Opinion Eastern Bridge: Air Force spreads wings in Indian Ocean

India's joint air exercises with Oman marks a major milestone in the evolution of the Indian Air Force.

October 19, 2009 03:22 PM IST First published on: Oct 19, 2009 at 03:22 PM IST

India’s joint air exercises this week with Oman,New Delhi’s strongest partner in the sensitive Gulf region,marks a major milestone in the evolution of the Indian Air Force and underlines its potential contribution to regional security in the Indian Ocean littoral.

The IAF has been tied down for too long as a mere adjunct to the Indian Army’s mission of territorial defence. Delhi has tended to ignore IAF’s role in securing India’s wider strategic objectives. As a consequence,the IAF remained an inward looking and under-utilised force.

Over the last few years there has been a welcome change. Like the Indian Navy,the IAF too has begun to see the virtues of greater operational reach and military diplomacy in the Indian Ocean littoral.

To be sure,the IAF has conducted joint exercises in recent years in foreign lands,including the United States,South Africa and Singapore. But the exercises with Oman,called Eastern Bridge,are about developing the methodology for operating beyond borders and contributing to public goods in the Indian Ocean.

Besides improving IAF’s ability to operate together with the RAFO,the exercises should generate a framework for the deployment of Indian air power in a variety of ways for collective security in the northern Arabian Sea.

According to Vice-Chief Air Marshal P.K. Barbora,the IAF could be called upon “to support anti-piracy operations off the Somali coast to deal with the expanding footprint of the pirates.” In such a situation,Barbora said,”the Navy may not be able to cover the entire area due to constraints of speed and vessels. This is when the IAF may be asked to offer help.”

The irony of the Indian Air Force contemplating Indian Ocean security at a time when there is mounting pressure on it to act against the Naxalite threat within the country will not go unnoticed.

That is in the very nature of the rise of India as a power on the regional stage even as it consolidates its territorial unity. Given its size and strategic potential there will be increasing demands on the IAF to help out friends and allies as well as take part of multilateral security tasks in the Indian Ocean. At the same time its traditional role in defending India’s borders is expanding to cover internal security.

Most modern military forces today are preparing for multi-tasking. The IAF too is adapting to deal with a range of new tasks–from internal security to nuclear deterrence,territorial defence to force projection,and from narrowly focused ‘national security’ to more broadly defined ‘regional security’.

(C Raja Mohan is Henry A Kissinger Chair in Foreign Policy and International Relations at the Library of Congress,Washington DC)