India may still be fighting shy of co-opting Australia into Exercise Malabar for fear of offending China, but that hasn't dissuaded Australia which is hell-bent on flexing its maritime muscle. Four Royal Australian Navy ships, having exercised with the Lankans, will make a port call at Chennai and then proceed for an exercise with the Indian Navy 200 km off Vizag from April 2 to 16.
The ships will then sail to Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Singapore, for exercising with their navies.
Australia has been sending its ships for such series of bilateral exercises, called Indo-Pacific Endeavour, since the last three years. The Indian leg, called Ausindex, will form the core of Indo-Pacific Endeavour-19. “This will be the third such and largest till date,” said an Australian diplomat. “The ships will also be bringing about a thousand personnel from the navy, army and the air force.”
The lead ship will be HMAS Canberra which docks helicopters, and is one of the most capable air-land-sea amphibious deployment systems in the world. It will be accompanied by missile frigate HMAS Newcastle and long-range frigate HMAS Parramatta both of which which are capable of air defence, surface and undersea warfare, and tanker HMAS Success.
Australia has been nursing ambitions of playing a larger security role in the Indian Ocean region in partnership with India, and been seeking to be coopted into Exercise Malabar which currently involved Indian, US and Japanese forces. India has been wary of adding Australia for fear of making the exercise appear as a gang-up against China.
Australia has been playing otherwise a subdued strategic role in the Indo-Pacific region but is now getting active. It sees India as the most natural strategic partner in the Indian Ocean region and has been egging India on with more and more activities every year. If there were 24 separate military activities with India in 2017, there were 39 in 2018.
The focus of this year's exercise will be anti-submarine warfare and that itself is interpreted as a signal, especially in the background of reports of increased Chinese submarine activity in the Indo-Pacific waters.
An interesting feature of the exercise will be the deployment of Australian personnel on Indian ships and vice versa.
Asked about the Quad grouping comprising India, the US, Japan and Australia, not being upgraded, another Australian diplomatic source said the Quad should be allowed to be evolved on its own. "Quad needs to be given space to find its own feet. If we try to push Quad too far too fast, we actually risk undoing the relationships we are building through it," the Australian diplomat said.
