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

Image credits- USNI Source- The Diplomat Author- Chau Nguyen The latest oil rig gesturing shows an inconsistency between rhetoric and action in China’s policy in the South China Sea. Together with its mass reclamation activities, the use of the oil rig is part and parcel of coercive diplomacy. It affirms China’s territorial ambition in the highly strategic seawater. Still, though, it is hard to see the situation escalating to the point of conflict. China’s Haiyang Shiyou 981 oil rig is back, following on from last year’s headline dispute with Vietnam. Only this time, the rig is being reintroduced in timely fashion, just weeks before the first visit by the general secretary of Vietnam’s Communist Party to Washington. According to reports, the platform is currently located 17°03’75’’ North latitude and 109°59’05’’ East longitude. While the rig’s present location is not as close to Vietnam as it was last year, the intent is fairly obvious. Yet it is unlikely that Vie

K-535 Yuri Dolgorukiy ( Source- Wikimedia Commons / Author- Schekinov Alexey Victorovich) Source- The Diplomat Author- Franz Stefan-Gady New Russian submarine facilities currently under construction on the Kamchatka Peninsula could be completed by the end of October USNI News reports. The Rybachiy Nuclear Submarine Base, located nine miles (15 kilometers) across Avacha Bay from the region’s capital Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, is home to most of Russia’s Pacific nuclear submarine fleet and will be the homeport of the Russian Navy’s new Borei-class (aka Dolgorukiy-class), Project 955, fourth generation SSBN (Ship, Submersible, Ballistic, Nuclear) submarines. According to the Russian Navy’s Commander in Chief, Admiral Viktor Chirkov, the construction on the base, which includes recreation facilities, warehouses, and a new crane used to install missiles on the subs, is moving according to plan:  The system for basing the Borei-class strategic submarines in Kamchatka

Mistral class Tonnerre ( Source- Wikimedia Commons / Author- Masur) Source- The National Interest Author- Zachary Keck Russia will build its own amphibious assault ship in the wake of France refusing to sell Moscow two Mistral-class helicopter carriers. In 2011, France and Russia signed a $1.5 billion deal for Paris to build two Mistral-class amphibious assault ships for Russia. The ships have already been built and the first one was scheduled to be delivered last November, but France pulled out of the agreement at the last minute over Russia’s role in the Ukraine crisis. Ever since Paris began to reconsider the agreement, there have been periodic reports that Russia might build its own helicopter carriers to replace the Mistral vessels. Indeed, as far back as October 2014, Rear Adm. Victor Bursuk, the deputy Commander-in-Chief of Russia’s Navy, declared: “We are not dependent on France in any way, it is just one of the contracts of military-technical cooperat

USS Leyte Gulf on petrol ( Source- Wikimedia Commons / Credits- Author) Source- The National Interest Author- Sheryn Lee Claims that a destabilizing ‘arms race’ is underway in the Asia–Pacific have become commonplace and are supported by reports that regional defense spending has surpassed Europe for the third consecutive year. As my ASPI report released today shows, the corollary of this situation is intensifying naval competition in the region. The implications for Australia and the Australian Defense Force (ADF) are significant. Decisions on arms acquisitions in the Asia–Pacific continue to be driven by a multitude of strategic rationales and domestic factors. The significant changes underway since 2008 raise questions regarding the primary motivation behind regional naval acquisitions, including their supporting air capabilities. Maritime disputes between China and its neighbors have increased tensions and affected countries’ military modernization programs. T

Image credits- Internet image Source- The National Interest Author- Amanda Conklin China’s negotiations with ASEAN on a Code of Conduct for the South China Sea are dragging into their thirteenth year. At the same time, China has undertaken a massive land reclamation campaign to change the status quo in the South China Sea, leaving critics to lament ASEAN’s inability to form a united policy toward China. Ambiguity about China’s rise is a “black sheep” in the integration of Southeast Asia. Although ASEAN plans to achieve the economic pillar of building a regional community by the end of 2015, integration on the political-security pillar has been slow, partly due to the ASEAN principles of non-interference and non-confrontational bargaining that slow consensus building. ASEAN’s continuation of the same policies towards China since the 1990s has been unsuccessful in keeping China from pushing the region toward instability and threatening ASEAN’s integration. For example,

Malabar Exercises-2014 ( Image source / Credits- Indian Navy) Source- The Diplomat Author- Prashanth Parameswaran On June 30, The Indian Express reported that Japan would be participating in this year’s Exercise MALABAR, which initially began as a bilateral naval exercise between the United States and India back in 1992. The report cited unnamed sources as saying that this was confirmed at the seventh U.S.-India-Japan trilateral dialogue held in Honolulu last Friday. If so, that would be a significant though not entirely surprising development. Although Japan has participated previously in three iterations of the exercises – in 2007, 2009 and 2014 – media reports had earlier indicated that its involvement this year was not confirmed. New Delhi has previously been anxious about how China would react to efforts to expand the bilateral exercises. When the 2007 edition of the exercises in the Bay of Bengal were expanded to include Japan and Australia, Beijing lashe