April 6, 1998
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Maritime
Manoeuvres A new strategy for the long-neglected navies to re-exert their lost superiority. By Rahul Roy-Chaudhury MARITIME STRATEGY AND CONTINENTAL
WARS
Strategy can mean different things to different people. In this case, it is clearly used in the classical sense, that of the employment of the armed forces for victory in war. The first authoritative work on maritime strategy was published just over a 100 years ago, when an American naval captain, Alfred Thayer Mahan, wrote on war at sea. Soon afterwards, the British naval historian, Sir Julian Corbett wrote on power projection from the sea. Menon is clearly influenced more by Corbett than Mahan. For Menon, the crucial development taking place is the "collapse of space", or the ability for the first time to easily detect and identify warships in the vastness of the oceans. This increases the "speed of battle" through the sustained employment of satellites, ship- or submarine-launched long-range Cruise missiles, electronic warfare resources and early-warning systems, thereby ensuring the naval forces' greater impact on land. These technologies also enhance the navy's traditional superiority over the shore. It is imperative that greater investment on "force multipliers" be made. If this necessitates the sacrifice of major surface and sub-surface warships, so be it. However, the required changes in naval force structures are expected to take a long time in coming for navies worldwide are conservative by nature. Unfortunately, Menon does not pay sufficient attention to joint operations with the air force. Clearly, the combat superiority of air force aircraft needs to be taken into consideration in a war on land. It is also a pity that he does not look closely at his own navy, or emphasise some of the lessons to be learnt by it, in order to take advantage of the revolution in naval affairs. After all, India's wars with Pakistan are continental by nature; the navy contributed to two, but did not decide the outcome of either. With the Indian Navy's minimal budget and the rapidly decreasing force level of its major warships, it is difficult to envisage expenditure on sophisticated technologies. A total lack of coordination among various organisations also persists; at a time when an Indian scientific satellite is to be launched to study the ocean, there is no sustained space-based surveillance of the area. Moreover, it is not clear what the Navy's strategy should be in a continental war under nuclear conditions. Simply put, should the Indian Navy carry out operations against critical Pakistani targets on land under the threat of nuclear response? Though it is not the first to think through the frustrating problem of how to use naval force in a war on land, the book's importance lies in that it actually provides some credible solutions.
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Focusing on the role of navies in wars
fought on land, this is a timely book considering that a revolution in naval affairs is
underway. Such continental wars will continue to take place for the simple reason that we
live on land, not sea. The ultimate aim of navies, therefore, will be to directly affect
the course of the war on land. In this endeavour, Raja Menon, a retired senior officer of
the Indian Navy, articulates a strategy that could make navies more useful in such wars.
In doing so, he becomes the first Indian to actually write on maritime strategy. 
