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For 20 years this unwieldy geographic arena stuck in our minds solely because of its reputation as a kind of vast Third World cockpit—the hot ticket for weapons exports, the place where the action was. This was true especially in terms of naval construction and activity.
Now layers of debt, extravagant acquisition, and economic loss have changed that picture. Except for one navy seeking the shadow of great power—Saudi Arabia—and another seeking its substance—India—the fleets of the region seem tired and impoverished. Some, such as Morocco and Oman, have reached natural limits in terms of needs; others, such as Egypt and Pakistan, must defer to the higher budget priorities given to the army and air force; while still others, such as Iraq and Iran, simply have no more cash or credit.
We are witnessing a kind of historical pause among fleets in the region. Much of the current activity reflects a rounding out of 1980s programs; many have been stretched out and delayed. Ships ordered in the early 1980s are finally entering service. Politically and militarily, the situation inflicted by the intrusive and overarching U.S.-Soviet competition is instead reverting to one dominated by local powers.
The outcome of the current Gulf War will sharpen these pictures. As the world economy again picks up by mid-decade, and as ships ordered in the 1960s and 1970s show their age, we will again sec a flurry of naval bidding. At that point—at century’s turn—the world marketplace will be offering a super-smorgasbord for potential buyers, from smart remotely operated vehicles to submarines with air- independent propulsion.
The Barbary Coast
Morocco: Two more Osprey-class patrol gunboats were ordered in June, bringing the total to date to six. Numbers three (El Hamissdel) and four were completed in August and December 1990.
Algeria: Like Morocco, Algeria made progress through 1990 in rounding out its patrol and coast guard force. The first three of seven Chinese-built 60-mcter patrol boats were delivered in March.
These small ships are highlighted by a block superstructure, indicating an air- conditioned, “tropical” configuration. A second Bulgarian C58-design gunboat finally took to the water early in the year, and three coast guard Brooke Marine 37.5-meter boats were delivered during the year. Another six, ordered in September 1989, arc under construction, with assistance from Vosper Thornycroft.
Tunisia: Little activity, save for a report that Tunisia requested bids in September for 100- and 450-ton patrol boats.
Libya: No significant naval developments.
The Levant
Egypt: The situation in the Arab Republic of Egypt is characteristic of the region’s lull in naval activity. Crushed by debt, with its scarce military resources
earmarked for M-lAs and F-16s, EgyP1 has little left over for its tleet. Yet because long coastlines mean heavy patrol demands, a lot of navy cash ends up in patrol boats; little is left over for fancy frigate and submarine programs.
Egypt attempted to end-run the problem by buying cheap Chinese frigates and submarines and planning to upgrade their combat suites to Western standards. Now, the government confesses that, although the hulls are sturdy and the engines fine, the costs of rehabilitation have canceled hopes for a naval bargain. In any case, the modernization of Egypt’s four Chinese-built Romeo-class diesel submarines has been placed in jeopardy by the closure of the prime contractor, Tacoma Boat, of Tacoma, Washington, in December 1990.
None of the navy’s goals for its ten- year (1985-95) plan is going to be met. Given the state of Egypt’s economy, its navy must wait for the next century for any real growth. For now, there is some hope that a weak Soviet-built mine/
Warfare fleet can be modernized with a few European minehunters. Egypt also desires to plug into the potential bonanza ln used U.S. warships, especially frigates and dock landing ships (LSDs).
For 1990, however, the extent of Egypt’s naval activity was a November 0rder from Swiftships for 29 Harpoons a°d a couple of 27-meter route survey vessels for peacetime mine countermeasures activities.
Israel: The big submarine deal appears to be dead. That saves a fat $600 million °f the mid-1980s $1.2 billion naval modernization program. The $600 million ■ucludes not only the price for two hulls, Eut an elaborate combat system, electronic warfare system, periscopes, and support equipment. The late-November decision probably means Israel’s three Type-500 submarines will undergo a life- extension program which should enable them to struggle on for another 15 years, 'f pushed.
The big corvettes are left. That program, the Sa’ar-V, is well under way, atld the submarine cancellation leaves °Pen the potential future exercise of an option for units four or even five. Israel is committed to the bigger boat as the anchor of its future fleet. The Sa’ar-4.5 has been stretched to the limit and suffers from poor seakeeping. The last of the Sa’ars, the Nirit, which was launched in October after languishing on the ways since the early 1980s, is a private speculation by Israeli Shipyards. The government picked it up in the end as a testbed for the combat system going into the new jugalls ships, Sa’ar-Vs. Israeli Shipyards Is still pushing the Sa’ar-4.5s as a potential export, but the Nirit's massive superstructure on a 500-ton hull evokes images °f Soviet rocket cruisers from another age: archaic and overloaded.
The future is the big corvette, and understandably so from the Israeli naval vantage. Here is a ship its builders call a
‘pocket cruiser,” bearing the combat system and weapons suite ot a ship several times its size. Ingalls claims that its seakeeping will also be competitive with much larger combatants. Certainly, the Sa’ar-V allows Israel to operate offensively well into the middle of the Mediterranean. Israel gains by getting these ships from the United States. However much Israeli Shipyards protests, the better design and the better bargain come out of Ingalls. It represents an interesting collaborative mix of U.S. and Israeli combat systems, and it might just cut a visible niche for itself in a changing world naval market.
Israeli Shipyards, in contrast, is making little headway with its new initiatives. Its new fast patrol boat design, the Shal- dag, is having trouble finding customers. The Israeli Navy does not need any; it already has as many Dvoras and Daburs as it can handle. Some members of the U.S. Congress are trying to force a Shal- dag sale on the U.S. government, through congressional “language requiring that the U.S. Navy test the pri-
Four hundred tons lighter than the Egyptian Jianghu-class frigates— Najim Al Zafir, facing page—the new Israeli Saar V-class guided-inissile corvettes (left) pack much more firepower.
vately financed prototype with a view toward buying more from Israel or coproducing the Israelis domestically.
Syria: No significant naval developments.
Lebanon: No significant naval developments.
The Arabian Gulf: As this column is written, all await the outcome of the great Gulf War. The roll-call of naval collective security is impressive, perhaps precedent setting.
Iraq: Although it made a rather abrupt transition from associate to adversary of the West, Iraq nicely illustrates the pervasive naval plateau in the region. Its big flotilla is still lying in Italian harbors, the large balance on the $1.5 billion in frigates and fast-attack boats still unpaid. So who owns the ships? This issue becomes even more interesting when one recalls that at least two Iraqi crews had arrived in Italy to take possession. So the shipbuilder, Fincantieri, continues to service Iraq’s $1.5 billion debt. Part of the problem is that the ships are of an older design and have aging ship systems.
Two new Bogomol-class large patrol boats were delivered from the Soviet Union in April.
Iran: The level of naval news for this war-impoverished state is limited, al-
Iraq’s helicopter-equipped guided-missile corvette Tariq ibn Ziyad remains in safe waters—in Italy—along with other frigates and fast-attack craft.
Kuwaiti naval and coast guard units will ever be recovered in repairable condition.
Bahrain: Bahrain continues to play the good host to North American and European naval forces deployed to the Gulf and, of course, sanctuary to the Kuwaiti flotilla-in-exile. No new acquisitions have been announced.
Qatar: No significant naval developments.
United Arab Emirates: The first of a brace of big Lurssen missile corvettes (Type-62) entered service in May, while
launchers for Mistral missiles.
The Indian Ocean
Pakistan: Strapped financially, Pak*' stan must reconcile a big strategic problem with a secondhand fleet. It has done rather well.
The acquisition of eight U.S. and two British frigates late in the 1980s takes replacement pressure off the surface fleet. Serious surface and submarine orders will have to wait. The more immediate priority is mine warfare; if funds can be freed, the next buy could well be minehunters from Intermarine. Pakistan adamantly denies rumors of acquiring a Chinese-built nuclear-powered submarine; the navy is not really happy with the patrol craft that a tight purse led it to buy from China, so a reluctance to try more complex Chinese nuclear technology >s I understandable.
The navy is proud of its ability to improvise in the face of overwhelming Indian sea power. It is proud of what it con- j siders a pioneering lash-up of big helicopters and antiship missiles; the re- 1 1
cent buy of three P-3Cs (the first of which I was delivered in November and the last in May 1991) is painted in the same light; and the aircraft will be married with the I Harpoon missile to provide the rudiments of a long-range maritime-strike capability. The maritime reconnaissance effort, however, has been reduced by the retire- j ment of the four BR1150 Atlantic Mk-I | 1
■patrol aircraft. Clearly, the Pakistani I Navy continues to search for “equalizers” at sea it can afford.
A Pakistani Marine Corps was formed on 25 November 1990 and will eventually be of brigade size; it will presumably j someday require amphibious warfare ships, although there are currently none in the Pakistani inventory. The only ship program announced was an order for a 200-foot water tanker, to be delivered in February 1991.
India: India remains the only state among those covered in this article with a | genuine naval expansion program and the I naval vision of a great power. Indian au-
sea trials for the first of a new pair of upgraded FPB-38-class missile boats began the following month. None of the four Exocet-armed craft had transited to Persian Gulf waters from Germany by the end of the year.
Oman: Oman is planning to order six 1,000- to 1,200-ton offshore patrol vessels to augment an already capable fleet. Under consideration are the French SFCN “Espadon 1600,” British Vosper Thornycroft “Vigilant,” and a Dutch de Schelde design. Oman has played only a small role in the quarantine effort against Iraq.
Saudi Arabia: The fleet expansion program continues, majestically. The first of six Sandown-c\ass minehunters began trials early in August. The first of three 3,800-ton guided-missile frigates is now to begin trials from DCAN Lorient at the end of 1994. Rumors of impending big submarine orders refuse to die, but no firm order has been announced.
The Saudi Navy does not seem to be participating actively in the multinational force in the Persian Gulf.
Some details of the new 28-knot frigates’ armament have been released: There will be one 100-mm. Compact gun, eight MM40 Exocet antiship missiles, and torpedo tubes. The surface-to-air missile system is to be the new French area weapon, the 30-kilometer Aster 30, in a 16-cell vertical-launch-system launcher, supplemented by two sextuple Sadral
ROYAL NAVY OF OMAN
Neither the Omani Navy—below, the patrol boat Al Wafi—nor the Saudi Navy—below, right, the Sandown- class Al Jawf—has seen much action in the days since Iraq invaded Kuwait.
though it held several sizeable naval exercises during the year, including a big one in December at the height of the tensions in the Persian Gulf area.
Iran should not be counted out of the long-term geopolitical picture. With a population growth rate of 3% and a total population likely to top 100 million early next century, Iran has both the sheer size and the educated human capital to reassert itself as a regional power. Many in Pakistan are already looking to Iran as a future associate and counterweight against India. Moreover, the continuing potential for the evisceration of Iraqi military power would immediately elevate Iran to predominance in the Persian Gulf.
Kuwait: Alas, only a handful of Kuwait’s “battleline” of missile patrol boats escaped the Iraqi invasion. Apparently, the Iraqis captured more than the balance of the fleet: they also acquired Kuwait’s nice stock of Exocets. Two Australian ASI-315-class patrol boats, ordered in July, will not be proceeded with for the foreseeable future, and it is doubtful whether most of the captured
jhorities are fond of protesting that their heet merely meets vast local needs—the Patrolling of a long, long coastline, for trample—but its neighbors have a different view. In an era of declining military budgets, India continues to earmark ni°re and more rupees for its navy. If the Modern fleet so nurtured still seems modest by U.S. standards, it will dominate its °cean. And production will be all-Indian. It is worth reviewing the progress of current programs from the vantage of 2010 goals.
^ Carriers: By 2010 the Indian fleet will ^ built around three carrier battle groups, each with eight or nine escorts and a fleet replenishment ship. The first °f these flattops is projected to enter service in 1998, although construction work I138 yet to begin. Essentially a French Charles De Gaulle driven by LM-2500 gas turbines instead of nuclear power, it 'vill have all the traditional trappings, Irom catapults to arresting gear, and will carry the new Indian combat aircraft, the fiCA. The Project-15 frigate program— also to be driven by LM-2500s—has laid down its first unit. Initially a class of six, 11 will by 2010 form the balance of India’s fleet escorts. The second Indian- fiuilt replenishment oiler will be ordered 'very soon.” With four support tankers ln hand, India’s battle groups will have true oceanic reach.
7 Submarines: India is intent on building hs own submarines. The problems with 'he first Indian HDW boat, the Shalki, first reported here in the March 1986 issue, continue. At that time the problem "'as the hull’s welding; not one initial Weld passed X-ray inspection, and the first pressure hull eventually had to be torn apart. The second attempt has produced an acceptable hull, finally launched in September 1989. Unhappily, the two-boat program at Mazagon is now Well over budget. Cost overruns, moreover, can only get worse as the Shalki’s final completion is again postponed. The new acceptance date is March 1992. The 42-month anticipated building time will be 51 months behind schedule. Total costs might be close to double those of the Shalki’s two German-built sisters.
For the Indian Navy, this is the price of entry into the world of indigenous submarine production. India wants modern boats, and eventually it wants modern nuclear boats, and it wants to build them at home. The HDW SSK-1500 is just a way station to that goal. That program will terminate, in any event, with the second Mazagon-built unit. The next step may be a larger and more capable conventional boat, followed by a nuclear design. It is intriguing that design concepts with the greatest appeal to the Indian Navy are U.S. and Japanese: India finds available European designs limited, and wishes “to look further afield." U.S. and Japanese designs and even expertise, however, are not now available. So the current talk is of a competition between the IKL Type-2000 and a tailored version of Kockums A-19. And the Soviets may be out of the running: the Indians protest they want no more loancr-Charlies. On the other hand, press reports late in 1990 announced an order for eight additional Kilo-class submarines from the Soviets; if true, the order may be a tacit admission that building submarines in India is too costly a proposition.
► Strategic Lift: The stated strategic-lift goal is a corps lift, including airlift assets. This is a limited-range requirement for local areas around the subcontinent. India’s long-range and purely naval lift capabilities will be of less importance through the 1990s, but still significant. The tank landing ship program is still slated for eight units. When those are available, together with a new class of LPDs, India should possess a full division assault-echelon amphibious capability sometime in the first decade of the next century.
The long Indian coastline so often referred to in official statements of India’s naval needs is still being served. The total in the new Savitri-dass patrol frigate program now stands at seven (three built in
India continues to build a modern navy—here, one of its new, home- built Khurkri-class corvettes designed to replace Soviet-built Petyas. Sri Lanka, on the other hand, does not have much of a navy—here, an oilfield supply catamaran has been modified for naval duty.
South Korea, the other at Hindustan Shipyard), with another three to be built in India for coast guard use. The hefty Tarantul guided-missile corvette program now stands at five built in the Soviet Union and the remaining first Indian-built unit, the Viblmti, launched on 26 April 1990 at Mazagon Dockyard, Bombay. The Tarantul program is revealing on another level, however. Although a major program, it represents a rapidly dwindling Indian-Soviet naval connection. All major new construction leans on European and U.S. design assistance and equipment. Abetting a recognition of Soviet combat systems’ uncompetitiveness is the Soviet squeeze on the rupee trade: The Soviets now want cash up front, and lots of it, for their goods.
Bangladesh: A second Jianghu-class frigate will not be ordered from China. The Osman, completed and transferred at the end of 1989, remains the only nonantique large combatant in the Bangladesh fleet.
Maritime patrol duties reportedly arc being performed by An-32 aircraft, and there is also some talk of future orders of guided-missile patrol boats from China, to add to the four Hoku-typc acquired in 1983.
Sri Lanka: Sri Lanka is trying to control its local waters better, even as civil war drags on. This means orders for patrol craft of all sizes and species continue. Two patrol boats were ordered from China in 1990, and six Bell 212/412 helicopters for maritime duties were ordered from the United States.
Dr. Vlahos is Director of the Center for the Study of Foreign Affairs at the U.S. Department of State.