This will be the first time the country's solitary carrier, with its MiG-29K fighter jets, will take part in a full-fledged combat exercise with foreign countries since it was commissioned in November 2013.Sources said the US will be fielding its over 1,00,000-tonne USS Nimitz, a nuclear-powered super-carrier with its full complement of F/A-18 fighters, early-warning and electronic warfare aircraft. The "carrier strike group" will also include a Ticonderoga-class missile cruiser, a Los Angeles-class nuclear attack submarine and three to four Arleigh Burke-class destroyers.Japan, in turn, is fielding its 27,000-tonne helicopter carrier Izumo and another warship for the intensive 10-day combat maneuvers on the high seas off Chennai. Interestingly, the new Japanese warship, which can carry nine helicopters, is primarily meant for anti-submarine warfare.So, one of the main thrust areas of this 21st edition of Malabar will be "submarine-hunting", with India and US also deploying their Poseidon-8 long-range maritime patrol aircraft during the exercise.The Indian Navy has inducted eight of the 12 P-8I aircraft ordered from the US for $3.2 billion, which are packed with radars and armed with deadly Harpoon Block-II missiles, MK-54 lightweight torpedoes, rockets and depth charges, while the US Navy operates the P-8A variants.A Yuan-class diesel-electric submarine, the seventh underwater boat to be deployed by China in the IOR since December 2013, is currently in the region after an operational turnaround at Karachi. A Chinese intelligence-gathering ship Haiwingxing is also in the vicinity to snoop on the Malabar exercise, as earlier reported by TOI.A Royal Australian Navy warship HMAS Newcastle, too, is currently at Kochi soon after India and Australia conducted a naval combat exercise off Freemantle in mid-June. Though India did not agree to include Australia in the Malabar exercise, the US has in the past pushed India to join a quadrilateral security dialogue in the Asia Pacific region geared towards countering China's assertiveness in the region.China is extremely wary that such a security construct will seek to "contain" it, and had lodged a strong protest against the Malabar exercise in 2007, which saw India, the US, Japan, Australia and Singapore come together for the war-games in the Bay of Bengal.

Source: Times of India July 04, 2017 17:51 UTC