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synopsis
India's navy maintains global reach and deployments, classifying it as a blue-water power. Pakistan's navy, however, remains a brown-water force, limited to coastal defense and regional operations.
New Delhi: India’s navy, a blue-water power, has sustained global reach and deployments, while Pakistan’s remains a brown-water force, limited to coastal defence and regional operations.
This fundamental difference shapes their maritime strategies, capabilities, and influence across the Indian Ocean Region (IOR).
Classifying a navy as ‘brown water’ versus ‘blue water’ depends on operational reach, logistical sustainability, and strategic doctrine.
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Pakistan’s naval capabilities, despite modernisation efforts, remain firmly within the brown-water category, as evidenced by its limited operational range, logistical shortcomings, and a doctrine focused on coastal defence.
In contrast, India possesses open-ocean power projection capabilities.
A blue-water navy can sustain global deployments, project power far from home waters, and maintain advanced logistical networks, such as at-sea replenishment.
Key attributes include aircraft carriers, nuclear submarines, and overseas bases. A brown-water navy, by contrast, operates primarily near coastal zones, with limited endurance and reliance on land-based support.
Pakistan Navy’s operations are mainly confined to littoral zones.
The force focuses on coastal defence and regional choke points like the Strait of Hormuz. Its platforms, such as Chinese-built Type 054A/P frigates and Agosta-90B submarines, are optimised for short-range roles rather than prolonged oceanic missions.
As of March 2025, satellite imagery revealed only 2 out of 5 submarines operational in Karachi, with the rest undergoing maintenance or upgrades. This undermines sustained undersea patrols in deep waters.
Unlike India’s INS Vikrant and INS Vikramaditya, Pakistan lacks aircraft carriers, limiting its airborne surveillance and strike reach beyond the coastline.
The Pakistan Navy has no dedicated underway replenishment ships, which are critical for sustaining fleets during extended deployments.
While its Logistics Command manages port-based maintenance and repairs, it lacks infrastructure for mid-ocean resupply.
Most of Pakistan’s crucial naval platforms are imported, creating interoperability challenges and dependency on external maintenance cycles. Indigenous projects like the Jinnah-class frigate remain untested.
Pakistan’s coastal bases, such as Karachi and Ormara, have limited fuel depots and ammunition stockpiles, restricting the duration of offshore operations.
The destruction of Karachi’s oil reserves during the 1971 war paralysed naval mobility, a vulnerability that persists.
Pakistan’s Maritime Doctrine (2018) emphasises ‘minimum credible deterrence’ and coastal defence rather than power projection.
The PN prioritises asymmetric tactics, such as submarine-launched cruise missiles, over blue-water assets.
Land-centric military thinking, driven by the Pakistan Army, has historically marginalised naval development.
In 2024, India’s military expenditure was nearly nine times that of Pakistan. Unlike India’s listening posts in Madagascar and Oman, Pakistan lacks forward deployment facilities, restricting operations mainly to the North Arabian Sea.
As a result, there is a wide asymmetry between the navies of the two countries. India’s Arihant-class SSBNs provide second-strike nuclear deterrence, a capability Pakistan lacks despite its Babur-3 SLCMs.
India possesses P-8I Poseidons, which offer unmatched surveillance across the Indian Ocean, while Pakistan relies on outdated ground radar.
The Pakistan Navy’s brown-water status stems from doctrinal constraints, logistical dependencies, and a force structure geared toward coastal defence.
While its modernisation enhances regional deterrence, it lacks the endurance, infrastructure, and strategic vision for blue-water operations. India’s naval dominance, reinforced by carriers and global reach, accentuates this asymmetry, a gap unlikely to close without systemic shifts in Pakistan’s military priorities and budgets.
India and Pakistan’s naval forces reflect stark contrasts in capability, reach, and strategic orientation. India’s navy, with 293 vessels, including two aircraft carriers, 13 destroyers, and 18 submarines, qualifies as a blue-water force, capable of projecting power well beyond its shores and maintaining a regional maritime presence across the Indian Ocean and beyond.
Its fleet is supported by robust logistics, advanced port infrastructure, and a strong indigenous defence industry, enabling sustained deployments and rapid mobilisation.
In contrast, Pakistan’s navy is smaller, with 121 ships, no aircraft carriers or destroyers, and a submarine fleet primarily composed of aging Agosta-class boats. Its operational focus is confined to coastal defence and regional deterrence, relying on asymmetric tactics and modern Chinese-built frigates to offset India’s numerical advantage.
Pakistan’s focus is the protection of sea lines of communication, but it lacks the logistical depth, replenishment capability, and overseas basing required for blue-water operations.
