China’s Flying High, India Will Have To Catch Up

medium120524241The current unstable global geopolitical milieu with the US-China trade war and China’s attempts to put together an alternate coalition of ‘the willing’ to take on US must not deflect India’s focus from its basic security dilemmas that have rightly been China-centric. It is important for India to stay the course in terms of building deterrent capability vis-à-vis its principal competitor at a time when the military asymmetry between the two Asian giants is overwhelmingly skewed in favour of the dragon.The connotation of a strategic bomber in contemporary times for most national security planners revolves around its ability to stealthily hit targets deep inside an enemy’s territory or over vast maritime expanses with both nuclear and conventional weapons. ‘Strategic’ also implies the deterrent and coercive effect that this platform will have on the trajectory of an imminent or ongoing conflict. Embedded in the employment philosophy of strategic bombers is also its importance in a ‘second strike’ capability in a nuclear-enabled warfighting environment.For many years, the lone hawkish voice in India that argued for the addition of a squadron of strategic bombers to IAF’s inventory, was Bharat Karnad. With an eye on China, he often took on the IAF leadership for its tactical and myopic approach to aerial warfighting. With its hands tied behind its back with respect to flexing its capability along LAC for several decades, despite enjoying a significant capability advantage vis-à-vis the People’s Liberation Army Air Force, IAF hardly had any say in India’s military strategy vis-à-vis China.Among all domains, it is the aerospace, cyber and cognitive domains that will see fierce contests during the build-up to and in the early days of any future India-China conflict situation. However, in a domestic discourse that looks at development of indigenous capability, deterrence and war-avoidance as key strategic markers, there will be the temptation of going easy on big-ticket offensive capabilities.PLAAF currently wields an old but potent and upgraded long-range bomber (H-6K) fleet equipped with Air Launched Cruise Missiles of ranges up to 1,500-2,000km that will be used not only against strategic targets, but also against operational military targets. It has forged ahead of IAF in terms of the number of 4th and 5th Generation fighter aircraft, stealth and standoff weapon capability. It is now not enough for IAF to only make good its depleting inventory of Multi-Role Fighter Aircraft, but brainstorm on some cost-effective ideas to match some of PLAAF’s long-range aerial capabilities. What is of concern for India though is a new development that suggests that China will soon operationalise the H-20, a platform that resembles a multirole stealth bomber.Requirements of military capability constantly change with the changing character of war. What seemed taboo and a bridge too far in the years gone by — the long-range bomber — may well be a potent deterrent in the years ahead. Just as a small fleet of MiG-25 high-altitude recce aircraft served IAF well for almost three decades across the spectrum of conflict, there may be a case now to scout around for a squadron of long-range bombers capable of carrying 6-8 Air Launched Cruise Missiles of the Brahmos, Brahmos+ and Nirbhay variety. Not only will these platforms be a potent standoff deterrent across LAC, they will add considerable punch to India’s modest long-range maritime strike capability, which currently relies on a combination of shore-based strike aircraft such as IAF’s SU-30MKI and Rafale, the navy’s carrier-based MiG-29, and the ship-launched Brahmos and Nirbhay cruise missiles.In several of his blog posts, Karnad argued that the Russians would gladly part with their TU-22 family of strategic bombers and there was even speculation a few years ago that Air Chief Marshal Raha was pushing hard for the same. However, given the current trajectory of the emerging Russia-China strategic relationship and the increasingly transactional India-Russia relationship, the TU-22 option may no longer be viable.B-1 and the B-2 bombers, operated by US Air Force, are possible options. However, both platforms are no longer in production and are likely to be replaced by the B-21 bomber earliest by 2030. Leasing a squadron of B-1 bombers and seeking a limited stake in the B-21 bomber programme that would allow IAF to procure and maintain a squadron in the foreseeable future is one option, though it may not be congruent with India’s aspirations of retaining strategic autonomy in the foreseeable future.Though designing an indigenous strategic bomber is a tall order given the track record of DRDO and HAL, developing such an aircraft should be on the R&D agenda. Strategic bombers are expensive platforms and the cost of acquisition and life-cycle costs must be pegged not against existing weapons systems or platforms, but against the strategic and asymmetric value they offer.This is not a proposal for the weak-kneed and must be looked at as a long-term strategic deterrent in the face of a China-threat which is not likely to diminish in the medium-to-long term, notwithstanding the seesawing nature of US-China and India-China relations.The writer is a strategic analyst