Special to WorldTribune.com

Compiled by Miles Yu, Geostrategy-Direct.com

The Russian-built Akula II class SSN Nerpa was handed over to an Indian crew as the INS Chakra at a submarine base near Vladivostok on Jan. 23. The 10-year lease will cost New Delhi nearly $1 billion.

The 13,500-ton submarine is the 15th vessel in India’s submarine fleet and the first nuclear-powered sub since 1991 when it decommissioned its last Soviet-built SSN. INS Chakra is capable of firing a wide range of conventional missiles as well as nuclear-tipped Granat cruise missiles. It will be based at Visakhapatnam in the Bay of Bengal.

India is fast becoming an active naval power in the Indian Ocean as well as in the Asia-Pacific region. It joins Japan, Australia and the U.S. in protecting the world’s busiest sea lanes connecting the oil-rich Middle East and the Pacific Rim.

India is vital to this naval alliance, aptly dubbed “axis of democracies,” because it is strategically sandwiched between the two “choke points” — the Strait of Hormuz, which controls strategic oil exports from the Mideast, and the Strait of Malacca that serves as a strategic stronghold to check China’s territorial and military ambitions in the South China Sea.

Read complete article.

  Bay of Bengal, guards sea lanes with ‘axis of democracies’, India gets 1st nuclear sub, Indian Ocean, INS Chakra, nuclear-tipped Granat cruise missile, South China Sea, Strait of Hormuz, Vladivostok