Building Air Bridges of Friendship

The Indian Air Force (IAF) has hosted the largest-ever International Air Exercise that mainland Asia has seen in over six decades. Participants in the Exercise ‘Tarang Shakti’ (Wave Power)-2024 included ten countries as active participants with their air assets, eighteen countries as observers and a total of 150 platforms of various types. The first phase of the Exercise has been conducted from 06 to 14 August at the Sulur Air Base while its second phase is scheduled to be conducted at the Jodhpur Air Base. The last time India saw an air exercise of this scale was just after the debacle of the Chinese aggression in 1962, in which the IAF’s offensive air power had remained recessed – arguably a strategic mistake - which was paid for in blood. As a consequence of Pandit Nehru’s appeal to the US for assistance in bolstering India’s air defence, in November 1963 the Air Forces from the USA, UK and Australia came together in the thick of the Cold War geo-political dynamics, for ‘Exercise Shiksha’.

Large participation of friendly foreign Air Forces in the Exercise Tarang Shakti is a reiteration of air power's expanding salience at a time of raging wars and conflicts. Leading Air Forces of the time brought their assets and airmen to Air Force Station Kalaikunda, to train, exercise and augment their air defence capabilities. ^[1]

The Doklam and Galwan border standoffs against China ‘refreshed’ the nation's two-dimensional security approach and brought the criticality of the vertical aerial dimension to the fore. Recent conflicts the world over underscore the expanded role of air power in future warfighting imperative. The growing number of multi-lateral air exercises, like the recently concluded annual Ex-Pitch Black in Australia where the IAF took an active part, and the expansion of Ex-Malabar to include land-based air power, highlight the increasing ubiquity of air power and its multi-domain relevance.

India has over two decades of experience in bilateral and multilateral exercises, having participated in 91 of these to date with almost all the leading Air Forces in the world. The IAF has earned a formidable reputation since Exercise Cope India 2004 with the US, where professional skills and innovative tactical agility of our aircrew flying legacy platforms surprised the most powerful Air Force in the world. Participating in an array of such AF to AF professional engagements from Alaska in the US, France, the UK, and Greece in Europe, to Russia, Japan, Australia, the Middle East and South East Asia, the IAF has earned friends in many places. These engagements over the years have created unique ‘air bridges of friendship’ to support our foreign policy and diplomatic initiatives, and have created opportunities for the exchange of contemporary and future relevant employment concepts and operational solutions by the sharing of best practices. These have also gone a long way towards ensuring that IAF’s operational capability to remain honed, relevant, and contemporary and that its doctrine and strategy remain agile and future-relevant.

How a nation perceives its air power depends on its geography, national security premises, threat perception, military power, and the capability of its Air Force. The differences in approach couldn’t be starker than in the way Russia and Israel are employing their air power in the ongoing long-drawn conflicts. A traditional legacy of Russian mindset whose continental security construct since World War II is centered on the defence of the Rodina or motherland has looked at air power primarily for air defence and tactical support to its Army. The somewhat underwhelming employment of the powerful Russian Aerospace Force or VKS against Ukraine, despite a modern inventory, is due to the said doctrinal and structural limitations. Russia thus has not leveraged the overwhelming superiority of its modern inventory against Ukraine, primarily by limiting the immense offensive potential of its Air Force just as an airborne artillery. That has cost it the control of the Ukrainian skies, impacted the ground campaign, and led to attritional mission creep, unfulfilled war outcomes and national objectives.

Ukraine meanwhile has been making desperate efforts to revive its Air Force with West-supplied F-16 fighters. As for Israel’s national security strategy, offensive employment of its Air Force has been a central feature. From its conventional employment in the Arab-Israel wars of the past to the current sub-conventional or irregular conflict in the region against Hamas and Hezbollah, air power has been employed extensively across the spectrum.

India’s geography and the politically tenuous and complex hostile neighborhood of the sub-continent present a unique threat paradigm, wherein the nation is faced with two nuclear-armed adversaries with strong Air Forces. China’s rapid capability and capacity development of its PLA Air Force is an outcome of its recognition of the criticality of air power in its multi-domain security strategy and as a coercive instrument of power to prevail over the US presence and dominance in the region. Significant increase in the PLAAF’s recent conduct of complex missions and its growing capability of air power projection over long distances not only bolsters Chinese military hard power but also indicates the salience it accords to the vertical dimension of war.

Given that a secure Indian Ocean region and a stable Indo-Pacific are both vital for India’s future growth and interests, her vast expanse and volume of maritime and airspaces necessitate a greater leveraging of air and space power. The South East Asian countries have small air forces with a mix of combat aircraft of varying vintages with limited modern air defence capability, which they are committed to upgrading. Simply put, none of these nations’ air forces can individually match up to the PLAAF. Yet, all of them are running programs to modernise their AFs, since they realise that a credible conventional deterrence against China is only possible with strong AFs with modern inventory. These regional air forces, however, provide a strategically asymmetric option for their nations to come together and collectively protect their sovereignty over the contested waters in the region. ^[2]

India can play a significant out-of-the-box strategic role regionally by exploiting its AF to connect towards building a cooperative deterrent air power capability amongst these nations. From conducting operational training and exercises, capacity building, assistance from our aeronautical and defence industrial base, sale and supply of aircraft, radars, surface-to-air guided weapons, etc., to potential joint tasks and missions in the future, air power provides many options for enhancing India’s regional engagements. Active participation of the Tejas fighter and its excellent demonstrated operational performance among some of the best contemporary fighters is a validation of the capability and potential of the nation’s defence industry. Exercise ‘Tarang Shakti’ opens the possibility of a much-needed asymmetric advantage in the maritime domain by creating a game-altering collective air power deterrence capability in the regional security matrix among the nations affected by China’s military coercion. Considering the number of regional air forces, and given that the IAF has already engaged and exercised with most of them, leveraging air power to bolster the net security of the region is a strategic opportunity to India’s advantage. ^[3]

Large number of nations participating in the Exercise indicates the nation’s rising relevance as a growing power in a world where China’s rapid military growth, geo-political great power ambition and display of its coercive foreign policy actions have created serious worldwide concerns. In large-scale multi-lateral air exercises, multiple employment scenarios are planned to allow the nations the choice of participating in varied scenarios, ranging from large-scale complex combat employment missions, to combat support roles, or simply as observers. Such large-scale exercises also provide a multitude of scenarios like humanitarian assistance, disaster relief, mass evacuation, medical and logistic support, etc., at the soft power engagement spectrum. Mission planning teams from the participating nations engage in advance to create realistic set-ups catering to the various platform types, as well as formulate mutually acceptable rules of engagement to balance mission objectives and mission safety. Blue and Red teams simulating friendly and opposition forces, carry out live missions in near realistic conditions with simulated weapon firings, under the watchful eye of the White Force who act as umpires to oversee the conduct and ensure key lessons and outcomes emerge. The participating nations have a unique opportunity to fly and train together, with and against different platform types and combat systems, weapon capabilities, and employment concepts, in the blue skies of India’s peninsular south. The most invaluable outcome of this biennial beginning will remain the building and strengthening of mutual trust, respect, and friendship, which furthers India’s standing as a major power committed to the stability and security of the region. There is also the recognition of the future relevance of the aerial dimension and the multi-faceted-multi-domain capabilities that air power brings to the table of comprehensive national power, not just as a military instrument, but also as a political and diplomatic one.

IAF’s rich operational history, internationally respected professional credibility and vast experience in conduct of air exercises provide a unique array of options to enhance and exploit interoperability and inter-usability with other nations. As the first phase of the Exercise drew to a close in Sulur, the never-before four-aircraft formation flypast flown by the Air Chiefs of France, Germany, Spain, and the IAF Chief, stood testimony to India’s rising power stature. From a strategic perspective, this major exercise provides the option of cooperative air power employment with the regional AFs. It also underscored the importance of air power in enhancing regional security and strengthening India’s SAGAR strategy. Inclusion of the significant land-based air power capabilities of the regional and other friendly Air Forces, in a collective strategy to leverage the vertical dimension, will bolster the much-needed multi-domain multi-national approach for countervailing the Chinese domination of the Asian waters.

Reference

^[1] Air Marshal Bharat Kumar, Unknown and Unsung, Indian Air Force in Sino-Indian War of 1962, KW Publications, New Delhi, 2013, p 353
^[2] Air Marshal Diptendu Choudhury, Salience of Air Power In Asian Waters, Naval War College Journal, Volume 32, Annual Issue, 2020
^[3] Diptendu Choudhury, Security Vision 2047: A Hundred Years Since Independence, Nov 2022, VIF, https://www.vifindia.org/paper/2022/november/04/security-vision-2047-a-hundred-years-since-independence [3]

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