Bangladesh, Philippine, Burma and Thailand Submarine Issues

One of China's remaining Type 035 Ming-class conventional submarine soon to be scrapped or sold off to Bangladesh (and other small nations?).

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A Russian built Kilo conventional submarine - main users are Russia, India and China. Vietnam is a growing operator (having bought 6).

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India feels threatened by the prospect of increasing Chinese submarine proliferation in the Indian Ocean. Such proliferation comes through such means as:

-  Chinese anti-piracy conventional and nuclear propelled subs moving across the Indian Ocean for operations off the Horn of Africa,

-  submarine visits to such ports as Columbo, Sri Lanka, and

-  sale of Chinese subs to such Indian neighbours as Bangladesh (around 2019) and perhaps in future to Burma and Pakistan (see India's "West Coast Worries").

For more than a year there have been reports of a pending sale of obsolescent Chinese Ming-class submarines to Bangladesh. See my article http://gentleseas.blogspot.com.au/2013/12/china-selling-two-type-035-ming-class.html of December 24, 2013. It is highly likely that, after expected delivery of the Mings in 2019, part of a Bangladesh Ming crew and on-shore maintainers would be Chinese for a transition period. This would cause a range of anxieties in India.

In late 2014 Indian intelligence and the Indian Ministry of External Affairs have pushed the possibility (or for India a hope) that Bangladesh might buy Russian submarines instead.

It is unclear whether these "Russian" Submarines would be:

- new build Kilos (surely too expensive for Bangladesh without credit-finance)

- used Kilos from Russia (cheaper but probably unreliable with a short remaining service life) or

- ex-Indian Kilos (cheaper but probably unreliable with a short remaining service life).

Two nations that probably will not buy submarines in the short to medium term are:

- the Philippines (it usually receives low-or-no cost used naval and coastguard vessels) - see http://thediplomat.com/2014/12/the-philippine-navys-submarine-quest/  December 31, 2013, 

- Thailand - http://thediplomat.com/2015/01/thailand-eyes-submarine-fleet/, January 4, 2015,
  Pete's Comment: If Thailand bought used Ming subs from China Thailand might receive them in 2019 - depending on Chinese modifications. Used Kilos are harder to estimate. If Thailand prefered 2 or 3 new submarines costs would be much higher and involve:
- significant lead times for negotiating, ordering and building submarines - generally around 6 years for a new customer like Thailand
- in the case of South Korea as a supplier a backlog of pre-existing orders might perhaps cause delays. This may mean a minimum delivery year of 2020 for Thailand to receive the first sub then add 3 years for commissioning (tests, trials and training) the sub into the Thai Navy ie. 2023.

Pete

China's, India's and Pakistan's Future Nuclear Rivalry

Click on map to expand to clarity.

The following are excerpts from an article Nuclear Weapons Stability or Anarchy in the 21st Century: China, India, and Pakistan, dated February 25, 2011 by Thomas W. Graham, Ph.D.

The article carries this disclaimer: "The views expressed in this paper are those of this author and do not reflect Brookhaven National Laboratory, the Department of Energy  [America's nuclear weapon development umbrella organisation (DOE)] or any other organization. The analysis is based entirely on open source and unclassified information."

While the following is largely opinion the proximity of the author to the '"coal face" of America's nuclear weapons research industry makes his words more significant.

http://www.npolicy.org/article_file/Nuclear_Weapons_Stability_or_Anarchy_in_the_21st_Century__China,_India,_and_Pakistan_250211_1545.pdf

"...Current conventional wisdoms suggest [future] change in nuclear status and politics will be incremental. This may turn out to be tragically wrong if global nuclear dogma is influenced strongly by the unstable triangular nuclear weapons competition among China, India, and Pakistan. Three indicators are worth watching to foreshadow whether the world will move toward nuclear stability or anarchy in South West Asia.

• First, will countries stabilize their operationally deployed nuclear forces at the approximate level of 150-200, 300-500 or larger?
• Second, will these three countries adopt compatible and increasingly stable nuclear postures or will they continue to cling to three divergent nuclear postures?
• Third, will future military crises be resolved with or without use or threatened use of nuclear weapons?

...to help us assess forthcoming global nuclear stability, it is imperative to take a fresh look at the dynamics of contemporary nuclear force structures and modernization in South West Asia.

...China, India, and Pakistan will continue to maintain three mutually incompatible nuclear doctrines. Multiple drivers for nuclear force modernization in each country will provide sufficient domestic and bureaucratic political pressure to expand and modernize nuclear weapons for decades to come.


Given this situation, proposed arms control treaties such as the CTBT and FMCT will not be implemented. Both proposed agreements are opposed by all three countries to varying degrees. The roots of their opposition are not being addressed seriously with policy research, strategic planning, or diplomacy.

…The United States has adopted a neo-Cold War nuclear posture to keep a few European allies quiet and to avoid a major bureaucratic fight between the White House and a few civilian Pentagon officials who work closely with Republican allies on Capital Hill. …Perhaps the administration’s logic was that it perceived the demonstration effect of a fundamentally new American nuclear posture would have little significant impact on thinking in China, India, and Pakistan.

So why pay a short term domestic political price for the prospects of marginal increases in long-term stability? However, absent such a fundamental change and serious discussions between the U.S. and China, one can predict with a high degree of confidence that business as usual will produce nuclear arms races in South West Asia for decades.

Other reasons to sustain a business as usual approach are obvious. America will continue to spend approximately ten billion dollars per year on national missile defense to neutralize potent domestic constituencies regardless of technical feasibility and negative impact on Russia and China.

The United States does not want to think seriously about steps it could take to address the Kashmir conflict because it is so complex, India’s position has been set in stone for decades, and it is easier to think of India as a global economic power sympathetic to American values.

The United States has not invested in civilian governance and rebuilding civil administrative capability in Pakistan because the military is the only functioning entity in the country in the short term. Honest and capable civilian political leadership in Pakistan is almost entirely lacking and will take many years to develop and mature.

Pakistani born Islamic terrorists and “India-phobic and paranoid” Pakistani strategic culture is acknowledged by American decision makers as a key problem, but American decisions and actions are focused almost exclusively on the war on terror. The perception persists in both Washington and Islamabad that “the U.S. needs Pakistan more than Pakistan needs the U.S."

In this context, adding the nuclear weapons issue to an overly crowded policy agenda with Pakistan will definitely over-load the circuits. The net result is probably that Pakistan leaders have concluded they can build as many nuclear weapons as they can produce plutonium and highly enriched uranium. They will take symbolic steps to better secure nuclear materials and weapons, but the question of “how much is enough” is off the table.

If this business as usual situation continues, the world should ready itself for a very rough ride in terms of nuclear weapons in the next two decades of the 21st century. South West Asia will be the dominant driver to an unstable world our children will rightly accuse us of having ignored to their peril. American decision makers in the 1980s chose to ignore on the ground realities after the Soviets were defeated in Afghanistan.

The blow back next time will be orders of magnitude larger and more tragic." See WHOLE ARTICLE.
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Pete

China Expanding in the Indian Ocean?

China's 6,500 ton 052C air defence destroyer (NATO code name Luyang II class, often referred to as Lanzhou class after the lead ship name)

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East Timor, Indonesia and Australia are all on the edge of the Indian Ocean. Hence the gradual buildup of Chinese naval forces in the Indian Ocean is of strategic significance to those countries.

UPI Asia.com, February 27, 2009 reproduced this article "China's Naval Surveillance Capabilities" by Andrei Chang, Editor-in-Chief, Kanwa Defense Review Monthly, Toronto, Canada. Note that Chang originally used the term "battleship" which, I believe is a poor translation from Chinese. He must mean "warship". I have altered the text accordingly:

"Hong Kong, China — “Anti-piracy operations” have given China’s PLA Navy the best excuse to penetrate the Indian Ocean and station forces there permanently.

As fighting piracy around the Gulf of Aden becomes a long-term mission, the PLA Navy South Sea Fleet is likely to set up a sub-fleet to handle that task – perhaps the “Indian Ocean Sub-fleet of the South Sea Fleet” – and the PLA Navy will become the new owner of the Indian Ocean.

In recent months, Chinese military publications have carried a number of articles stating that “the Indian Ocean does not belong to India.” The intent of these articles is increasingly clear.

While carrying out anti-piracy operations, the PLA Navy’s warships will gain experience in long-distance maritime combat operations in preparation for the establishment of an ocean-going aircraft carrier fleet. The navy may dispatch other warships, such as its 054A FFG, on similar missions in the future.

China has a key military objective in dispatching warships to the Gulf of Aden. The “Chinese Aegis” class DDG it has sent to the region has the most advanced radar detection and C4IRS capabilities, and therefore can conduct effective battlefield monitoring exercises in this region. The Gulf of Aden provides the best geographical environment for the PLA Navy to conduct surveillance on the activities of the U.S. 5th Fleet.

The powerful detection capability of the Chinese Aegis DDG relies on the “Sea Lion” active phased array radar installed on the warships

China received some of the sub-systems and technological advice from the Ukrainian Kvant Design Bureau in developing this radar system. This is the bureau that participated in the research and development of almost all major Soviet surface warship radar systems. This includes the Fregat 2EM 3-D radar, which China imitated from the Russian system, working from a blueprint provided by Kvant.

China redesigned and reconfigured the Sea Lion radar system on its own, however, particularly the electric circuits, according to an authoritative source from the Ukrainian Administration of Arms Import and Export.

The development from passive to active phased array radar means huge technological progress, as the problem of the large radiator covering the antenna must be solved. The Chinese system uses the radiator cover designed by Ukraine; it regularly cools the antennas with a coolant to which a small amount of desiccant is added.

The technical perimeters of the radar system on the Chinese Aegis class DDG have never been officially released. Western observers generally believe that the Russian and Chinese “Aegis” DDGs’ data-processing systems lag far behind that of the U.S. Aegis class DDGs. The chief designer of the Chinese ship has also made similar comments.

The basic measurements of the Chinese Sea Lion radar system give some clues as to its performance features. It is a sea-to-air search radar capable of simultaneously searching for and tracking targets while constantly changing the beam indexes. It can search for more than 100 targets at once and track 50 of them.

Its search range for combat aircraft appears to be around 500-550 kilometers (roughly 300-340 miles). The design requirements for both Russian and Japanese phased array radar systems are such that even if 10 percent of the elements are lost, the radar system can continue to function.

China has built only two 052C DDGs outfitted with this advanced radar system; its purpose is to test the effectiveness of the Sea Lion for future installation on Chinese aircraft carriers.
This radar system on the No. 171 DDG currently deployed in the Gulf of Aden makes it possible for the PLA Navy to monitor most of the airspace above Yemen, Oman and the Strait of Hormuz.

Tankers carrying crude oil from Saudi Arabia would have to go through this strait. In addition, the 5th Fleet of the United States Pacific Fleet based in Bahrain, the Command Headquarters of the United States Central Military Command located in Qatar, and the activities of the combat aircraft of the Saudi Arabian Air Force could all come under the surveillance of the Chinese Aegis radar system.

Of course, while en route to the Indian Ocean – past the Philippines, Vietnam, Singapore, Brunei, Malaysia and through the Strait of Malacca – the Chinese Aegis can conduct surveillance, including the airspace above southern India. The activities of the air forces in the above countries and voice communication signals may also be monitored and intercepted. A number of these countries have territorial disputes with China on land or sea.

Moreover, the No. 171 and No. 169 DDGs are equipped with China’s best electronic intelligence acquisition and countermeasure systems, and their antenna arrays are very similar to the electronic intelligence [interception] and support systems developed by Israel. These systems can effectively detect and acquire the radar signals of the U.S. 5th Fleet and record the data.

Naturally, the equipment can also monitor the radar signals and frequencies of the naval warships of the countries along this route. The No. 171 DDG is equipped with the NRJ6A ESM/ESM system; according to at least one military source, this microelectronic system is imported from Israel.

Any navy ship formation requires the support of a powerful underwater outpost force and reinforced anti-submarine capability to be able to engage in effective three-dimensional warfare.

The best anti-submarine measure is of course using submarines to undertake anti-tracking operations. Consequently, the possibility cannot be excluded that new generation 093 SSN or other diesel-powered submarines may have played the role of underwater outpost during recent anti-piracy actions of the PLA Navy in the Gulf of Aden.

Behind the curtain of the anti-piracy operations is in fact the rivalry of the naval forces of the major powers in establishing their new “national interest frontiers.”"

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Comment

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The article is an unusual combination of generalised political and strategic claims backed by more substantial technical detail.

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References to "Chinese aircraft carriers" implies that they are an imminent threat when there appears to be no indigenous Chinese development program, no small carriers under construction, just vague statements by Chinese admirals. It would appear that organisations, like US Naval intelligence are hoping that China's reconstruction of the aging former Russian carrier Varyag amounts to a carrier program - that would provide extra justification for the US Navy maintaining its 11 carrier battle groups. However, reconstruction has proceeded for years and may be just for research.

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Russia carriers have never been battle tested, to my knowledge. So $Billions spent by China and India (Admiral Gorshkov) reconstructing and modifying them, involves added technical and operational risk.

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China's deployment of warships off Somalia does not yet prove a permanent intention to expand into the Indian Ocean in force but at least it is providing unprecedented opportunities to study China's most capable warships.

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Pete

China and Quadrilateral Strategic Concerns

1st Published Wednesday, November 12, 2008

 

China's Type 093 "Shang" Class nuclear attack submarine - capable of laying mines, firing torpedoes and launching cruise missiles on coastal cities.

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Nerpa Accident Sets Back Indian Submarine Program :

"The thing I was trying to understand, China is an important partner of Australia(trade).

I wanted to know the strategic value of joint exercises recently concluded in Bay of Bengal, conducted by navies of Japan, US, India, Australia, Singapore. Its no secret it was directed towards China. I understand that US, India, Japan have direct security implications.

But I don't understand how Chinese Navy(or China) bothers Australia and Singapore since they aren't directly bothered and neither within reach(at least Australia).

Also what implications it has for Aussies? The possible reasons I was able to mine is to limit their entry in Indian ocean and Australia being US ally.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008".
My response is:your questions touch on several broad matters:
Any multinational naval exercise has diplomatic, combat coordination and efficiency objectives.
The joint exercise that you are probably referring to was Malabar 2007 (see my article in News Weekly ). While I understand Malabar 2008 was only India and US (?).
Malabar 2007 was an alliance strengthening demonstration with a logical geographical focus on China's projection of power into the Indian Ocean via Burma. Focus was also on the navies working together to combat piracy/terrorism and state based naval activity that would threaten the oil trade transiting the Indian Ocean.

Under Australia's Rudd government and two(?) subsequent changes of Japanese government the quadrilateral understanding has weakened. Trade with China seems more important.

China has a growing blue water naval capability (especially submarines) that initially will influence countries in the Pacific basin (eg Japan, Australia and Singapore) and later in the Indian Ocean (India, Australia).

Issues include:

- threats to Australia from Chinese submarine launched missiles (cruise and ballistic),

- trade sea-lane threats (especially over oil),

- blockade (which includes use of mines).

- Chinese power projection close to Australia is a longer term concern through potential Chinese bases in East Timor, PNG, Solomons and other micro-states who can be bought.

The US has many and varied interests and goals:

- maintaining its dominant naval position against Chinese naval competition in the Pacific and Indian Ocean.

- maintaining its economic interests vis a vis of its allies (Australia, Japan and Singapore) through protecting them with its nuclear and blue water conventional umbrella.

- US benefiting from the combined defence support of junior allies (Australia, Japan, Singapore) while tilting independent India slightly more in the US direction. Moving India away from perceived Russian orbit.

The main US/Australian strategy would be to contain China and Russia, keep India onside and protect the oil trade (with major choke points being the Strait of Malacca and Strait of Hormuz).
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