Submarines To Space; The Challenge Of Maritime Security

While submarines have become ‘flavour of the moment’, increased spending on defence has meant that a small number of nations are improving their 3D maritime posture.

- Alix Valenti

“The proliferation of much more capable submarines in the region has necessitated that several countries improve their ASW capability,” Tom Waldwyn, Research Associate for Defence and Military Analysis at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), told Asian Military Review. However, only a limited number of countries in the Asia Pacific region can afford to have a truly three dimensional (3D) ASW capability for their navy - that is, sub-surface, surface and air.

India, perhaps the country most concerned with what it perceives as a Chinese threat in its neighbouring waters, is one of the few regional countries capable of such capability. Spearheaded by an economic growth that has seen the country’s annual real economic growth grow at an average of 7.2 percent over the past ten years, according to the document published by the Australian Department of Defence ‘2017 Defence Economic Trends in the Asia-Pacific’, India has been focusing on the acquisition of submarines, destroyers, frigates, corvettes and Maritime Patrol Aircrafts (MPA).

In order to supplement its ‘Kolkata’ class guided missile destroyers, the Indian Navy (IN) contracted Magazine Dock Limited (MDL) in 2011 for the construction of the next generation destroyers, Project 15B. The first of class, INS Visakhapatnam, was launched in April 2015, while the second ship, INS Mormugao, was launched in September 2016 and the third, INS