy nuclear submarines fitted with sea launched Dong Feng 44 missiles and ballistic missiles in Marao"(Curiously, the official organ of a pro-Chinese Tamil party launched a tirade against me for mentioning the Maldives base deal in passing in my column for the Sunday Virakesari)

In Sri Lanka China has developed relations with Colombo in recent years with an obvious eye on the petroleum industry. Ceylon Petroleum Corporation signed an agreement with Huanqiu Chemical Engineering Corporation on December 4, 2000 for the construction of an oil tank farm in Muthurajawela. It was expected to double Sri Lanka's petroleum storage capacity within three years. The Chinese company built 29 tanks along with a single point buoy mooring system to unload oil from tankers without having them enter the port. The Chinese company was also repairing six more tanks in Kolannawa which were damaged in an attack by the Tigers in October 1995. Chairman of the CPC at the time Anil Obeyesekere said that his Corporation had started talks with the Chinese on expanding SriLanka's oil refinery and joint venture in petrochemical industry.

We have witnessed how India moved swiftly to counter China's hand in Sri Lanka's petroleum sector. It is diminishing the effect of a strategic link in China's energy supply through the Indian Ocean.

The Sethusamudram Project would help India overcome many of these concerns and worries about holding the power balance over the strategic sea-lanes in its hands in this part of the world.

The Sethusamudram sea bypass might divert one of the world's busiest sea-lanes into India's strategic stranglehold.

This is the context in which we in Colombo should examine the geo-political implications of Sethusamudram for Sri Lanka. And no one can ignore Jaffna's proximity to the project.

 

[Contrarian]

Here, another one:

Sethusamudram: Strategic Asset
By Venkatesh - Syndicate Features

The much-delayed Sethusamudram project, a navigable channel around the southern tip of peninsular India, has been cleared by the Union Cabinet but this strategic asset will need to be protected not just against a tsunami wave but also frogmen of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) who control the northern province of Sri Lanka.

Yet the advantages are manifold in terms of distance, time and financial prospects of a cheaper trade route and if adequate protection is incorporated to handle the natural calamity and the incipient threat of terrorist attack it will be a worthwhile investment.

At the moment Indian shipping has perforce to circumnavigate the island of Sri Lanka, a 424 nautical mile journey that takes about 30 hours to traverse at average cruising speed of commercial shipping which adds up to expenditure on fuel, crew man-hours and turnaround time of vessels both freighters and passenger liners.

The Sethusamudram entails dredging the Palk Strait to allow for two-lane traffic for ships of draft of 65,000 deadweight, which would correspond to a medium-sized container ship or tanker. It is intended to create a channel 14.5 meters deep and 300 metres wide connecting the Arabian Sea to the Bay of Bengal within sight of landfall at Kanyakumari.

To chew out a passage through the causeway created, according to mythology, by Hanuman and his monkey brigade for passage between the mainland and “Lanka” where Ravan had confined the kidnapped Sita, the Government has sanctioned a Rs 2427-crore corpus to create a 167 km channel that will change the nature of trans-oceanic shipping in this part of the world on a sub continental scale.

Apart from the commercial aspect, the proposed channel will improve tremendously the power projection capabilities of the Indian armed forces not just in the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal but deep into the Indian Ocean as well as far as the Antarctic ice fields.

It will make possible the quick transfer of warships and personnel between the Southern Naval Command at Cochin and the Eastern Naval Command at Vishakhapatnam as well as the Coastguard installations on both Indian seaboards.

A case in point was the Indian military intervention in the Maldives when elements of the Sri Lankan militants sought to overthrow the Gayoom government and set up a support base in the island-nation for operations within Sri Lanka. At that time the Indian Air Force airlifted a commando force which nipped the invasion in the bud and the Indian Navy intercepted a ship and captured the group that was preparing to install itself as the government in the Maldives.

Tactically, it means that India will be able to bring to bear in any interdiction mission within 1000 km of its coastline a larger, more compact, strike force in both attack and defence. This will be more particularly true when India acquires the second aircraft carrier and possibly a third indigenously-designed “sea control ship” to be built at the Cochin shipyard.

The ability to deploy a carrier-led task force will make for a sea-control mechanism comprising aircraft, surface ships and submarines altogether a very formidable means of power projection. Since every task force will include landing ship tanks (LST) the ability to effectively patrol and protect the offshore island territories of Lakshwadweep in the Arabian Sea and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands in the Bay of Bengal and the exclusive economic zones surrounding them will be improved exponentially.

Under the Law of the Sea Convention the creation of 200 nautical mile Exclusive Economic Zones where the coastal nation can exploit the fishery and undersea metallic and fossil fuel reserves makes for huge areas that require patrolling to prevent poaching and foreign intervention.

For long India has been plagued by foreign fishing vessels poaching in Indian waters. This will end; and the ability of the Indian Navy and the Coastguard to control smuggling will also be tremendously improved given that nowadays the concept of unified command would bring about a concentration of all fighting elements—aircraft, ships and submarines – of both the Navy and the Coastguards to achieve given missions to counter threats to Indian maritime interests.

To be able to ensure that this maritime security apparatus is functional 24x7x365 days arrangements will have to be put in place to prevent a natural disaster like a tsunami from affecting it. Recently, the sudden rise in the sea level did tend to raise concerns among an already traumatized population along the coastline as far away as Kerala.

That the Government of India is acutely aware of the dangers that a tsunami can pose was reflected in President A.P.J Abdul Kalam’s visit to Russia where the foundations for mutual cooperation in both earthquake studies and the tsunami predictions were laid. Simultaneously, prospects for cooperation with the US and Japan, both of whom have voluminous files on the tsunami experience, are being explored.

Both prediction and amelioration of the effects of tsunami on an enclosed seaway like the proposed Sethusamudram are an important input in the planning and execution of the channel. It will raise some daunting engineering problems but these will need to be incorporated in the plans so as to prevent a future disaster.

It would be appropriate that all systems proposed to be able to predict the size and direction of an undersea earthquake and its attendant tidal wave should be connected to forecasting its effect on the relatively narrow passageway that will be the Sethusamudram. It should not be allowed to be closed by any ship that may capsize under the rigours of a tidal wave. Salvage equipment – ship borne cranes and a floating dry-dock -- will have to be an integral component of the controlling authority of the seaway.

The other incipient danger is from a hostile LTTE. Recently, the Government of India expressed its concern over LTTE airbase at Wani which could be used to launch unconventional attacks using micro light aircraft against shipping and land targets across the Palk Straits. This is a fledgling element at the moment.

The LTTE has said that the airbase is not intended to pose a threat to India but given the Indian experience of the LTTE and its proclivity to use suicide attacks to achieve its political ends it would be in the fitness of things that the Government of India accesses this new military element in the region and take appropriate steps to handle it if the need arises.

The real and present danger is from the highly experienced and motivated diver brigade of the LTTE which is equipped with fast Gemini speedboats carrying crews well versed in underwater sabotage.

The outer limit of the Sethusamudram will skirt the northern territorial waters of Sri Lanka which is under the military influence of the LTTE. Ships will pass close to the island of Kachhativu which was ceded to Colombo under the Indira-Srimavo pact though Indian fisherfolk are allowed to use it as per their traditional rights. This is a segment of the Palk Strait that is amenable to interference by inimical forces.

Therefore, it would be incumbent on both the channel authority as well as the Ministry of Defence to predict and cater for any and every possibility of a hostile interference with shipping in these enclosed waters.

Undersea metallic nets, like those used for harbour defence against intruding submarines, with sensors that could detect diver activity intended to subvert or interfere with the shipping could be put in place simultaneously with the completion of the channel. It will be an expensive investment but it will be well worth the trouble given the volume of traffic expected to use the channel every day and the strategic nature of this maritime asset.

http://asiantribune.com/oldsite/show_article.php?id=2418

 

[Contrarian]

After reading the previous 3 posts, i hope people here realise the implications of Sethusamudram, not just in terms of revenue generated, but expanded military power projection capabilities.

Oh, and who here was saying that this is 'just another propaganda'. Dude, understand what propaganda is first, this is a technical project whose construction (read dredging in this case) started a couple of years ago. What you are confusing propaganda to be is the advantages that this project will yield.

 

[Always Neutral]

It seems just apropaganda as nobody will like to pass through this Tamil Tiger infested route. Also only a few countries which are economically or from trade point of view very weak (Bangladesh, Burma only) are situated in north of this route. Otherwise the southern route is the only viable safe and short route for going towards the strait of Malacca the artery of trade in this region.

Actually you are partially right but also wrong in some ways. Having served one year on a commercial tanker from Middle East to Japan I would like to add the following

1. A large tanker / ship ( Thats the future of shipping ) will never go to the Sethu as such ships cost nearly USD 100000/- a day to run and maintain a crusing speed which is most economical. Entering any canal / waterways involves anchoring, waiting for the pilot and other delays which all my sea going friends on this forum will agree. Sometimes the pilots are short staffed or on strike etc which lead to additional delays. The time saved going thru the Sethu will not be more than 24 hours but in the long run the Big ships will skirt Srilanka on the way to Japan / china/ korea the big energy markets.

2. Definately the trade between east and west coast on of India, Bangladesh and Burma will pick up due to Sethu. India will be smart enough to deploy air and naval assets to protect the Sethu and the Tigers will not pick up a fight with India or Indian Shipping for the simple reason they donot need enemies on both sides. An Indian from south india on my ship once told me that though they are sympathetic to the Tamil Elam Cause ( my spelling may be wrong) after the assasination of their PM the Tigers lost a lot of sympathy in India. I agree as the late Mr A Balasingham who was the spokesman of the LTTE in london himself said that the assasination of the PM of India was a bad mistake.

Another point I would like to add that my ship had a unique crew, the master was a grizzly old ex Indian Navy Officer and a Pakistani origin First mate. On certain ships spirits can be opened when we are nearing ports incase you are not on duty with the permission on the Captain / First mate. I was amazed at the camadarie the Capt and his first mate shared and the the tipples they had where no other crew was invited. I was more amazed when both the families joined us for a part of the journey. The families bonded so well. One day in Singapore on a piss up I asked them about Kashmir issue and suprisingly their opinion was that Kashmiris are spoilt children getting the best from both sides. ( I WOULD LIKE TO STRESS THOUGH I HAVE BEEN TO KASHMIR TWICE I AM NO EXPERT OR TRYING TO MAKE A POINT ON THE KASHMIR ISSUE). End of the day a lot of competent professionals come from both Pakistan and India and are well repected by people like us.

Regards

 

[dabong1]

The only "spoilt children" are pakistan and india when it comes to kashmir.

 

[niaz]

In the the 19th Century when Czarist Russia was expanding eastwards and gobbling up the Central Asian khanates; then super power GB got worried and initiated what is now known as the great game which was basically a spy network and seditionery activities.

The new short route between East and West coast of India is irrelevant in the context of major powers such as US or China. No doubt India has her dreams as a regional influential power. In that context this short route is a help for the Indian Navy to relocate from Eastern side to the West and vice versa. But how it is a great game??

Indian Navy is far stronger than all other South Asian navies combined together. Whether they reloacte a couple of days sooner would hardly make any difference. IMO we are making a mountain out of mole hill;this channel is neither a new Suez/Panama canal nor would make any significant contribution to the Indian Naval supremacy. Nevertheless it is cause for rejoicing and I am happy for my Indian friends.