Some analysts have called it Asia’s “New Great Game”. Others note the “tectonic geo-strategic shifts” taking place in the continent.
The Cold War rhetoric about the Indian Ocean being a “zone of peace” lies sunk. The new talk is about Chinese military bases — the “string of pearls” in the Indian Ocean, what with the ongoing debate on its disputes with neighbours on the South China Sea.
China is sought to be countered through a United States-India alliance that has been shaping for some time now. Viewed from India, there is nothing official about it. Its intent and capability are both being debated.
Yet, its new “offensive-defence” strategy looks both East (towards China and Southeast Asia) and West (towards Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran and West and Central Asia). Its pivot is a budding economic and military alliance with the US while engaging everyone else.
Amid a flurry of activities, India signed two unprecedented defence and nuclear agreements with the US, on a single day, last month.
Indian Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar signed the Logistics Exchange of Memorandum Agreement (LEMOA) with his American counterpart, Ashton Carter, in Washington. US Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker engaged with Indian Commerce Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in New Delhi at the second Strategic and Commercial Dialogue. Not a coincidence, LEMOA had been in the works for 10 years.
Per se, the two are enabling logistic agreements. Their challenge lies in how they are implemented in future. But that has set the strategic tongues wagging.
LEMOA puts an automatic approvals process in place for the two militaries to share each other’s bases for operations. In the past, India allowing port and refuelling facilities during the 1991 Gulf War became controversial at home. The US did not need/use the one offered after 9/11, when the campaign in Afghanistan was launched. Logistically, they preferred Pakistani facilities.
Other areas of cooperation include port visits, joint exercises, joint training and humanitarian assistance. The agreement will aid the sort of operations India has undertaken to rescue stranded Indians in conflict zones. There is no set agenda. Using these facilities is to be discussed case by case.
As the Indian military continues to expand its role to aid in disaster relief, as it did during the 2004 tsunami, it will benefit from easier access to America’s network of military bases around the world.
All this places India and the US, once lamented as “distant democracies” with seemingly intractable problems and loads of distrust, closer than ever before.
A whole new range of issues mark the new bilateral relationship, like American state of the art air weaponry technology for jet engines and unmanned aerial vehicles, and joint war games and naval exercises in the Indian Ocean.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has met US President Barack Obama seven times in two years, is looking to a post-Obama America. As he invites all those who want to invest to “Make in India”, the US has proposed, among many things, making in India the F-16 combat aircraft. Bright prospects of US foreign investment in India exist.
Like a popular advertising punch-line, “Yeh Dil Maangey More” (The Heart Desires More), that helped Pepsi surge in India’s soft drinks market, New Delhi’s appetite to access and absorb new technology seems insatiable.
Questions are being asked on the extent Washington would adjust its broader national security policies in South Asia to bolster India. For instance, will the US sell armed Predator drones now that India has joined the Missile Technology Control Regime?
The bigger question, however, is how tightly New Delhi is willing to embrace America. India has always sought to maintain its strategic autonomy and has avoided military commitments outside its territory at others’ bidding. Past experience is that American foreign policy choices can be rash — the Iraq invasion of 2003 for one, when India declined to send its forces. India would like to avoid those.
In this quest, India cannot ignore or underestimate the Pakistan factor, given old Washington-Islamabad security ties. For long years, the US kept the relationship with India at a binary level with Pakistan. That changed, but a decade back, when George Bush Jr helped India further its nuclear quest that is now stalled, thanks to China, at the doors of the Nuclear Suppliers Group.
Would the ancient American logic of not altering the basic military balance in South Asia continue to impact its ties with India?
Obviously, the Indo-US proximity is upsetting both Pakistan and China. The two will get closer in direct proportion and more to that. Most alarming for Pakistan and China has been Indian opposition to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, (CPEC) which aims to boost Pakistan’s economy and open up strategic Central Asia. It will run through a disputed Kashmir and a volatile Balochistan.
India has pre-empted CPEC by a pact with Iran. The two will develop Chabahar port, only 80km from Pakistan’s China-built Gwadar, to link with Afghanistan and Central Asia. Japan and possibly the US are set to invest.
India must also look at how its old ally Russia would react, since Moscow does not relish America’s excessive Asian presence. Russia and Pakistan have resumed military ties after six decades.
However, as much as he resents India acquiring arms from elsewhere, Russian President Vladimir Putin is not a man in haste. The sixteenth annual India-Russia summit is coming.
Negotiations for mega defence projects with Russia are on. India and Russia will jointly develop futuristic fifth generation fighter aircraft. India is set to acquire five S-400 Triumf advanced air defence missile systems, Kamov Ka-226T light utility helicopters and a US$1.5 billion (RM6.17 billion) lease of a second nuclear-powered Russian submarine.
India has just finalised a deal with France for 36 Rafale multi-role aircraft. All this underscores India’s determination not to place all its eggs in any one basket.
It is worthwhile to note an “adversarial” opinion. China’s Global Times notes that India currently has the “maximum room” for strategic manoeuvring.
“India will not lean towards the US because it will not only hurt India’s self-esteem, (but) more importantly, India can gain more strategic benefits by striking a balance between China and the US,” it said.
Mahendra Ved, NST’s New Delhi correspondent, is the president of the Commonwealth Journalists Association and a consultant with ‘Power Politics’ monthly magazine