India's indigenously built aircraft carrier, INS Vikrant has officially become part of the Navy. And so India joins the list of only a handful of countries capable of building aircraft carriers. What is an aircraft carrier and how it works has been explained once before.
Construction of India's next aircraft carrier, INS Vishal, will begin soon in Kochi, where Vikrant was built. All we need is one in the Arabian Sea and one in the Bay of Bengal, always on the coast. Vikramaditya is already working and now Vikrant is also in the limelight. Vishal will also go offshore in the next few years.
There is an important question that arises here. Now that India has achieved technological self-sufficiency, why can't India have supercarriers like America's Nimitz class aircraft carriers with a displacement capacity of over 100,000, nuclear powered. Yes, we can build nuclear reactors that are used in ships. If it has a displacement capacity of 60,000 tons, it can have a displacement of 100,000 tons. Still we are not ready.
Each country's safety standards are different. Weapons should be made accordingly. For the United States, their enemies are not nearby, but continents away. Neighboring countries like Canada and Mexico are not their enemies. Therefore, none of them are a threat to America. But distant Russia, China, Iraq, Iran and North Korea are threats to America. They need corresponding systems to reach and engage distant enemies. That's how they make supercarriers.
A nuclear- powered ship is initially loaded with enough fuel to last its entire life. Therefore, there is no need to come to the shore to refuel frequently. Because of this, these ships can remain at sea for months without approaching any shore. The backbone of America's wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were the hundreds of aircraft on the huge US aircraft carriers anchored in the Indian Ocean. The US Navy owns more than half of the world's aircraft carriers. Therefore, after the US Air Force, the US Navy has the largest fighter fleet.
But India's enemy countries are not far, but nearby. Therefore, we have to protect both the western and eastern coasts. India does not have imperialist interests across continents like America. Protecting the two coastlines is our only security priority and that does not require huge multi-billion dollar super carriers. No need to spend months at sea. India only needs three operational aircraft carriers. That is where India is heading.