India: Growing a Navy - Adding 101 Ships Over Next 20 Years

Reported at Worldmaritime News - India Expects to Invest Nearly USD 50 Billion for 101 New Warships:

India is expected to invest nearly $50 billion to strengthen its naval forces over the next 20 years, adding 101 new warships, ranging from destroyers to nuclear submarines, the Indian Express reported.

“Going by the investment value, India is expected to build sophisticated destroyers, new generation and new radar vessels, nuclear submarines, and amphibious ships,” the paper quoted US naval analyst Bob Nugent as saying.

Nugent said China would likely spend $24 billion to build 113 war vessels, focusing on aircraft carriers, over the same period.

INS Mysore (D60)

Let me recommend Robert Kaplan's book, Monsoon: The Indian Ocean and the Future of American Power to you. Here's a quote from a interview with Mr. Kaplan by Tom Ricks:

The surprise of this book is that future wars and conflicts may be vastly different than the ones of the moment. Instead of fighting neighborhood by neighborhood in Baghdad or Kandahar, we may in the future have to influence vast spaces on the map through naval maneuvers.

All of which makes the point that India sits on some major sea lines of communication on which flows a substantial amount of the world's energy and commercial shipping.

As a rapidly developing nation, India has a vital interest in protecting its sea lanes and is apparently making a serious commitment to protecting them.