Somali waters, especially the Gulf of Aden has never been a very safe area for merchant ships. However the pirate attacks on ships have spiked to very dangerous levels in the past two weeks. There was the capture of an Ukrainian vessel and then an attempt to hijack an Indian ship that was unraveled by the Indian Navy. On Saturday, Somali pirates have reached the epitome of their exploits by seizing Sirius Star, a Saudi owned super tanker which is the largest ship ever to be hijacked by pirates.

These conditions have opened up a unique opportunity for the Indian Navy on its quest to become a true Blue Water Navy. After all, the Indian ocean is our own front yard. The United Nations has already made it the duty of its members to fight piracy and hence it is not only legal, but also encouraged by the international community to do the job.

Right now, the only protection by naval forces in the region for the merchant ships are offered by some NATO forces as well as Russian, Malaysian and Indian navies. However, so far these forces have not been effective as evidenced by the the continuing attacks on the merchant vessels. The main reason of the ineffectiveness is that these actions have been sporadic, on an incident to incident basis. This helps the pirates to stay low for a few days until the naval forces retreat to a safe distance and then act again.

One solution to this problem of piracy, across the Indian ocean can be the expansion of the blue water capabilities of the Indian navies. This offers a few advantages. Firstly, it offers a field of protection for merchant ships of all flags to operate without fear and thereby help international trade. This could only help the big time ambitions of many Indian ports to become major international hubs and thereby contribute to our economy.

Secondly, this could be a useful Readiness Operational Exercise (ROX) for the whole navy by keeping its vessels and personnel useful rather than keeping them idle and doing annual naval exercises. Also, with the ongoing expansion of the Navy with the addition of two more Aircraft Carriers – INS Vikrant in 2011 and INS Vikramaditya in 2012 (expected)- and many other Destroyers and Submarines, it could make it easier for the navy to do this.

Finally, this offers India to assert its strength and dominance in the region by controlling the Indian Ocean from coast of East Africa to Australia. Already, India is the only Asian power to operate Aircraft Carriers – INS Viraat- and as a rapidly rising major power in the world, it cannot afford to lose its control of the region and India should do everything that it can to keep the region safe.

Further Reading

1. Forbes- Somali Pirates at Sea
2. LA Times- At war with Pirates on the high sea
3. Blue Water Navy
4. Indian Navy

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