NEW DELHI – As China is already accelerating plans to build a blue-water navy capable of operating across the Indo-Pacific, India faces a narrowing strategic window. Beijing already operates three aircraft carriers and aims for a much larger fleet by 2035. Combined with its growing presence across the Indian Ocean Region, the challenge is no longer theoretical.
In the spring of 2024, the Chinese carrier Fujian completed her first sea trials in the East China Sea. The ship — conventionally powered, with electromagnetic catapults and a flat-deck CATOBAR configuration, the most advanced carrier Beijing has ever commissioned — drew predictable coverage about Chinese naval ambition. What drew less coverage was the quiet, uncomfortable arithmetic it forced on Indian defense planners.
China now operates three aircraft carriers: Liaoning, Shandong, and Fujian. Its stated ambition is nine carriers by 2035. India operates two: INS Vikrant, built domestically at Cochin Shipyard, and INS Vikramaditya, a refurbished Soviet-era vessel whose structural lifespan beyond 2037 depends on an audit still a decade away. The gap — in numbers, in technology, in trajectory — is the maritime security story India is not having with sufficient urgency.
To be clear, carrier count alone is not destiny. India’s carrier doctrine, QUAD partnerships, and the inherent advantages of geography mean the comparison is not as stark as the numbers suggest. The Indian Ocean is India’s home arena. But carrier capability is not merely about fighting carriers. It is about projecting power, securing sea lanes, deterring adventurism, and — critically — imposing military consequences at a time and place of India’s choosing. That last phrase matters. It is what distinguishes a reactive navy from a strategic one.
China’s “String of Pearls” strategy has extended PLAN presence into the Indian Ocean Region in ways that were unthinkable fifteen years ago. Djibouti hosts China’s only overseas military base. Port access agreements with Sri Lanka, Pakistan, and Bangladesh give Chinese naval vessels options in India’s maritime neighborhood. Meanwhile, China is Iran’s largest crude oil customer — purchasing roughly 90 percent of Iran’s exported oil — giving Beijing both economic leverage and strategic incentive to maintain influence over the sea lanes through which that oil travels. The Indian Ocean is no longer India’s uncontested backyard. It is a contested space, and the contest is intensifying.
Against that backdrop, India’s current carrier posture — effectively one fully assured carrier, with a second whose long-term availability is conditional — is inadequate. Not because two carriers cannot accomplish tactical tasks, but because Indian strategic commitments, trade dependencies, and regional leadership aspirations demand more than tactical adequacy. They demand the sustained ability to keep two theatre-level carrier battle groups simultaneously ready, which the “rule of three” requires a third hull.
The Navy has articulated this requirement. What has been lacking is the political and budgetary follow-through to act on it. A third carrier ordered today would not enter service until the mid-2030s at the earliest — precisely the window in which Vikramaditya’s future becomes uncertain and China’s carrier fleet approaches five or six hulls. The timeline for ordering is not ahead of India. It has already arrived.
There is also a deterrence dimension that tends to get overlooked in hardware-focused discussions. Carrier battle groups do not only fight. They signal. The deployment of an American carrier strike group to the eastern Mediterranean in October 2023 — the USS Gerald R. Ford, followed by the USS Eisenhower — was a message to regional actors before it was an operational tool. India’s ability to deploy a carrier battle group to the western Indian Ocean, or to waters off an adversary’s coast, sends a message that no quantity of shore-based missiles or submarines can replicate with the same clarity.
India’s SAGAR framework commits to security and stability across the Indian Ocean Region. The QUAD elevates India’s role as a maritime partner of the United States, Japan, and Australia. MILAN exercises build relationships. But relationships built on doctrine require platforms to remain credible. Partners do not indefinitely anchor their maritime strategies around a country that cannot sustain two battle groups simultaneously.
Vikrant’s construction demonstrated something important: India can build a carrier. Cochin Shipyard delivered a 45,000-tonne vessel, and in doing so, placed India in a club of six nations worldwide with that capability. The question now is whether India will use that capability again or allow it to erode as the strategic environment moves faster than the budget cycle. China is not waiting. India probably shouldn’t either.
Ashu Mann
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 in Defence and Strategic Studies. His research focuses include India-China territorial dispute, great power rivalry, and Chinese foreign policy.
