Much has been made of the commissioning of two capital warships into the navy in quick succession this month — the guided missile destroyer, INS Visakhapatnam; and a conventional Scorpene-class submarine, INS Vela. While these sophisticated and capable vessels are welcomed by a navy that is badly short of capital warships, the admirals have lamented the slippage in the navy’s Maritime Capability Perspective Plan (MCPP) from a planning level of 200 warships in 2027 to a more modest count of just 170 vessels. By way of perspective, India has commissioned just one to two capital warships in each of the last five years — not enough even to replace the warships that are retiring — while China’s People’s Liberation Army (Navy), or PLA(N), has expanded its numbers by a staggering 14-22 capital warships in each of these years. In a single day last April, the PLA(N) commissioned three larger warships — a nuclear-powered submarine that carries nu