Manoj Ambat's Blog dealing with Defence, Foreign Affairs, Strategic Affairs and Politics

Image courtesy- Wikimedia commons and the author India remains the biggest buyer of arms in the world, importing nearly three times as many weapons as its nearest competitors  China  and  Pakistan  over the last five years, a Swedish think tank said on Monday. The total volume of arms sales was up 14 per cent in 2009-13 compared to the previous five years, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). Indian imports of major weapons rose by 111 per cent in the last five years compared to 2004-08. Its share of total global arms imports increased from 7 to 14 per cent, SIPRI said. India replaced China as the world’s biggest arms buyer in 2010. With its domestic defence industry struggling to manufacture high-tech arms, India is in the midst of a defence spending binge as it struggles to keep up with better-equipped Chinese forces and a range of military challenges in its volatile neighborhood. The main supplier of arms to India in 2009-13 was  R

Image courtesy- Wikimedia commons and the author The Yantar shipyard in  Russia ’s Baltic enclave of Kaliningrad on Friday floated out the first in a series of six Project 11356 frigates being built for the Black Sea Fleet, the company said. The Admiral Grigorovich was laid down in December 2010. Four more ships of the same class are in various stages of construction at the shipyard. All six frigates will be delivered to the Black Sea Fleet between 2014 and 2017 under two contracts with the Defense Ministry. The Project 11356 frigates, displacing 3,850 tons, are designed for anti-ship and  anti-submarine warfare  as well as for air defense missions, operating both independently or as part of convoys and naval task forces. The frigates are armed with an eight-cell launcher for Kalibr and Klub (3M54E) anti-ship and surface-to-surface missiles, a 100-mm main gun, Kashtan gun/missile close-in air defense systems, Shtil vertical-launch air defense missile systems, two torpedo tu

Pic courtesy- Wikimedia Commons What laws are applicable to the South China Sea? The answer is that the South China Sea is governed by international law, particularly, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (Unclos). All the claimant states, namely, Brunei, China, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam, are parties to Unclos. They are, therefore, bound by Unclos and should not assert rights and jurisdictions which are inconsistent with it. They are also under a legal obligation to ensure that their domestic laws are consistent with Unclos. What law is applicable to the determination of sovereignty disputes over territory? The applicable law is not Unclos but the customary international law governing the acquisition and loss of territory. Can a claimant country use history as the basis of its sovereignty claim to the islands in the South China Sea? History is a relevant factor in determining which state has the better claim to sovereignty over a dispu

Image courtesy- Wikimedia Commons  An investigation into the disappearance of a Malaysia Airlines jetliner is focusing more on a suspicion of foul play, as evidence suggests it was diverted hundreds of miles off course, sources familiar with the Malaysian probe said. In a far more detailed description of military radar plotting than has been publicly revealed, two sources told Reuters an unidentified aircraft that investigators suspect was missing Flight MH370 appeared to be following a commonly used navigational route when it was last spotted early on Saturday, northwest of Malaysia. That course - headed into the Andaman Sea and towards the Bay of Bengal in the Indian Ocean - could only have been set deliberately, either by flying the Boeing 777-200ER jet manually or by programming the auto-pilot. A third investigative source said inquiries were focusing more on the theory that someone who knew how to fly a plane deliberately diverted the flight hundreds of miles off its

Pic courtesy- Wikimedia commons    In a move that could have serious repercussions for the security situation in the South China Sea, Indonesian officials on Wednesday acknowledged that China was claiming part of Indonesia’s Riau Islands province as its own territory. The Indonesian Military’s (TNI) Air Commodore Fahru Zaini, who is a member of the defense strategy unit at the office of the coordinating minister for political, legal and security affairs, said that China had included parts of the Natuna Islands within its so-called nine-dash line. This line indicates the border of China’s maritime claims, comprising almost the entire South China Sea. An image depicting the nine-dash line was also included in newly issued Chinese passports. “What China has done affects the Unitary State of Indonesia,” Fahru said in Natuna on Wednesday. “As such, we have come to Natuna to see firsthand the strategic position of the TNI, especially in its ability, strength and its deployme

Image courtesy- Wikimedia Commons The Russian Armed Forces are working on the Mig-41, a new supersonic fighter based on the Mig-31 Foxhound. According to the famous experimental pilot Anatoliy Kvochur, the MiG-41 is to be capable of reaching speeds above Mach 4, even Mach 4,3. That would make the plane faster than the (now retired) American SR-71 Blackbird. Currently, the Foxhound is capable of flying at speeds of Mach 2.8. Nevertheless, while developing a Mach 4+ replacement for the Foxhound, the Russians will to continue the modernization program of the Foxhounds, overhauling over 100 aircraft. MiG-31 is an interceptor based on MiG-25 Foxbat, with a combat radius of 720 km. A group of four Foxhounds is able to control an area that is 1000km wide; 190 MiG-31s are currently in service within the Russian Air Force, 100 of those are still flyable.

Image courtesy- Cardekho  T he Mahindra Group has scaled up its ambitions for its defence business, hoping to be able to take on bigger rivals such as Tata group and Larsen and Toubro Ltd   (   L&T   ) when large defence contracts are finally bid out to local companies that are outside government control. Private Indian defence firms, many of which pale in terms of technical capability when compared with foreign rivals, currently only deliver non-critical vehicles such as trucks to the military and supply parts and equipment to state-run establishments that cater to the more advanced requirements. But  Mahindra  and other private domestic defence companies are hoping to be called to bid for larger and critical projects after the government expanded the scope of its defence procurement policy in June last year. “Our goal is to have critical mass and scale which will allow us to have a diverse portfolio of different technological skills which together will allow us to tak

Image courtesy- Wikipedia commons The creation of a multinational defense organization, not unlike NATO, might be one solution to preserve stability and security in Asia-Pacific. On April 4, 1949, the  North Atlantic Treaty Organization  was born, formed in part to deter Soviet expansionism and to establish a North American presence in Europe, in addition to integrating Europe and preventing the rise of militant nationalism. Although one can certainly debate the relevance of NATO in the world today, elsewhere however, such an alliance might prove necessary. The players and setting might differ, but the challenges remain the same. A source of concern with China’s ascension and increasing assertiveness has more than worried, if not aggravated, a few of its neighbors. Beijing’s unilateral establishment of an ADIZ (Air Defense and Identification Zone) in the East China Sea, which encompassed the much disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands with Japan, is only the latest kerfuffle,