ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to appraise the Indian Navy's evolving maritime reach by plotting the recent evolution of its operational capability, its far-seas outlook and developing force-architecture. It provides an assessment of the debates within the navy on the contentious subject of expeditionary operations, and an account of its evolving strategic thinking vis-a-vis forward-operations capabilities. The naval power has more uses than just waging war, it is also important to evaluate the utility of far-seas capability in less-than-war scenarios. The central argument is that the Indian Navy's inability to develop the substantive capacities for sustained operations in the far-seas is mainly attributable to a lack of capacity and willingness to project hard-power in the extended neighbourhood. An excessive focus on benign and constabulary missions in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR), and tardiness in the procurement of critical assets for littoral operations and land-attack, has prevented the navy from playing a strategic role in the Indo-Pacific.
