NEW DELHI: With the oceans emerging as strategic grounds for the geopolitical shift, the Indian Navy is set to welcome 50 countries and work on finding ways to handle emerging scenarios and develop agreements on operational procedures to assist in three-dimensional scenarios.
The scenarios will be complex three dimensional: air, surface and underwater. Indian Navy’s deputy chief Vice-Admiral Tarun Sobti said Milan 2024 is a major endeavour to get together friendly foreign countries for significant maritime activity. He said 51 countries will participate in the event.
“While delegation-level participation is confirmed from more than 30 countries, 15 others will send their warships. The French Navy will come with an aircraft,” Sobti said.
From the Indian side, nearly 20 ships, including aircraft carriers Vikrant and Vikramaditya, and almost 50 aircraft will participate in the exercise.
The world’s significant navies are sending their warships, which include ones from Russia, France, the US, Japan, Australia, Iran, Myanmar, and Sri Lanka. Pakistan and China will not be part of this exercise. Canada will send its delegation headed by a commander.
The navies will be allowed to incorporate and instil the best practices and procedures and enable doctrinal learning in the maritime domain through professional interactions.
The Indian Navy is actively maintaining international relations with other nations, militarily and diplomatically. The exercise aligns with India’s international diplomatic efforts, namely ‘Act East Policy’ and ‘Security And Growth for All in the Region’.
It is the 12th edition of this exercise, with its largest-ever participation of over 50 friendly foreign navies, and it will be conducted from February 19-27 at Visakhapatnam.
It would comprise two phases — ‘Harbour’ and ‘Sea’. The ‘harbour’ phase, aimed to promote cultural and professional sharing amongst the participants, would comprise of a maritime seminar, city parade at RK Beach, maritime tech exhibition, subject matter expert exchange, Milan of Young Officers and sporting events.
Ranging from surface and sub-surface manoeuvres to aerial engagements, the four-day ‘sea’ phase would see scenario-based missions, live gunnery firings, maritime interdiction and VBSS, anti-surface, anti-submarine and air defence exercises, and large force sustenance using shared replenishment resources.