By: Stephen KuperWhile many have claimed the aircraft carrier is dead, many powers seem to have missed the memo recognising the growing importance of fleet-based air power. India is the latest regional power to expand its aircraft carrier capabilities, enhancing their avenues for regional power projection.
At the end of the Second World War, the aircraft carrier emerged as the apex of naval prestige and power projection. Unlike their predecessor (the battleship), aircraft carriers in themselves are relatively benign actors, relying heavily at their attached carrier air-wings and supporting escort fleets of cruisers, destroyers and submarines to screen them from hostile action.
Driving this change is an unprecedented period of Chinese assertiveness in the South China Sea and the growing capabilities of the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN), which has seen the Chinese fielding or preparing to field a range of power projection capabilities, including aircraft carriers and supporting strike groups, fifth-generation combat aircraft, modernised land forces, area-access denial and strategic nuclear forces, combined with growing political and financial influence throughout the region.
India, a well established aircraft carrier power, with major economic, political and strategic interests across the Indian Ocean and well publicised animosities with the People’s Republic of China has increasingly moved to modernise and expand its own carrier capabilities, embarking on a period of what Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has described as Indian self reliance or “Aatmanirbhar Bharat.”