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

MANILA, Philippines — Philippine military chief Gregorio Pio Catapang likens his task to a boxing match. Dwarfed by neighbors like China, with whom ties are strained, he'd like his forces to last at least a few rounds in the ring. "Even if we are a bantam-weight fighting against a heavy weight, we are going to defend our sovereignty and national interest," General Catapang, 55, said in an interview Wednesday in his office in Manila. "We renounce war as a national foreign policy, but we will have to stand and show the world we are a principled country." Sitting in his office surrounded by history, philosophy and psychology books, Catapang, who has been in the job since July, sets out his priorities for an army that for years was occupied by an insurgency in the south. With China building artificial islands in the resource-rich South China Sea and boosting its naval presence to support its territorial claims, the focus for the Philippine military is turning outwar

Image credits- Reuters/Shizuo Kambayazhi/ Pool If photo-ops are considered to be vital part of conveying messages in diplomacy then the image of India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe hugging each other last week should go down as a defining moment in India-Japan relations. Traditionally, the Japanese are not known to be demonstrative or even to encourage physical contact but if the  enthusiastic reception accorded to Modi  during his five-day trip to Japan – his first bilateral trip outside the Indian sub-continent – is any indication, New Delhi and Tokyo are all set to transform geo-politics in Asia. The two prime ministers, also  close personal friends , not only discussed a wide range of bilateral issues during an unusually long trip but also worked towards building a  counterweight to an increasingly assertive China . Although the only reference – and an oblique one at that – to China came from Modi, the joint statement was dominated b

JS Hakuryu ( Image credits- Wikimedia Commons/ United States Navy) As Clint Richards noted earlier, it now appears likely that #Japan will sell advanced Soryu-class submarines to  ‪#‎ Australia‬ . In addition to strengthening the relationship between #Australia and #Japan, and making Australia’s submarine force considerably more lethal, this represents a major move by Japan into the global submarine market. ‪#‎ Germany‬ ,  ‪#‎ France‬ , and  ‪#‎ Russia‬  have long dominated the existing market for diesel-electric submarines. The German Type 209 submarine serves in over a dozen navies, with more than 60 boats currently in service. While the design stems from the 1960s, the newest boats entered service in the last decade. Germany’s successor, the Type 214, is scheduled for export to Greece and South Korea, but has suffered some setbacks. France has exported the  ‪#‎ Scorpene‬ -class to  ‪#‎ Malaysia‬ ,  ‪#‎ Brazil‬ , and  ‪#‎ India‬ , and #Russia continues to export its Kilo-

Kurdish Peshmerga ( Image credits- Wikimedia commons/ Author-Boris Niehaus) The Kurdish Peshmerga have enjoyed a reputation as the strongest and fiercest fighting force within Iraq. However, the recent advances by ISIS against Kurdish positions has highlighted some of the key areas in which the Peshmerga have been lacking. Chiefly, the Peshmerga suffer from a lack of soldiers with clear battlefield experience who are able to respond to a variety of military situations. Instead, the explosive growth of the economy in Iraqi Kurdistan drew many former veterans into other lines of work. "Many of the pesh merga's battle-hardened veterans quit to take advantage of new opportunities amid a wave of economic development," Azam Ahmed of  The New York Times reports .  " Training became an afterthought, and there was little incentive to unify pesh merga units that remained mostly divided along political party lines." Related to the lack of military vete

Tensions in the South China Sea—scene of #naval standoffs in the past year as  ‪#‎ China‬  has pressed its smaller neighbors on the open sea—may seem far off to many Western investors, but any conflict in the region could affect the global economy. There are no definitive government estimates about the amount of global trade passing through the South China Sea, but the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development estimated that 8.4 billion tons—or about half of the world's annual merchant fleet tonnage—passed through the region in 2010. The U.S. Commerce Department estimated that the United States exported $79 billion in goods to the countries around the South China Sea in 2013, and imported $127 billion from them that year. Including goods simply passing through,   ‪#‎ Navy‬   Adm. Robert Willard estimated in 2011 that the region accounts for $5.3 trillion in bilateral annual trade—of which $1.2 trillion is U.S. trade. Whatever the actual trade figure, ten

Let’s hope that President Obama does not bomb ISIS inside Syria—unless, maybe, the airstrikes are coordinated with some other country’s troops on the ground. That’s what happened in northern Iraq last week, when U.S. airstrikes paved the way for a mix of Iraqi special forces, Shiite militias, and Kurdish peshmerga fighters to push ISIS away from the Mosul Dam. But that’s not likely to happen in Syria. It’s not likely to happen for two reasons, both lamentable. First, there are no ground forces inside Syria that can both repel ISIS and serve as palatable American allies. Second, the Obama administration and the neighboring Middle Eastern countries appear to have no strategy of what an intervention in Syria might look like or of what Syrian politics should look like in its aftermath. That is a particular shame, since the United States and just about every country in the region could form a very potent alliance against ISIS. They all hate and fear the al-Qaida offshoot that cal

Los Angeles class Submarine  ( Image credits- Wikimedia commons/ United States Navy) China has a glaring hole in its military strategy against the United States. Military analysts have pointed out that while China is investing in ballistic and cruise missiles to keep foreign ships away, it has little to counter U.S. submarines which would play a pivotal role in a conflict with China. The Chinese regime seems to have become privy to this gap. It has been building and deploying systems designed to detect and attack U.S. submarines. Recent photos show China has also begun fitting warships with sonar systems designed for anti-submarine warfare. Two types of ships in China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) are being fitted with what appear to be variable depth sonars (VDSs). Images of the additional systems were posted on cjdby.net (which appears to be offline at the time of writing), and were picked up by IHS Janes, a leading security intelligence company. The two sh

As the United States and Europe increase their sanctions on Russia, unsurprisingly Russia is moving closer to one of its long term allies: India. America and Europe keep pressuring Russia to change its policy with respect to its support of separatists in Eastern Ukraine, the unintended consequence is America is pushing India into closer relations with Russia. Russia is the second largest arms exporter in the world, and half of Russian's arms production goes to China and India. When sanctions were announced on Russian military equipment the Indian government rejected them. While the 30 year multi billion dollar Russian oil pipeline deal with China has been widely discussed; the potential deal brewing between Russia and India could be as important as that deal. India is estimated to likely be the world's largest oil importer by 2020.  Russian Ambassador to India, Alexander Kadakin expressed hope that the "biggest ever energy project in history (the pipeline) ... would enh

USS Carl Vinson ( Image credits- Wikimedia commons/ United States Navy) Russia's ongoing dismemberment of Ukraine and the Islamic State's erasing of Middle Eastern borders have distracted attention from the harassment of U.S. Navy aircraft by Chinese fighter jets over the South China Sea. Beijing calls this sea, and the Yellow and East China seas, the "near seas," meaning China's seas. The episodes involving aircraft are relevant to one of Adm. Jonathan Greenert's multiplying preoccupations — CUES, meaning Code for Unplanned Encounters at Sea. This is designed to prevent incendiary accidents, a topic of special interest during this month's centennial commemorations of the beginning of a war that, ignited by miscalculations, ruined the 20th century. Greenert, chief of naval operations, has carrier-based aircraft flying from the Persian Gulf to targets in Iraq. He is, however, always thinking about the far side of the largest ocean. Today the Chinese ha