Pakistan's Naval strategy: Past and future
Abstract Over the past fifty years, the Pakistan Navy has developed an effective naval strategy and capability to counter the threat posed by the superior Indian Navy. It has adopted an offensive sea denial strategy that dictates primacy of submarines and maritime aircraft equipped with missiles as the main instruments of waging war at sea. The Pakistan Navy has taken lead in introducing new weapons in the subcontinent aimed at disturbing the naval balance of power. It is now contemplating a nuclear role for itself that aims to challenge the Indian naval ambitions to build a sea‐based deterrent.
The Naval Balance in the Indian Subcontinent: Demanding Missions for the Indian Navy
The subcontinental naval balance has largely escaped attention, in part because the strategic mindset in the subcontinent has heretofore perceived the balance of power between India and Pakistan mainly as strenuous interactions between land and air forces. As a result, the mechanics of decisive victory have always implied a search for that attrition-oriented land battle, involving infantry, armor, and air forces, which could prove decisive. The clearest evidence of this pervasive landoriented mindset is the defensive strategies developed since 1947 by both India and Pakistan, which envision a toe-to-toe slugging match between large numbers of troops on the ground matched on a division-by-division basis. Hence, it is not surprising that the navies on both sides were largely ignored in the strategic consciousness until 1971. Not being put to their mettle, they were unable to cultivate the domestic constituencies whose concerns are always the ultimate determining factor legitimizing resource allocations. 1
The Indian Navy in the Seventies
S INCE THE INDO-PAKISTAN WAR of September i965, the growth of the Indian Navy has been substantial and rapid. From a share of 4 per cent of the annual defense budgetary allocation in i965-66, the Navy now receives almost io per cent of the Revenue and Capital share of the three Indian Services. More important, since the Navy is more capital-oriented than the Army and even the Air Force, its capital share tends to be more indicative of the growing importance of its role in the defense of India. This share rose from 7 per cent in I 96364 to almost 49 per cent in I973-74.1 The present capital expenditure on the Navy may, however, appear unjustified in view of the new balance of forces in the subcontinent following the Indo-Pakistan war of December i97i and the creation of Bangladesh. The success of the i97i naval operations against Pakistan had provided the justification for the accelerated naval armaments program which began with the presentation of the i967-68 defense budget to the Lok Sabha; but ironically, it also removed the only visible naval threat to India. The traditional enemy had been cut in half and its naval force overwhelmed and eliminated by a superior Indian Navy. The severance of Pakistan's eastern province has therefore further reduced Pakistan's dependence on sea routes between Karachi on the Arabian sea and the former eastern ports of Chittagong and Khulna in the Bay of Bengal. In retrospect, it would now appear to have been a gross error on the part of Pakistani strategists to have neglected its naval force, given the separation of the two wings by the Indian peninsula. As in the case of India, the neglect of the Pakistan Navy was not unexpected. The British Indian Army tradition and outlook had dominated the Pakistani Services and continued to influence defense policy. Consequently, Pakistani military strategy always envisioned a major land operation against India.