OPINION | India's Maritime Insurance Policy Needs a Third Carrier

by Ashu Mann

For decades, India’s maritime doctrine focused primarily on coastal defense. That era is over. The Indian Ocean has become a contested strategic theater where energy security, global trade, and geopolitical competition intersect. Aircraft carriers offer something few other platforms can: the ability to project power, sustain air operations, and influence events far from home shores. In an increasingly volatile region, the argument that India needs at least three operational carriers has moved well beyond naval circles into the realm of strategic necessity.

It has often been said that one carrier is a liability, two are a compromise, and three are a fleet. India sails with two, one of them a refitted Soviet-era hull acquired from Russia, and no firm contract for a third. That gap is not theoretical. It is a live operational risk.

When INS Vikramaditya was commissioned in 2013, it already carried the burden of delay. Its structural audit, scheduled for around 2035, will determine whether the vessel serves through the mid-2050s or exits service closer to 2037. Strategic planners cannot rely on the more optimistic timeline.

Its core hull dates back to 1982, and no amount of modernization changes the reality of metal fatigue in the warm, saline waters of the Indian Ocean. INS Vikrant, a 45,000-ton domestically built symbol of industrial capability and naval ambition, remains the only carrier India can confidently depend on beyond that decade. One ship does not make a maritime power.

The arithmetic is unforgiving. Maintaining a carrier battle group continuously in both the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal requires three hulls because, at any given time, one vessel will be in refit, systems overhaul, or deep maintenance.

This is not a wish list. It is the operational baseline for a country that sources roughly half of its crude oil through the Strait of Hormuz and depends on the Red Sea corridor for trade with Europe, two of the most contested chokepoints on earth.

The Red Sea crisis that erupted in late 2023 offered a clear lesson. Houthi attacks on commercial shipping triggered a cascading insurance and rerouting emergency that added weeks and substantial costs to cargo moving through the region.

The United States responded with carrier strike groups in theater. USS Dwight D. Eisenhower conducted some of the most sustained Red Sea operations under Operation Prosperity Guardian, while USS Gerald R. Ford remained positioned in the Eastern Mediterranean, providing persistent air cover, striking Houthi launch infrastructure, and supporting freedom of navigation for global trade. India, despite being one of the world’s largest maritime trading nations, lacked an equivalent instrument to deploy or even credibly threaten.

A third carrier is not about symbolism or chest-thumping nationalism. It is about possessing the credible ability to impose military consequences at a time and place of India’s choosing. Carrier air wings, unlike land-based fighters constrained by basing rights and diplomatic arrangements, represent sovereign territory at sea. They move. They require no overflight permissions.

They can position themselves hundreds of kilometers off a coastline and create a strategic dilemma that no surface fleet alone can replicate.

China understands this clearly. The People’s Liberation Army Navy now operates three carriers and, according to the Pentagon’s latest annual assessment, aims to field nine by 2035.

Beijing’s strategy of cultivating dual-use port access across the Indian Ocean littoral, including a confirmed naval base in Djibouti, the Chinese-developed Gwadar port in Pakistan, and a 99-year lease on Hambantota in Sri Lanka, has extended Chinese naval reach deep into India’s maritime neighborhood. India’s carrier gap is being interpreted in Beijing, and across regional capitals, as a strategic ceiling.

There is also a domestic industrial argument that deserves to be stated plainly. Cochin Shipyard built Vikrant at an estimated cost of Rs 20,000 crore, creating an indigenous capability possessed by only a handful of nations, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Russia, France, Italy, and China. Failing to proceed with a third carrier risks allowing that industrial ecosystem to atrophy. The engineers, supply chains, and institutional expertise built over years will gradually erode without a follow-on order.

India’s SAGAR doctrine commits the country to being a net security provider in the Indian Ocean Region. The Quad partnership, MILAN exercises, and anti-piracy deployments all stem from that commitment. But doctrines require platforms. A nation that presents itself as the first responder in the Indian Ocean while lacking the ability to sustain two simultaneous carrier battle groups risks over-promising on intent while under-delivering on capability.

The question before the government is no longer whether India needs a third carrier. Among serious naval planners, that debate is effectively settled. The real question is when the order will be placed, and how much strategic ground India is willing to cede while it delays.

Every year without a contract is another year in which China’s advantage compounds. Every year without a third hull leaves India’s two-ocean deterrent resting on a single domestically built carrier and another vessel whose future beyond 2037 depends on a structural audit. That is not a posture. It is a prayer.

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About the Author

Ashu Mann is an Associate Fellow at the Centre for Land Warfare Studies. He was awarded the Vice Chief of the Army Staff Commendation card on Army Day 2025. He is pursuing a PhD from Amity University, Noida, in Defence and Strategic Studies. His research focuses include the India-China territorial dispute, great power rivalry, and Chinese foreign policy.

Disclaimer: This article represents the author’s independent analysis and perspective based on publicly available information. It does not constitute official guidance, intelligence assessment, or policy recommendation, and does not reflect the positions of Access Hub or any affiliated entities.