Leased Akulas Advance India’s Blue-Water Plans
By VIVEK RAGHUVANSHI, NEW DELHI
After years of negotiations, Indian sources here say, India and Russia have agreed on a five-year, $350 million deal to lease two Akula II-class nuclear-powered attack submarines. The Russian subs will make India the sixth nation to operate nuclear subs, and extend New Delhi’s efforts to build a blue-water navy.
India signed the contract here during the Jan. 26 visit of Russian President Vladimir Putin, the sources said.
The lease has been in the works for years, and Indian officials have in the past proclaimed that a deal had been done. But this time, sources say, the lease is for real.
Russian officials in Moscow declined to comment.
Details of the lease are closely guarded, but sources said that India will pay Russia about $35 million per boat annually.
The first of the Improved Project 971 boats — known in Russia as the Bars class — will be delivered next year to the Visakhapatnam naval base on the Bay of Bengal. It will likely be the Nerpa (K 152), which was laid down in 1986 at Komsomolsk Shipyard in Siberia, launched in 1994, and reportedly completed in 2006 at Vostok, near Vladivostok.
Russia will also ship to India an undisclosed quantity of Club sea-skimming cruise missiles for the Akulas, sources said. The missiles would have a range of 300 kilometers, according to the sources, who could not say which variant they would be. India currently has the Club-N aboard its Talwar-class frigates and the Club-S 3M54E on its Kilo-class subs.
A group of Indian Navy officers and sailors has spent the past two years at Sosnovy Bor, a Russian Navy training base west of St. Petersburg in Russia, to learn how to operate and maintain the subs, the sources said.
Analysts say the lease of the Akulas and purchase of the nuclear-capable Club missile fit into Indian plans to expand its blue-water presence and to deploy nuclear weapons at sea.
“I don’t think that it will ‘tilt’ the power balance in the regional sense regarding Pakistan, since the IN [Indian Navy] is already pre-eminent in the Indian Ocean,” said Indian Navy Cmdr. Gurpreet Singh Khurana, a fellow at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, the Defence Ministry’s think tank here. “In fact, its deterrent value will serve to maintain the status quo.”
But Khurana said the quiet, nuclear-powered sub, able to dive to 600 meters and hit submerged speeds of 33 knots, “represents an effective sea-denial and deterrent capability to counter any future Chinese submarine threat in the Indian Ocean.”
The lease is part of New Delhi’s drive to expand its sub force, which now includes 16 conventional boats, mostly of Russian design.
Acquisition of the nuclear submarines is likely to further complicate maintenance and logistics for India’s already diverse diesel-electric submarine force, which now includes four German-designed Type 1500 boats, 10 modern Russian-built Kilo subs and two older Russian-built Foxtrot boats.
In 2005, India signed a $3.9 billion deal with France to license-build six Scorpene-class diesel-electric submarines at Mumbai-based Mazagon Docks.
Later this year, India plans to begin seeking six more advanced conventional subs through a global request for proposals. Analysts say the early frontrunner is the 1650 variant of Russia’s Amur-class submarine, an advanced version of the popular Kilo class.
2nd Nuke-Sub Lease
The Akula deal is the second time in as many decades that India has leased a nuclear submarine from Russia. Between 1988 and 1991, India leased the K-43, a Charlie-class nuclear cruise missile sub known in Russia as the Project 670A Skat-class.
Named the INS Chakra, the Charlie-class submarine gave the Indian Navy experience in operating nuclear-powered ships, key to development of India’s indigenous Advanced Technology Vessel (ATV) nuclear submarine program.
“The Charlie lease some 20 years ago was intended to give the Indian Navy a taste of operating nuclear boats and to get a better understanding both for design of an indigenous sub, but also the unique logistics burdens of operating nuclear ships,” said Zachariah Mathews, a retired Indian Navy commodore and consultant with Dua Consulting, based here. “What was learned from the Charlie, that is being applied to the Akulas.”
One big difference: While Russian sailors operated the Chakra’s reactor, the Akulas will likely be run by Indians, said Rahul Bhonsle, retired Indian Army brigadier and defense analyst.
India launched the Akula lease talks after the ATV program, which started some two decades ago, dragged on. The dialogue between Moscow and New Delhi has moved forward slowly over the past several years.
Navy officials hope the Akulas will hasten the service’s switch to a nuclear submarine force built around the ATV.
The leased subs will refresh and expand India’s expertise in nuclear submarine operations, tactics and maintenance, said Khurana of the ministry’s think tank.
One naval analyst said two ATV hulls have been ordered from Larsen & Toubro, India’s leading private-sector engineering firm, but could not say when or for how much money. The ATV is now slated for completion in 2011.
New Nuclear Weapons
Operationally, the Akulas will serve as an interim sea-based leg of India’s nuclear triad, introducing a nuclear-armed naval vessel to the region, Khurana and others said.
“A nuclear triad has been contemplated in India for quite some time, and plans to acquire Akula-class submarines fit into the proposed triad scheme,” said Deba Mohanty, defense analyst with the Observer Research Foundation, based here. “Such a desire on the part of India has been debated since the late 1990s, and it has taken a few years for India to eventually sign a deal on the same.”
The Akulas would also improve India’s long-range maritime capabilities, allowing the Navy to keep watch on strategic interests from the Strait of Hormuz to the Strait of Malacca that are shaped by the geopolitics of energy security in the greater Indian Ocean region, and China’s emphasis on naval modernization plans.
India is striving to maintain a maritime balance as Beijing extends its reach by funding the construction of a naval base in Pakistan, Mohanty said.
But Bhonsle said it would take a few years before India could actually deploy a nuclear weapon aboard the Akulas.
“The arrival of a nuclear submarine will only change the power balance as and when India successfully weaponizes the same,” Bhonsle said. “The indications as of now are that this process may take a much longer time than envisaged, another three to five years for certain.”
The lease deal forbids India from using the Akulas in exercises with British, U.S. or other Western navies, sources said. •
Nabi Abdullaev in Moscow and Christopher P. Cavas in Washington contributed to this report.
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