This has not been a happy time for relations between Russia and the Indian Navy. As 2008 began, the Indians were looking forward to the delivery of their new fleet flagship, the carrier Vikramatidya (ex-Admiral Gorshkov), which was being rebuilt at Severomorsk. The first of several Indian Kilo-class submarines was completing a refit at Severodvinsk, after which she would be able to fire Klub antiship cruise missiles from at least two of her torpedo tubes. Contracts for new-generation Amur-class submarines seemed imminent. Two Akula-class nuclear-powered submarines, begun during the Soviet era and being completed with Indian funds, were about to enter Indian service. India was also taking delivery of modernized Il-38 May maritime patrol aircraft incorporating a new Sea Snake combat system. A contract had been signed for the Russians to build three more Talwar-class frigates to supplement the three already in Indian service.
Now, all of these programs are in trouble. That is bad news for the Russians: India is 40 percent of their total arms export market. Late last year the Russians suddenly told the Indians that the carrier refit would not be completed until 2011 or 2012, and that it would cost about three times the agreed price. The Indians seethed. The yard claims that it did not realize how badly the carrier's wiring had deteriorated while the ship was laid up and left essentially unmaintained. Wholesale replacement, says the yard, will be slow and costly. However, it has also been suggested that Indian advance payments were used simply to keep the yard in business, and also to help finance Russian President Vladimir Putin's underfunded naval programs.
The Indians will probably end up paying about $3 billion for a ship launched a quarter-century ago, carrying all of 20 fixed-wing aircraft and 12 helicopters. Their other options are limited. The indigenous carrier program is not moving very rapidly. There is no replacement for the few Sea Harriers the Indian Navy currently operates, the British having abandoned development of this aircraft and the Russians never having developed the follow-up to their Yak-38. The Indians reportedly turned down a British offer of retired Sea Harriers because they would have been delivered without most of their avionics, which have not been cleared for export to India.
Problems with the ex-Gorshkov raise questions about the carrier Varyag bought by the Chinese. After being dry-docked in a shipyard in Dalian and having her hull painted in standard Chinese navy gray, little or no external work seems to have been done on the carrier. Given that her flight deck was more or less complete when she was towed to China, the ship probably has her boilers and engines on board (reportedly she did not yet have propellers or rudders).
It is possible that the lengthy shipyard period in Dalian is connected with the problem ascribed to the ex-Gorshkov, the need to replace massive deteriorated wiring. The Varyag was apparently not maintained once construction was canceled, and there were always claims that shipyard workers stripped vessels of valuable metals so that they could sell them to stay alive. Replacing wiring, and making sure it is continuous, might be the protracted process that accounts for the lack of obvious external work on the Varyag.
Missile Failures
The Indians also refused to accept the modernized submarine Sinduvijai; they ordered the boat's crew to return home without the vessel. Apparently the final straw was six failures out of six test shots with the Klub missile. Klub also arms the Talwar-class frigates; when those ships were completed there was talk of failures. Those failures in turn were used to justify Indian participation in the joint Russian-Indian BrahMos missile program. The Indians probably found Klub attractive at least partly because it has a land-attack version, likely large enough to accommodate a nuclear warhead. Thus, Indian submarines armed with the missile might, in time, form the beginning of an Indian submarine strategic deterrent. Now that prospect seems more distant. The same missile seems to have been the basis for the Chinese C-602 and for the Pakistani Babur (which is probably derived from the Chinese missile).
Delivery of the first Akula, which is to be named Chakra (after the Charlie leased to the Indians in the 1980s), has also been deferred, although initial reports suggest that the delay will not be too long. Presumably these laid-up submarines were reasonably well preserved by the building yard. However, there is a snag. Russian practice was to start up a submarine's reactor when it was completely installed, relying on power and cooling water from the building yard. The reactors on the two Akulas went critical about 1996, albeit at very low power levels. One reason the Russians were anxious to get the submarines off their hands was that the yard was finding continued reactor support expensive. It is not clear how many years of effective service over a decade of low-power operation may cost.
It is interesting, too, that the deal with the Russians is a lease rather than a sale. The sale of submarine reactors containing highly enriched uranium is governed by nuclear proliferation treaties, because in theory such reactors can be used to produce bomb-grade plutonium. A lease, under which the submarine and the reactor remain the property of the original builder, is apparently not subject to such scrutiny.
Apparently there have been problems, as yet unspecified, with the Sea Snake combat system. Some months ago the Indians refused to accept the refurbished IL-38 aircraft. They are apparently back in the market for alternatives, which may now include the U.S. P-8A.
The Indians did accept the three Talwars, but there were problems with their Shtil' anti-aircraft missiles, leading to delays for which the Indians demanded a large indemnity. The Russians blamed the Indians, who they said demanded too many weapons on a relatively small ship, and thus suffered from severe electromagnetic interference. The Indian counter was that the Russians failed to integrate Indian electronics with Russian systems. In recent years the Indians have placed greater emphasis on including indigenous elements in their weapons. This explains the BrahMos missile, and a current co-operative project with Israel to develop Barak into a naval area-defense weapon.
Three more Talwars are now under contract with the Russian arms-export agency, but it is not yet entirely clear which yards will build the ships. In December it was reported that they would most likely be built at the Severnaya Yard rather than at the Baltic Yard that built the first three.
Putin's Problem
Recounting problems with the Indians, a Russian newspaper blamed the decline of skill levels in Russian military industry; after the end of the Cold War many of the better or more enterprising engineers left for greener pastures. That is another way of saying that despite President Putin's very obvious turn back to authoritarian rule, it may be impossible to reassemble the Humpty Dumpty of Russian or Soviet military production.
The problem is that Russia switched to a cash economy. That was a radical change. During the Soviet era, prices were given in rubles, but actual access to goods depended on political status. Talented engineers worked on military projects because the pay—including access to goods—was far better than in the non-military part of the economy. The non-military part in effect paid a tax (which was not calculated) to the military, in terms of goods that those working in the non-military sector could not have. These goods included housing and food.
With the end of the Cold War and of the communist regime, it was no longer possible for the Russian government to assign goods to particular enterprises, or, for that matter, to assign priorities. As in the West, it could certainly channel whatever money it had as it liked, and President Putin certainly favors the military. What he probably does not realize is that he has nothing like the resources of the past, nor has he the ability to concentrate perhaps 60 percent of his national product on defense. The result is a mixture of bluster and commercial fraud (as experienced by the Indians), leavened by crude politics. The politics is visible in decisions on new weapons that even the docile Russian press considers irrational.
For example, the future standard submarine-launched strategic missile is to be the solid-fuel Bulava, which shares some components with the land-based Topol-M. It is developed by the Moscow Thermal Institute, whose director, some have said, has close ties to former defense ministers. Critics have pointed out that the missile has not yet had an entirely successful test flight (its warheads get to the target area but are never described as having hit the targets), whereas Sineva, a modified version of the earlier liquid-fueled missile, has apparently performed flawlessly.
This is not to suggest that Soviet-era weapon choices were apolitical (Tupolev and Chelomey, and probably many others, were masters of intrigue), but rather that the Russians themselves feel that the system is now even less honest than in the past. Export sales now matter far more than before. At one time the only significant customers were the Indians and the Chinese, and now the Chinese are reportedly less-than-enthusiastic.
Editor's Note: The February issue's column mistakenly referred to a "Chinese F-5." It should have referred to the U.S. Northrop F-5 fighter. Proceedings regrets the error.