Major naval drill kicks off in Indian Ocean

A massive naval drill opens in the Indian Ocean on Tuesday with warships from the United States and four other nations flexing their muscle in one of the world's busiest shipping lanes.

Twenty-seven ships and submarines from the United States, Australia, Japan and Singapore will join seven from host India off the Andamans archipelago in the Bay of Bengal for the six-day maneuvers, officials said.

It will be one of the biggest ever peacetime joint military exercises, including anti-piracy, reconnaissance and rescue missions besides honing inter-operability or coordination skills between the navies of the four nations, Indian Navy spokesman Vinay Garg said.

The exercise, stretching from India's eastern coast to the Andamans near Indonesia, will include super-carriers USS Nimitz and USS Kitty Hawk of the US Navy's Pacific fleet and India's lone aircraft carrier, the INS Viraat.

The international exercises, codenamed Malabar, are facing stiff resistance from anti-U.S. communist allies of India's ruling Congress party, who denounced them as proof of "India's growing subservience to the United States." The communists, who prop up the government in parliament, also oppose a landmark Indo-US civilian nuclear energy deal to bring New Delhi back into the loop of global atomic commerce after decades in the nuclear wilderness.

The exercises -- the 13th to be held since 1995 -- will spill into the Malacca Strait, a 805-kilometer (500-mile) strip between Malaysia and Sumatra.

The renowned shipping lane accounts for 60 percent of the world's maritime energy transport.

India, who opposed the United States during the Cold War, has denied claims that the exercise is aimed at intimidating neighboring giant China, with which the country fought a brief border war more than four decades ago.

"This is simply directed at ensuring security of the sea lanes of communication," deputy defense minister Pallam Raju said.

Meanwhile, the commander of the US Navy’s Seventh Fleet is expected in India and in the Bay of Bengal to a warm welcome on Thursday, at once reviving memories of the threat his force once posed and emphasising the contrast in the times.

Vice-Admiral Doug Crowder reaches Chennai on September 6. He will fly to Port Blair, the shore centre of the multinational naval exercise, Malabar 07-02, that began this morning. At Port Blair he will be hosted in the Unified Command station of the Indian military.

After formalities and a banquet for him in a cove overlooking the turquoise Andaman Sea, he is likely to fly by helicopter or in a C2A Greyhound to the USS Kitty Hawk, the lead ship of his fleet that is here for the wargames.

About the time that the admiral goes into the war room of his ship for the briefing on the exercises, Prakash Karat’s jatha would be nearing Visakhapatnam, headquarters of India’s Eastern Naval Command.