NEW DELHI: In what can be taken as a strong message to China, a US carrier strike group – USS Nimitz — conducted what has been taken as ‘cooperative’ exercise with Indian warships in the Indian Ocean.
The signal was also amplified by a hard-nosed display of India’s military intent, which has deployed Jaguar maritime strike fighters in the Andaman and Nicobar archipelago which dominates China’s critical sea trade routes passing through the Malacca Strait, the Times of India reported.
The ToI cited sources saying that the IAF has stationed as many as 10 Jaguars — armed with deadly anti-ship Harpoon missiles — at the Car Nicobar airbase in the A&N archipelago.
The import of the exercise held on Monday between the US and Indian navies, the report said, will not be lost on China and will be a card which India will seek to leverage.
Even though it was a PASSEX (passing exercise), the nuclear-powered USS Nimitz and its accompanying three warships were transiting through the Indian Ocean Region after completing a freedom of navigation operation in the South China Sea, where an aggressive China is strong-arming its neighbors such as Malaysia, Philippines, Brunei, Vietnam, and Taiwan.
The USS Nimitz, along with the guided-missile cruiser USS Princeton, missile destroyers USS Sterett as well as the USS Ralph Johnson, participated in the cooperative exercise with Indian destroyer INS Rana, INS Shivalik, stealth frigates INS Sahyadri, and missile corvette INS Kamorta, the report said.
According to US commander Rear Admiral Jim Kirk, the opportunity to have the USS Nimitz carrier strike group join with the Indian Eastern Fleet for a series of exercises improved their interoperability and is a testimony to the flexibility of both our navies, the report said.
The operations of the USS Nimitz CSG in support of a free and open Indo-Pacific are basically designed to provide security throughout the region while building partnerships with allies and friends, he added.
According to the ToI, last week, the USS Nimitz and USS Ronald Reagan CSGs were deployed in the South China Sea in a show of strength against China.
The USS Nimitz — one of the 10 such 100,000-tonne American “super-carriers” — each capable of carrying 80-90 fighters, had also taken part in the Malabar exercise in the Bay of Bengal when India and China were locked in the 73-day military face-off at Doklam in 2017, The Times of India reported.
The stationing of such Jaguars in the A&N archipelago would strengthens India’s military posture against China’s vulnerability in the IOR, the report said.
The IAF has also forward deployed Mirage-2000s, Sukhoi-30MKIs, and MiG-29s as well as Apache attack and Chinook heavy-lift helicopters along the land border with China, particularly in eastern Ladakh.
India is now looking to fast-track plans for basing additional military forces in the ANC.
Meanwhile, Indian and Japanese warships had also carried out an exercise near the Malacca Strait in June. Japan has become a regular participant in the ‘Malabar’ naval combat exercise between the US and India since 2015.
India, meanwhile, is yet to take a decision to include Australia in the 24th edition of the war games this year.
If this move too will translate into reality, a military construct will certainly be added to the ‘Quad’ countries having a shared interest in building a free, open and stable Indo-Pacific region to deter an expansionist China, the report said.
(With inputs from Times of India)
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