Indian warship rammed by Pakistani naval vessel: How grey-zone tactics are entering the Arabian Sea
A Pakistani Navy ship collided with an Indian Navy vessel in the Northern Arabian Sea on Tuesday evening. The Indian ship was on a routine mission when it was approached by a Pakistani naval ship at high speeds. A source in the Indian Navy has stated that the Pakistani ship maneuvered in an unprofessional and unsafe manner, leading to a collision and that no damage has been reported. Another source in the navy has stated that the incident has been against the mutually decided confidence building measures and hence the issue has been raised diplomatically.The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) has summoned the Pakistani Charge d’Affairs over the incident and has also instructed the Indian Charge d’Affairs in Islamabad to raise thew issue with the government there. This is the second such incident to have come to light since 2011, when Pakistani warship PNS Babur rammed in to an Indian navy vessel in the northern part of the Arabian Sea, that time too the incident was raised with Pakistan on a diplomatic level.
Ramming at sea
Ramming as a tactic of war at sea, is almost as old as naval warfare itself. Naval ramming has ancient roots, with the Romans and Greeks both relying on it as a core weapon, the Roman rostrum fitted onto galleys, and Greek triremes built specifically for the tactic. Interestingly, ancient China never developed similar ramming ships, since the flat-bottomed junk’s design, lacking a proper keel, simply wasn’t suited to an elongated underwater spur.The first modern instance of ramming between major warships came during the American Civil War, at the 1862 Battle of Hampton Roads, when the armoured Confederate vessel CSS Virginia rammed and swiftly sank the Union frigate Cumberland.The tactic resurfaced through both World Wars, claiming numerous ships and submarines. Perhaps its most famous instance involves PT-109, sunk during the Solomon Islands campaign, commanded at the time by a young John F Kennedy, who later became US President.Ramming even found its way into a far less lethal but oddly memorable chapter of naval history, the so-called Cod Wars between Iceland and the UK, fought over fishing rights in the North Atlantic, where ramming became something of a recurring, almost theatrical tactic between rival patrol vessels.
Pak employs China’s grey war tactic
China’s use of ramming and water cannons in the South China Sea sits at the heart of a growing debate around grey zone warfare, tactics that stay deliberately below the threshold of open conflict while still advancing strategic goals. Beijing has leaned on its Coast Guard and maritime militia to ram vessels and blast rivals with high-pressure water cannons, exploiting legal ambiguity to solidify illegal territorial claims without triggering a formal military response, similar to the salami slicing tactic used in Eastern Ladakh and elsewhere.A report from the US based think-tank RAND corporation argues that this calculated ambiguity needs to end. When ramming with reinforced hulls or close-range water cannon use causes damage comparable to conventional kinetic force, a missile strike or torpedo attack, it should be treated as a grave use of force, justifying a proportionate kinetic response in self-defence.
What the law says
The collision between an Indian Navy ship and a Pakistani naval vessel in international waters has raised questions over Pakistan’s conduct at sea and the broader India-Pakistan confidence-building framework. New Delhi has also said the conduct was in direct contravention of Article 10 of the 1991 agreement governing advance notice of military exercises, manoeuvres and troop movements.The incident also brings back into focus an important but unfinished commitment made in the 1999 Lahore Declaration. The declaration called for discussions on an agreement to prevent incidents involving the naval and air forces of the two countries. Such an agreement was intended to reduce the possibility of accidents, miscalculations and dangerous encounters between their military forces.The wider purpose of the Lahore process was to establish practical mechanisms for reducing military risks between two nuclear-armed neighbours. Several confidence-building measures followed, but the proposed maritime incidents agreement was never concluded, but India and Pakistan ended up fighting for the Kargil heights a few months later.
