Will Modi buckle under Trump’s pressure on Iran?

Posted on August 8, 2018 by Bharat Karnad

Image result for pics of Modi and Iranian leader rouhani

[Modi & Rouhani in Tehran)

US President Donald Trump did what is by now the new normal, tweeted a pixilated policy — this time regarding the reimposition of sanctions on Iran. He twittered thus:  “The Iran sanctions have officially been cast. These are the most biting sanctions ever imposed, and in November they ratchet up to yet another level. Anyone doing business with Iran will NOT be doing business with the United States. I am asking for WORLD PEACE, nothing less!” An official statement that followed, saying “We urge all nations to take such steps to make clear that the Iranian regime faces a choice: either change its threatening, destabilising behaviour and reintegrate with the global economy, or continue down a path of economic isolation”, further confused and roiled the situation.

What “WORLD PEACE” has to do with pressuring Tehran to agree to rescind and re-negotiate the nuclear deal is anyone’s guess. Except throwing “world peace” into this mix Trump thinks will elevate his pressure tactic into a moral action. And what has the Hassan Rouhani regime done that is so “threatening” and  “destabilizing” other than maintaining the Hezbollah in the field against Israel and in Syria — which last is supported by Moscow? In fact, the liberally inclined Rouhani went out on a limb to strike the N-deal, in the face of virulent opposition from the more belligerently nationalist elements in Iranian society headed by the Pasdaran (the Revolutionary Guard) and including the more conservative sections of the Shia clergy and the “bazaari” (the powerful small trader class) support base. Now he is being asked to eat crow by Trump.

An exasperated Western Europe — its good faith, traditional friendliness, and patience taxed beyond limits by Trump’s talking down NATO and arm-twisting member states into spending 4% of their GDP on defence and security, have given up on the USA. America, they say, can go it alone, particularly because China and Russia, signatories to the Iran nuclear deal, too have joined the West European countries in firmly declaring that they will  not tolerate Trump’s policy waywardness.  European governments have already instructed their private sector corporations and companies to ignore US sanctions, and are  proceeding to provide them legal cover with appropriate legislation.

Federica Mogherini, the European Union’s (EU) High Representative for Foreign Affairs,  declared in no uncertain terms that “We are doing our best to keep Iran in the deal, to keep Iran benefiting from the economic benefits that the agreement brings to the people of Iran, because we believe this is in the security interests of not only our region but also of the world. If there is one piece of international agreements on nuclear non-proliferation that is delivering, it has to be maintained. We are encouraging small and medium enterprises in particular to increase business with and in Iran as part of something [that] for us is a security priority.” She added that it is a “fundamental aspect of the Iranian right to have an economic advantage in exchange for what they have done so far, which is being compliant with all their nuclear-related commitments”.  This EU position directly clashes with Trump’s view of the Iran deal as “a horrible one-sided deal that should never, ever have been made”. ( https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/07/eu-foreign-policy-chief-calls-on-firms-to-defy-trump-over-iran ) This when Tehran agreed to stop enriching uranium to bomb-grade, switch off its centrifuge cascades, and ship out 95% of its fissile material stock!

Sure, Western Europe is trying to keep two policy balls in play. Around the same time that Trump twittered, European Commission president, Jean-Claude Juncker,  visited Washington and, to get around recent disagreements, decided with Trump to increase tariff-free trade. Except with the EU firming up on the Mogherini line, it is Trump — mark my words — who will blink first. So, who exactly is going to fall behind Trump? Which countries will back him?

Plainly, the Trump Administration expects that by the time the heavier tranche of sanctions comes on stream by November and dollar transactions for Iranian oil begin  attracting sanctions, governments that have shown jelly-like stomach for  a fight, will succumb. Xi Jinping’s China and Erdogan’s Turkey — amongst the largest buyers, have indicated they are prepared to carry on buying Iranian oil regardless. Modi’s India, however, has not revealed its cards yet. It has set up banking channels to avoid payment tangles, etc. But with 2×2 Talks coming up, and US secretary of state Mike Pompeo and defence secretary James Mattis flying into Delhi September 5, consultations in PMO and MEA are veering to an indecision on Iran.

As revealed in the last several years, Modi is an instinctive accommodationist where America is concerned. But the political costs of being seen as buckling under US pressure and to come out as more loyal to Trump than the EU, are too high — with general elections in sight — for Modi to risk going over fully to the US side. Besides, if the American advice is followed and ties with Tehran thinned out, there are valid fears that India’s strategic stake in Chabahar will be endangered. But that will be the least of India’s troubles. It may be wise to reflect on what Guy Verhofstadt, a former prime minister of Belgium, said about the dilemma Trump has compelled its friends to face. US’s Iran stance “shows yet again”, he said, “why we as Europeans must strengthen our foreign policy to be able to shape relations with the greater Middle East independently from the US.” Then there’s the fact that US sanctions violate, as the Russian Foreign Ministry has pointed out,  UN resolution 2231 [on the Iran deal] and international law.

India then will be arrayed more fully against Russia and China, both of whom have strongly reaffirmed their links to Iran. Further, exploiting the absence of economic and trade competitors — the US and EU (assuming that after all the bellicose noises it subsides to a pussycat and purrs along with Trump as could happen) — from the Iranian market place, Beijing is quickly deploying its trademark devices — large investments, big infrastructure projects, a deluge of consumer goods to drag an Iran, bereft of alternatives, into its fold. That will be a disaster for India.

The Speaker of the Iranian legislature, Ali Larijani, has suggested using the certain economic isolation of his country, consequent to the sanctions. Tehran, he said, should focus “on the domestic economy, reform its structure and facilitate investment, and …increase Iran’s resilience [all of which] offers a good prospect for the country.” It is precisely the opening that Delhi should have used to prise open the Iranian market and economy still wider for the Indian private and public sector companies to rush in with manifold increases in trade and commerce. China has espied the chance and is racing to capitalize on it.

It is India’s greatest misfortune  that there has been no Indian government in the new Century (or, in the old one for that matter) with like expansive national strategic vision to be able to see  such opportunities and grasp them, or the  iron will to stand its ground and stare down big power bullies, and to do what’s in the country’s national interest.

It is manifestly in India’s interest to be close friends of Iran and Russia, to follow tit-for-tat policies with China, to be less gullible and more wary of the US, and to be guided by its track record, rather than by the smarmy talk emanating from Washington and Trump of the ‘Indo-Pacific’, etc. The reality is India’s and US’ interests converge but only and exclusively as regards China. Iran is not in this cone of convergence. So, sure, by all means cooperate with the US to confuse, contain, and corral China. But this should under no circumstances result in India’s turning into a camp follower or, worse, a lap dog. This last, however, is precisely what seems to be happening with Modi’s government and, sorry to say this, the higher echelons of the Indian military (reflected in such decisions as the Navy’s — slammed by the CAG — to go in for 8 more P-8I MR aircraft equipped with the faulty Harpoon-II anti-ship missiles. See  https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/defence/cag-raises-stink-over-2009-p8i-naval-aircraft-deal-says-upa-bought-costly-plane/articleshow/65306934.cms . This when, as is known in naval circles, the hypersonic Russian Kaliber missiles were available for the asking.)

Well, how Delhi proceeds on Iran in the face of American dictation, will be a good measure to judge the country’s independence. No bad metric to keep in mind with the 71st Independence Day round the corner.

 

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The subterranean objectives of STA-1

Posted on August 2, 2018 by Bharat Karnad

James Mattis and Wilbur Ross Photos - 3 of 4

[Trump, to his left, General James Mattis, and Commerce Secretary William Ross]

The September 6 timeline for the 2×2 talks between the Indian and US foreign and defence ministers was approaching fast. This is a postponement of the July 6 meeting. Because of preoccupations of Washington at the time, the US secretary of state Mike Pompeo in particular — whose agency conducts America’s foreign affairs — found on the eve of the visit by Messrs Sushma Swaraj and Nirmala Sitharaman to Washington in July that the Trump administration had not addressed the growing doubts and skepticism in Delhi, occasioned by possible CAATSA sanctions, about the advisability and benefits of getting close to the US which the American ambassador Kenneth Juster in Delhi had warned could become a stumbling block in 2×2 forum. So the two month period was sought by Pompeo to try and see what could be done to retrieve the situation by giving evidence of US good faith. With the 2012 Defence Trade and Technology Initiative (DTTI) having produced nothing in the last six years but hot air, and with Mattis’ and Juster’s concerted pushing, Pompeo got the Trump White House to approve the Strategic Trade Authorization (STA)-1 status for India, because Washington has long been aware that Delhi can be pacified with symbolic gestures. There’s much glee hereabouts that Pakistan and China are no part of the STA-schemata. Such are the small things Indians are happy with.

STA-1 is just a symbolic gesture because all it does is merely enlarge a little the list of technologies India can access — NOT open America’s advanced technology shop for the Indian MOD and military to raid as uninformed Indian press and media elatedly implied. The MEA pitched in, with the idea of providing a fig leaf, saying it would help promote defence technology cooperation under the aegis of the so far barren DTTI when the real US purpose behind according India STA-1 standing is to prompt the sale of more high value military goods to this country. In theory STA-1 will allow India the same access as NATO allies, Japan and South Korea. In practice, no cutting edge stuff will be made available. Just to prove what I am saying the Indian government should try asking for the Globohawk — the long duration flying armed drone. As technologies go, it isn’t at all cutting edge — but Delhi will discover it can’t get it. Why, because that will loosen the already tenuous bonds with Pakistan, which Washington cannot afford, not if it is serious about persisting with its hopeless strategy of militarily defeating the Taliban in Afghanistan.  Nor will  the US countenance the transfer the “know why” for combat aircraft design — the source codes and operational algorithms, etc. or for designing and producing combat aircraft jet engines. Or, the silencing technologies for submarines. Or,….

But the Indian ambassador Navtej Sarna piped up to extol this development as “a sign of trust not only in the relationship but also on India’s capabilities as an economy and as a security partner, because it also presupposes that India has the multilateral export control regime in place.” Mind you, the export regimes Sarna is referring to are the missile technology control regime, the 2008 civilian nuclear deal, and the Wassenar Agreement, that Delhi has signed, even when aware that this put legal clamps on India exporting even indigenously designed and developed sensitive goods and technologies to countries that the US feels shouldn’t have them. India is thus compelled to conform to Washington’s threat perceptions and to follow its policy dictates at the expense of its own national interest, technology leverage and foreign policy options which India could otherwise have exercised.

US’ still more salient and significant strategic objective is to ensure that STA-1 incentivizes the already American hardware-besotted Indian armed services to source more and more of their requirements from US companies — a trend greenlighted by defence minister Sitharaman, a former employee of both BBC and PriceWaterhouse Cooper who, it may be recalled, some months backs blithely announced that the Indian military is free to procure its needs from anywhere and are not restricted in any way. But, let’s also be clear that it is the PMO passing this policy line for Sitharaman to pursue.  [There was reason for installing Sitharaman, a fairly undistinguished junior minister and political ingenue in MoD — susceptibility to accepting directions from PMO without hesitation.] Most US military high-tech, like any other technology, is routed in Washington through the Commerce Department headed by secretary  William Ross, whose brief is to promote the interests of US industry. Giving the game away,  Ross explained that STA-1 means that “US companies will be able to more efficiently export a much wider range of products to Indian high technology and military customers. India’s new status will benefit US manufacturers while continuing to protect our national security.”

What is the flip side of more monies to fund the larger volume of imports of military armaments and technologies? Yes, you guessed it — something I have been hammering away at in this blog —  the throttling of funds for indigenous R&D projects and programmes, turning a potentially vibrant defence industry in the private sector into another link in the global supply chain — and all to make financial room for more extensive arms imports. This is how the killing of the national effort at  arms indigenization and achieving self-sufficiency in weaponry will be furthered. And the twin meta-strategic goals of crowding Russia out of the Indian arms market and replacing it with America as India’s main military supplier, and keeping this country forever an arms dependency, accomplished.

Strange to think that Modi was voted to power as a nationalist!

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What ails India’s defence forces

Posted on July 27, 2018 by Bharat Karnad

Image result for pics of Indian tanks on maneuver

Size and brass buckle traditions are what the Indian military is known for internationally — third-largest army, fourth-largest air force, seventh-largest navy — and not for its quality, operational dexterity, or innovative use of technology.

Worse, it is growingly tainted by ‘big’ corruption — with uniformed officers in the defence ministry’s procurement loops partaking, along with their civilian counterparts, of the usual goodies on offer — ‘commissions’ channelled into secret offshore accounts, or bribery in kind such as foreign trips, shopping sprees in Paris, London, Stockholm, and ‘scholarships’ and ‘green card’/resident and work visas for progeny, etc. for facilitating deals for foreign armaments and hardware.

Very occasionally, due to sheer bad luck senior officers get caught with their hands in the till, as Air Chief Marshal SP Tyagi was. The former air force chief was indicted by the CBI for taking a bribe from Italy’s AgustaWestland Company in a 2010 deal worth Rs 3,600 crore for 12 of its AW101 helicopters to outfit the Indian government’s VVIP fleet.

More advanced militaries periodically transform themselves to conform to evolving technology and best management principles. So, post-World War II vintage forces emphasising mobility and firepower acquired proficiency in network-centric warfare and are now sharpening their fighting capabilities in the cyber warfare realm. The Indian armed services, however, have been slow and often tardy.

The problem, in a nutshell, is this: After 20 years of discussion, the armed services are yet to agree on a Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) system of centralised command and control — indispensable for the conduct of modern war. In the realm of digital communications and data fusion where owing to a multitude of land-, air- and space-based sensors, the unfolding battlefield is clearer in real time to a CDS sitting in Delhi than it will be to the frontline unit commander, and will permit him to take decisions to fortify the defensive posture here, switch the axis of attack there, insert special forces in a third place.

Just in Asia, China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) fully transformed itself thus in less than a decade. The Japanese military accomplished it inside of two years, inclusive of a radical operational reorientation away from the Russian-occupied Kurile Islands and the Kamchatka Peninsula southwest-wards to the Senkaku Islands and the East Sea, and the setting up of seven theatre commands, to confront China. Not surprisingly, even when it comes to cyber warfare, these two militaries are top-rated.

Unfortunately, the Indian military resembles the turgid Indian bureaucracy. Set in their old ways, the armed services flub the basic test: instead of the main security challenge —  China — they key on Pakistan, which is more nuisance than threat. So the country pays through its nose to sustain an entirely inappropriate force structure featuring three armoured strike corps boasting thousands of useless tanks that are only good for the Rajasthan desert, because the Punjab plains on the Pakistan side are crisscrossed by an impassable grid of ditch-cum-bunds.

On the other hand, the army lacks offensive corps for mountain warfare capable of debouching on to the Tibetan Plateau and taking the fight to the PLA. Without three such offensive mountain corps, the PLA will always have the initiative — it can choose the time, place, and scale of engagement, leaving the defensively-arrayed Indian land forces to always scramble to respond. As happened in the 2017 summer at Doklam.

The Indian Air Force, likewise, is geared principally to take on Pakistan. In theory, aircraft can fly and fight anywhere unless they are so short-legged they cannot optimally be used other than on the western border. In fact, the bulk of the IAF inventory is filled with short to medium range aircraft that will be of limited utility against China. So tactical and myopic is the IAF’s thinking, it refused a genuine strategic bomber — the Tu-22 Backfire offered by Russia as far back as 1971. In similar vein, the Indian Navy is fixated on building aircraft carriers, which look obsolete in the face of supersonic and hypersonic missiles.

This highlights the other big problem. There is no mechanism in the Ministry of Defence for inter se prioritisation of defence expenditure programmes. Absent such means, procurement funding is haphazard with funds allocated to acquire this or that weapons system on a purely arbitrary basis, or as per political whim and fancy (such as the decision to buy 36 Rafale combat aircraft from France). The real scandal is this: There is no real dearth of financial resources, but there is a pronounced tendency to buy the wrong armament for the wrong reasons and, mostly, for the wrong front.

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[Published in MoneyControl.com, July 26, 2018,  https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/india/opinion-what-ails-indias-defence-forces-2761471.html

 

 

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If Imran Khan is PM, it will be hard line against India

Posted on July 24, 2018 by Bharat Karnad

Image result for pics of shireen mazari and imran khan together

(Shireen Mazari on the right)

A leader is known by his/her advisers. The policies the leader is likely to pursue are telegraphed by what  these advisers may have said and written. Should the Pakistan Tehreeq-i-Insaaf (PTI) party win the general elections on Wednesday, July 26, Imran Khan will be installed as Prime Minister. Every one expects this will happen, considering he is the Pakistan Army’s candidate, as Nawaz Sharif once was, and that the ISI will ‘work’ the levers to obtain the desired result. In which case, the person to look out for is the irascible Shireen Mazari, a Pathan, who once threatened to take another female PTI party-mate to a tribal jirga for purveying falsehoods about her.

Mazari was Director-General of the Pakistan government funded thinktank, Institute of Strategic Studies, in Islamabad, in 2000-2008, and is PTI’s ‘Information secretary’ and advises Imran on foreign and defence affairs.  She may well be his choice as NSA or Pakistan’s Foreign Minister to pit against Sushma Swaraj or, alternatively, even defence minister. In either case, Delhi should be prepared for the hard line.

The Imran Khan attending conclaves held by media houses in Delhi in the past is not the Imran Khan who will become PM. He will mirror the Pakistan Army’s views and act as the guardian of its interests. He is likely to toe a very tough line that Mazari and Army propound generally and vis a vis India.

Mazari has led the campaign waged by Imran since 2013 to end all US drone strikes in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province. She was very vocal on this issue,  charging the CIA director John Brennan with “committing murder and waging war against Pakistan” and demanding the interrogation of the then CIA station chief in Islamabad to ascertain the identities of the pilots controlling the drones that eliminated Hakimullah Mehsud and struck a seminary in Hangu Dist in KP, killing a spiritual leader of the Haqqani network. Indeed, Mazari publicly criticized the Pakistan Army for not shooting down American drones. It is certain, a PTI government will seek an end to all US drone strikes inside Pakistan, while countenancing such hits on Taliban targets within Afghanistan.

On nuclear matters, Mazari is an out and out hawk, lauding the Pakistan Strategic Plans Division (SPD) for its India-centered approach. In a compendium of research writings on ‘Arms Race and Nuclear Developments in South Asia’ published in 2004 by the Islamabad Policy Research Institute, in a  companion piece to my research paper deconstructing the Indian nuclear doctrine, Mazari had revealed SPD’s thinking and the likely nature of the build-up of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal. She made clear — and this was the most important revelation, particularly in hindsight that “If India seeks to opt for an even-spread amongst its nuclear triad of forces,  then Pakistan needs to  have an edge on land-based developments in terms of numbers.” Except,  the Indian nuclear weapons mix, evenly spread or not,  triggered the rapid enlargement of Pakistan’s stock of short-range tactical missiles in the last 15 years — with the supposedly nuclear-tipped  Nasr 40mm rocket inducted in large numbers as that country’s calling card. This development of Pakistan seeking a missile edge over India has validated Mazari.

I am personally acquainted with Shireen Mazari owing to the seminar circuit I was active in, in the last decade. As a realist she seemed motivated by notions of hard national interest, and always interpreted Indian actions and moves in the most negative way. It strikes me that for these very reasons, the PTI regime would happily negotiate — as she has advocated — conventional military draw-downs with India. This may be no bad thing for the Modi government to try and negotiate in good faith as a means of stabilizing the border, the subcontinent’s security situation, and finally reorienting the Indian armed services to the only credible threat and military challenge India faces — China. Such a modus vivendi will lead naturally to the two sides accepting the solution for the Kashmir dispute offered in 2007 by Gen. Musharraf — Mazari’s one time chief patron.

This will necessarily require something I have long advocated — collapsing the three strike corps into a single composite armoured corps with several independent armoured brigades, and otherwise shifting the manpower and usable materiel assets to forming three offensive mountain corps for the China front. In practical terms, this could mean ‘compositing’ II Corps and converting the Strike Corps  — I and XXI into offensive mountain warfare formations. There’s no more sensible option for effectively using the Indian defence rupee which otherwise is annually squandered in upkeeping the army’s cash-guzzling 3-strike corps complement.

But will the BJP government negotiate such draw-downs? Apparently not, And for all the obvious reasons of retaining Pakistan as a convenient foe to beat up on for domestic political benefits.

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Army will be without arms…if it doesn’t revert to Five-year colour service

Posted on July 22, 2018 by Bharat Karnad

Indian Army Photo Uniform Editor - Army Suit maker

Figures don’t lie. The payroll expenses and the pensions and the post-retirement sustenance costs (besides pensions, access to canteen and health services for life) are barreling out of control, taking an ever bigger chunk of the exchequer. Based on the truncated one rank, one pension (OROP) accepted by the BJP government with equalization every five years (instead of every two years as suggested by the ex-servicemen’s organizations), the financial subvention for the human resources (HR) category (roughly the defence budget on revenue account + the pensions budget (with 2013 used as base year for one rank, one pension calculations) will hit the country . The scale of outgo on this account will become apparent in its totality when the 2019-20 budget is presented. But even without accounting for the OROP tsunami, the numbers are absolutely stunning. Consider the budgetary figures:

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2017-18                              2018-19

Defence Budget

 

 Rs 2,59,262 crores Rs 2,79,305 crores

 
Growth of Def Budget (%)  16.5 7.7
Rev Expenditure

 

  Rs 1,72,774 crores Rs 1,85,323 crores
Growth of Rev expend (%) 20 7
Share Rev Exp in Defbud(%) 67 66
Capital Expend Rs 86,488 crores Rs 93,982 crores-
Growth of Capital expend(%) 10 9
Share of Capital Expend (%) 33 34
Cap Acquisition (Rs In Crore) Rs 69,473 crores Rs 74,224 crores (approx)
Growth Cap Acquisition (%) -0.6 6.8 (approx)
Share of Def Budg in GDP (%) 1.54 1.49
Share of Def Bud GOIExp(%) 12.1 11.4
Defence Pension Rs 85,740 crores Rs 1,08,853 crores
Growth of Def Pension (%) 4 27

(Source: Laxman Behera, “”Defence Expenditure 2018-19”,  https://idsa.in/issuebrief/defence-budget-2018-19-controlling-manpower-cost-lkbehera-020218  )

The HR outgo for the army in 2018-19 of Rs 2,94,176 crores almost equals the total defence budget and, at the present rate of growth will, by next year, exceed it by a furlong. (For simplification of analysis purposes, the military’s pensions and revenue budgets are not here disaggregated but lumped in with the navy’s and air force’s, also because the manpower of the smaller services are dwarfed by the army’s; compared to ‘army’s strength of 1.3 million, the air force is 140,000-strong, and navy 100,000-strong.)

With the 5-yearly automatic escalator plugged in, the defence budget will, quite literally be uncontrolled or uncontrollable by the Finance Ministry (as evidenced in the 23% growth on the pensions spend in just one year), even as capital/force modernization plans will have to be sporadically funded — as is already the case now but for reasons principally of absence of inter se prioritisation — or shelved altogether because there will not be enough resources available for them. But the separation of pensions and defence budgets is a bare-faced device to divert attention and soften — on paper — the fiscal impact, because the source of the funding of all these streams is the same — the tax payer’s pocket. If one were to include the 7 paramilitary organizations in totaling the cost in terms of maintenance and pensions, the figure will be altogether humungous. As it is HR upkeep costs are crowding out the outlays for hardware procurement.

The burgeoning problem has finally attracted the government’s attention. Except, the Modi regime has resorted to controversial steps by the Ministry of Defence — covered under the rubric of the civilianization of some 752 cantonment territorial parcels and military lands all over the country –as a means of drastically cutting the expenditure in upkeeping these vast tracts of land and landed-property owned by by the MOD and hitherto set aside for exclusive armed services’ use. This solution has already riled the military and increased the sources of tension between the military and civilian sections of society, and doesn’t address the fundamental problem of the government’s financial support for the military being skewed by the mounting HR expenses. The army has also proposed other means, such as eliminating the one-star Brigadier rank and equivalent from the military. Yes, but the savings will be minimal in payroll and pension costs in any case, but will sow a lot of confusion in the interface between time-grade promoted officers (to the Lieutenant Colonel rank) and colonels destined for higher ranks by selection. And, in any case, how will this new system jell considering a brigade is the army’s fighting unit of choice? Anything smaller being sub-optimal and anything bigger unwieldy.

Oh, sure, there are other decisions the Modi government can take expeditiously to streamline, rationalize, and drastically reduce defence expenditure by, for instance, integrating the training and logistics components of the army, air force and navy into joint Training and Logistics Commands under MOD (to avoid triplication of these capabilities and of funding at each unit level), which will save  a whole lot of money. But anything integrated is shunned by the military and however desirable will not be obtained –witness the state of the realization of Chief of Defence Staff system. It has been provisionally vetoed by IAF. So the economies available by these means won’t happen, especially as Prime Minister Narendra Modi, while happily seeking votes from the large, country-wide, military Family for his OROP decision, has shown he lacks  the political will to impose structurally and organizationally re-engineered systems for the bureaucracy and armed services to operate in.

So the only way out seems to be to rejig the manpower-heavy army’s strength without hurting its war-fighting capability.  An obvious solution comes to mind that older generation officers may be partial to: Why not revert to the old five year colour (frontline regimental) service standard for the army? It will have cascading benefits for the country, besides relieving the stress on the state treasury.

India’s  population is some 1,281,935,911; of the available youthful manpower of 616 million, 489.6 million are “fit for service” with 22.9 million annually reaching military service age of 18 years. The entrant-level jawan will have to be unmarried and with a high school-leaving certificate. The five year colour service norm will mean a year for training and battle inoculation and four years of active service, at the end of which an unmarried jawan cohort will pass out of service, still young but now experienced — some of them armed with marketable technical skills in telecommunications, machinery servicing and maintenance, etc. , and each equipped also with a fat remuneration package of couple of crores of rupees paid up-front, lump-sum, to ease their passage back into civilian life and with the financial wherewithal to find their way in the world in second careers lasting a lifetime.

The gains will be numerous, among them (1) a growingly disciplined citizenry, with the ex-armymen in the van, (2) a younger, physically stronger, more lithe and agile army,  that will more readily be deployable in challenging tasks and expeditionary missions, etc. (3) a younger armed forces reserve for call-up in national emergencies, and (4) drastic reductions in the spend on pensions and post-retirement services.

At present  the army is in the worst possible situation in every respect. With the 17-year colour service norm, the average trooper is in his 30s by the time of his release — too young to live a pensioned life, but too old to start out on a new career and to lift himself further. The country has then to sustain him for the rest of his life — for the next some 40 years or more, and his survivors for the rest of their lives, completely skewing the defence budget. Worse, it radically limits the resources the nation can make available for national security generally, but more importantly, for keeping the army and the other armed forces continually modernized and technologically updated.

The country, moreover, will not have to “double dip” by having government-owned banks give loans to the young for their entreprenurial ventures — as Modi boasted in Parliament in last Friday’s vote of no confidence. The jawan graduating with 5-year’s military service behind him will be well-equipped financially and age-wise  to make it on his own.

If the paramilitary organizations were subjected to similar five or seven year frontline service norms, more Indian youth — short of compulsory national service — will be recycled and a huge dent made as regards unemployed or under-employed youth currently clogging up the economy. The demographic bomb, and not demographic dividend, is the country’s most severe existential threat.

 

 

 

Posted in asia-Pacific/Indo-Pacific, Asian geopolitics, Decision-making, domestic politics, Geopolitics, Great Power imperatives, India's strategic thinking and policy, Indian Air Force, Indian Army, Indian democracy, Indian ecobomic situation, Indian Navy, Indian para-military forces, Indian Politics, Military/military advice, SAARC, society, South Asia | 10 Comments

New Delhi must reset its overt tilt to the US

Posted on July 17, 2018 by Bharat Karnad

Image result for pics of Trump and Modi

(Friendship in fine fettle?)

Conflicting signals are emanating from Delhi. Washington cancelled the 2+2 talks scheduled for July 6 involving the foreign and defence ministers because it believed the BJP government was going off script. India indicated it would not compromise its ties with Russia and with Iran, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin elevating the bilateral relations at their May 21 “informal summit in Sochi to privileged special strategic partnership, several rungs above the plain strategic partnership with the US, and by the readying of alternative banking channels to pay for Iranian oil. But Delhi is also seeking waivers from CAATSA sanctions.

The sealing of the deal for the S-400 air defence system, the shortlisting of the St Petersburg-based Rubin submarine design bureau as foreign partner for the Navy’s Project 75i conventional submarine project, and reiterating Chabahar port as the linchpin of India’s geopolitical strategy for Afghanistan and Central Asia combined with India’s swift retaliatory tariffs on imports from the US after Indian steel, aluminium, and light manufactures were targeted by Washington reinforced the view that Delhi was doing a policy rethink. If this is indeed the case, then it is to be welcomed.

The standout feature of Prime Minister Modi’s foreign policy so far has, however, been its overt tilt to America. It undermined 70 years of India’s approach to the world of maintaining a distance from great powers, which enhanced India’s diplomatic leverage, its freedom of policy manoeuvre, and status as the arch balancer in the international system. The country’s traditional non-alignment policy was given the new raiment of “strategic autonomy” in the last decade but the central principle of balancing power did not change. Far from being outdated, this concept has attracted new adherents in the age of Donald J Trump, when the US seems to treat friendly states (in Europe and Northeast Asia) worse than it does its supposed adversaries. Contrast the rough treatment meted out to its historic allies with the soft-glove-handling of Russia, China and North Korea. It motivated the European Union last month to form a “joint interventionary military force” independent of NATO for reasons, according to an official statement, of “strategic autonomy”.

In 2016 Modi signed the Logistics Support Agreement permitting the US to stage air, naval and land forces operations out of India in the arc Perth-Simonstown. It encouraged Washington to push the two other “foundational accords” — COMCASA and BECA advertised as increasing “interoperability”. What COMCASA will also do is facilitate vertical and horizontal penetration by the US of India’s most sensitive government and military communications grids, including the nuclear Strategic Forces Command – the reason why the armed services are against signing it. The Indian government is nevertheless inclined, it is said, to sign COMCASA based on iron-clad assurances that the information gleaned from accessing Indian official communications won’t be divulged to third countries. Is the BJP government really so naïve and gullible as to deem such assurances credible considering America’s track record of untrustworthiness and duplicitous behaviour?

Washington in 1982 forewarned Pakistan about the underway joint Indo-Israeli aerial strike mission to pre-empt the threat from Pakistani nuclear weapons by bombing the uranium centrifuges complex in Kahuta resulting in the scrapping of that mission. In 1998, it revealed to Beijing the contents of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s secret note to President Bill Clinton justifying the nuclear tests because of the Chinese threat and, in 2008, it failed to convey to Delhi the definite information it had about the preparations underfoot for the Pakistan Army’s ISI-organised seaborne terrorist attack on Mumbai.

COMCASA, moreover, will enhance Russia’s fears of compromising its high-value platforms, such as the leased Akula-class nuclear-powered attack submarine and the Su-30MKI combat aircraft in India’s employ. Such agreements, besides turning India into a crypto ally, pose a danger to national security and can cause serious misunderstanding with Moscow that India can ill-afford. They are being justified on trivial grounds, that the armed maritime Guardian drone, not used by the US military, needs COMCASA uplinks.

Modi’s tilt is undergirded by his personal regard and admiration for America shored up during his travels in that country in the 1980s on his own, as a BJP functionary, and as part of the US State Department hosted tours for “young leaders”. Modi promised to raise India’s stock in the world. This won’t happen if India becomes a camp-follower.

—————

[Published in the Hindustan Times, July 17, 2018 https://www.hindustantimes.com/analysis/new-delhi-must-reset-its-overt-tilt-to-the-us/story-T0Tc65MTTtLY4dVoOLrkqI.html

 

 

 

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Reasons for not inviting Trump to India

Posted on July 15, 2018 by Bharat Karnad

 

Image result for pics of trump and modi

(Two strongman buddies)

Returned from a summer holiday to read that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is contemplating inviting US President Donald J Trump as the chief guest for the 2019 Republic Day celebrations in the expectation that this will brighten his own and the ruling BJP’s prospects in the general elections to be held no later than May next year. Well, good luck! (Though what one hears everywhere in Delhi is that Modi will hold the national elections at the same time as the Rajasthan state polls in November this year to prevent the bad effects of the anticipated rout for the Raje regime there from cascading into disastrous general election results.)

Not sure who is advising Modi about inviting Trump. May be such thinking is the result of his own instincts, and the slight acquaintanceship he established with Trump in the two meets the two strongman leaders have had to-date. Or, may be it is Ram Madhav — the PM’s RSS-affiliated adviser on foreign affairs, whose exposure to America and knowledge about Washington and generally about foreign affairs seems as thin as that of the Prime Minister, whispering into his ears. In any case, should an invite actually be sent to the White House, Modi must be prepared to see Trump end up spoiling what chances he has for re-election.

The reason is simple. Modi may think he is inviting a friend, a fellow alpha-male leader, with whom he can break bread and talk business. Except Trump is not the nice, effete, Obama of the 2016 Republic Day dais, who sat gamely through the unending parade down Rajpath. Trump will have none of it. With an extraordinarily small attention span and mercurial nature Trump is as likely as not to stalk off the VVIP reviewing platform  just as the little girls begin performing their set piece dances, etc — he has little patience for cultural things. He will reduce Modi, scampering after him, to a public joke televised to all the world to chortle over.

The fact is Trump takes special joy in mangling the agreed upon protocol and to embarrass his hosts. Ask the German chancellor Angela Merkel at the recent G-7 Meet, the French President Emmanuel Macron with his white-knuckled handshake with Trump, or better still a fellow Commonwealth leader, the British PM Theresa May who this past week discovered Trump’s disruptive attitude to every thing. To her chagrin and that of her government, the bumptious New York realty magnate thought literally nothing about bumping the British monarch, the 92-year old, Elizabeth-II, off her stride, walking ahead of her as they reviewed the House Guard troops in their bearskin hats.  It was comical to see the poor doddering old queen trying to squeeze in ahead of Trump, and still later at the state dinner, kept waiting, fidgeting, looking lost and upset, for a goodly amount of time — in real time 12 minutes, in protocol time, an age —  as she awaited the US President. But that was not all. On the eve of his departure for London, in an interview to a tabloid — which by the way is the max level of seriousness he can muster at his best, Trump blasted May for seeking a soft Brexit  that retains some economic and other linkages with the European Union, and stoked the embers of Conservative Party revolt against May, and the next day when he met with the British PM at Checquers — the British PM’s country residence, walked back his criticism and suggested that nothing was amiss in the bilateral relations — as if all the ruckus he had created hadn’t happened. He had planned to meet with arch Brexiteers — Nigel Farage and May’s cabinet colleague Jacob Rees-Mogg with a view to giving May the shove over the edge but Whitehall put its foot down, said he couldn’t meet with them on this official visit.

Trump has made no bones about the fact that he loves dealing with “strongman” leaders, such as the Russian and North Korean Presidents Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un, whom he respected, he has said, because they had played their cards strongly,  calling them not rivals or adversaries but “competitors”. (See the report in the Guardian,  https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jul/15/donald-trump-defends-vladimir-putin-funny-kim-jong-un-russia-north-korea. Putin and Kim are leaders Trump likes because they deal with him as an equal, each of them capable and quite ready to do Trump and the US harm if they are pushed to do so.

Modi is not in this category of strongmen that Trump likes, because the hugs and the bonhomie when they meet  apart, the Indian PM greets Trump with the perennial begging bowl — pleading for something or the other — concessions on H1B visas, lately waivers from CAATSA sanctions on Russian arms and Iranian oil, trade concessions, etc. A supplicant can be coerced and manipulated, his country’s interests can be disregarded. Hence Modi and India do not command Trump’s respect or his regard and attention. The Indian leader can thus be trifled with. Had Modi from the beginning assumed the attitude of he and India wanting nothing from Trump and the US, but making it plain his government would wield access to the second largest market in the world as leverage, and that India would be the international system balancer as between US and China, China and Russia, and Russia and the US, and no nonsense about it, he’d have telegraphed the right message to the White House.

I had written in July 2016 — some 4 months before Trump’s election in November that year, that Trump would be “good for India” because he will treat it as a 2nd-rate country, leaving Delhi  “with no alternative than to fend for itself and safeguard its extended interests. It will be a signal departure in that India will, per force, have to discard the habit of leaning on foreign countries for anything, ruthlessly pare the government and the public sector, task the private sector with the bulk of economic effort, including achieving self-sufficiency in armaments, and, with regard to foreign and military policies, insert steel in them, make them disruptive, reorient Indian diplomacy towards realpolitik, and enable India to emerge as an independent power that friends and foes alike fear and respect as much for its clout as its unpredictability.” [See  http://www.openthemagazine.com/article/politics/why-donald-trump-is-good-for-india and re-published in this blog of July 29. 2016] Such was not the sort of thinking that informed Modi’s government or the Indian media, for that matter, whence the hole India is in vis a vis the US.

What’s the best way to deal with Trump? At the underway Helsinki summit, Putin means “to take advantage” of Trump being “a moron…, a novice to be played” [See the story in the UK paper The Independent, July  15, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/trump-putin-summit-latest-helsinki-a8447671.html ]

Trouble is Modi can’t play Trump for a moron because the Indian PM lacks Putin’s strategic vision, and nerve, verve and the skill-set to play hardball with any country other than the piddling Pakistan. So should Modi indeed decide to invite Trump — it will be Trump’s show — not Modi’s, at India’s Republic Day 2019, and the Indian PM will stand belittled, gutting what hope he now nurses of continuing to reside at 7, Race Course Road for another 5 years.

So, if there is any residual sense left in the Indian government then DON’T INVITE TRUMP to anything. Get India’s game up and going, introduce steel in the country’s foreign and military policies, don’t snivel before China,  seek no considerations from the US on any issue, and ditch the “foundational accords”.  The H1B visa types and the Indian IT industry will take care of themselves. If they fail to take this advice Modi and his crew will have to look back ruefully at this post for the warning that went unheeded.

Posted in asia-Pacific/Indo-Pacific, Asian geopolitics, China, civil-military relations, Decision-making, Defence Industry, domestic politics, Europe, Geopolitics, India's China Policy, India's strategic thinking and policy, Indian Air Force, Indian Army, Indian ecobomic situation, Indian Navy, Iran and West Asia, MEA/foreign policy, Military Acquisitions, Military/military advice, nonproliferation, North Korea, Northeast Asia, Nuclear Weapons, Relations with Russia, Russia, russian military, SAARC, South Asia, Strategic Relations with the US & West, United States, US., Weapons, West Asia | 18 Comments

Why the Tejas cost is high

Posted on June 29, 2018 by Bharat Karnad

Image result for pics of tejas lca

(Tejas — up and away)

There has been some public handwringing over the unit cost of the Tejas LCA.  Most of it motivated, from the same quarters that had repeatedly doubted whether the aircraft would be other than a paper plane and, as the project progressed and began passing technical milestones, whether it would ever match up to specs and, when it began proving its druthers as a fighting platform, whether it would ever be an operationally fit aircraft — recall the then  CAS ACM PV Naik’s contemptuous dismissal of this home-grown fighter not that many years ago as “a three-legged cheetah”? — to now when there’s little doubt about the warplane’s bonafides — as it is a damn good combat aircraft that can give any import a run for India’s money. So these import-lovers and skeptics are toggling at the  comparative cost angle, per chance, to derail any which way  the LCA-variants-AMCA procurement programme, and get the IAF back to the good old way of doing business — buying aircraft abroad.

A recent Indian Express story (June 27) on the topic revealed that HAL charges Rs 463 crore for the Tejas Mk-1A  versus Rs 363 crore for the original LCA, and  Rs 415 crore for the Su-30MKI built at Nashik (compared to Rs 330 crore if sourced from Russia). The figures for foreign aircraft on offer are Rs 544 crore for the Swedish Gripen, and Rs 380 crore for the US’ F-16 Block 70. And one can be certain that once the race hots up the Sukhoi Bureau will bring the costs of the Su-35 also in the race, below that of any of these aircraft. So, where’s this cost-based argument headed? You guessed it — right up Saab’s, Lockheed Martin’s, Sukhoi’s and, now that the race has been thrown open to all comers and not restricted to single engine aircraft, Dassault’s,  doors (for additional French Rafale).

Rs 463 figure seems inflated, but won’t quibble over the numbers in this post. This is high. But why?

Ever since erstwhile defence minister Manohar Parrikar rightly decreed that HAL would, like Boeing, Lockheed, EADS, Saab, and Dassault, be the prime integrator for the Tejas and not its manufacturer, the work along with the production modules were transferred  to various private sector entities. Thus, the LCA’s composite wing structure and assembly is done by L&T at its plant in Coimbatore, VEM Hyderabad, outputs the fuselage, Tata Advanced Materials  is responsible for the fin and rudder assembly, and so on. This is a wonderful production schemata and the reason why I have been advocating that ADA also transfer the know-why — the source codes of the Tejas, the operational algorithms et al to competent  private sector companies so that they can begin designing combat and other aircraft, and right now open whole new Tejas production lines — in addition to the two at HAL, so the LCA can be mass produced for accelerated induction into the IAF. The fact that Tejas are not coming out fast enough out of the factories is used  to argue for importing planes to meet “urgent” needs. With many companies producing the Tejas and its follow-on variants and the successor 5th gen fighter plane, AMCA,  for the IAF and for exports, it will ensure economies of scale, bring down the unit price, and send the Indian defence industry as a whole rocketing.

But what is at issue presently  is the price that HAL charges the IAF for each Tejas. Here HAL resorts to its standard pricing trick to ensure that it makes “profit” and maintains a healthy financial bottom line, and keeps in check those in and out of government baying for privatizing loss-making DPSUs. Like the other ‘nav ratna’ DPSUs, HAL adds 30% to the price charged by the private company for the out-sourced work.  To the cost and profit charged by each of the firms with the Tejas production modules, HAL adds 30%. So the price escalates.

MOD can challenge this rentier attitude of the HAL and cap HAL’s margins at 5%-10% on the total cost of the Tejas and bar this DPSU from marking-up the cost by 30% for each of the aircraft’s major assemblies — the reason why HAL is staying financially afloat considering it is not cost-competitive with the private sector defence industrial firms. If this is done — and HAL’s margin thus contained then, voila!, you have a price that no imported aircraft can ever match, and why the Tejas can be a runaway bestseller in the developing world that desires an economical but advanced fighter plane, and which is being taken to the cleaners as India has been and still is, by foreign aviation companies.

What chance that the 5%-10% recommendation as maximum overall HAL margin is accepted by the MOD  committee that’s been set up to scrutinize the Tejas price line and suggest ways of paring it? Zero.

Because such extortionist costing schemes are at the heart of the effort to keep alive the DPSU sector and is supported by the department of defence production in MOD — the guardian of the DPSU interests. This department doesn’t care what’s good for the country, it cares only about its remit which is to ensure, by any and all means,  that the DPSUs and OFB keep their heads above water, to the detriment of economic good sense and the national interest.

So, now you know why the price tag for the Tejas is Rs 463 crore.

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What use is the Rafale and the French connection?

Posted on June 24, 2018 by Bharat Karnad

 

Image result for pics of the rafale on factory floor

(Rafale being put together at the Dassault plant in Merignac)

Senior Air staff officers have, of late, been talking confidently of the combo of the 6,000 air defence missiles ordered as part of the S-400 system that India is buying from Russia and the Su-30MKI (hopefully upgraded to “super Sukhoi” configuration that will convert IAF’s Su-30 squadrons into a fleet of near FGFAs) as being more than sufficient to handle PLA Air Force (PLAAF) on the Tibet-Arunachal front. The front line role of the Sukhois against the stronger, more comprehensively capable adversary, China, raises the question of what good exactly the Rafale combat aircraft  in the force  will do.

It is the warplane the service hankered for and, with the BJP Govt acceding mindlessly to its demand, the country is finding that the deal comes with a bagful of troubles for the country, and for Modi. Have always maintained that the 36 Rafales in the fleet will be mainly for showboating purposes — too valuable to send into battle against the swarming PAF’s JF-17s and too few to overwhelm anybody but easy to be overwhelmed. If the IAF brass believed that 36 Rafales were merely the proverbial foot in the door to compel the govt to let more of these aircraft enter the fleet later on, then they misread the political situation. The additional Rafale option is a non-starter for two reasons: Paucity of funds and the fact that the Rafale has drawn corruption charges from Rahul Gandhi.

An empty treasury is a fact. The only major defence deal that Modi plonked for unbidden, now looks like a millstone round his neck. Not just in terms of the Rs 70,000 crores-odd crores thus committed that could have been better spent elsewhere, but in terms of the controversy attending on it. The opposition parties will go to town about Modi govt’s corruption and about Reliance Defence chosen by Dassault Avions as its Indian partner. Recall, that Dassault said it could not work with HAL or guarantee the performance of the Rafale outputted by it because of  the DPSU’s lax work floor habits and bad quality control mechanisms, but ended up choosing Reliance Defence, with zero aircraft production experience or facility, as its partner. One can be certain that to buttress its case the opposition will allude to PM’s “crony capitalists “, especially as Dassault will use the 50% offset clause to build up Reliance Defence to a basic, aircraft assembly, level, rather than raise India’s competence in the field, by investing in the augmentation of HAL’s capability.

There are the first intimations of chill coursing down Modi regime’s spine — the fear of being a one-termer. The bureaucracy being the bellwether for such transitions, things are beginning to slow down. It is the situation going awry at home and the America-tilted policy not panning out — with Trump actively targeting India and Indian industry on H1B, WTO, Indian exports of steel, aluminum and light manufactures, that forced the PM and his PMO to do a rethink, which has been happening for a while now. PM dialed up Moscow for succour, the recent summit in Sochi followed, and ties with Russia were  elevated to “special privileged partnership”. Modi and Putin agreed to set up a special rupee-rouble payment scheme to avoid getting caught in America’s CAATSA trap. While this will not pull India and Russia back to the easy credit-friendship prices Soviet era, it does reaffirm Russia as the default option for military procurement.

So, what’s all this got to do with Rafale? With Russia’s position strengthening relative to other foreign arms suppliers, IAF saw the writing on the wall and sought to make the best of a bad situation that the brass had begun to apprehend. It hoped to marry the prohibitively expensive Meteor air-to-air missile that came as part of the Rafale weapons suite along with the Scalp A2G missile, with the best aircraft in its inventory the Su-30, except the missile maker –the French-led European missile consortium — MBDA refused to integrate the Meteor with the Su-30 and, to salt the wound, refused to do it for the indigenous Tejas LCA as well.  A preliminary agreement has been signed for the Rafale but not a detailed  contract.

India can decide that because of MBDA’s pigheadedness, it will nullify the Rafale contract. Indeed, any self-respecting country would do that — the French are not handing over the Rafale as act of charity but taking home billions of euros for it. The buyer is king in the arms business. But the Indian government acts as if Dassault is sovereign and France cannot be denied. IAF and GOI are so used to thus being  jerked around by foreign countries, they think this is the normal.

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India is courting peril by aligning militarily with the United States

Posted on June 21, 2018 by Bharat Karnad

Image result for pics of trump and Modi

 

The nixing of the Iran nuclear deal, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and the Paris Agreement are only some of the many ways that the United States has alienated its closest allies.1 President Donald Trump has already roiled the milieu by demanding that allies do more for themselves and rely less on his country.2 The United States, an inconsistent and unreliable friend even under prior US administrations, has increasingly become a feeble and feckless ally. Increasing military alignment, let alone a strategic partnership, with the United States would be a liability for India.

The dangers of partnering with the United States have only grown during the Trump administration. Trump’s decision-making method is, according to one former US intelligence official, based “less on fact and evidence and more on feeling, preference, emotion, grievance, tribe, loyalty”.3 Trump’s belief system sees the United States being “ripped off” in multilateral forums and that better terms are only obtainable on a bilateral basis. His world view is that of an economically-strapped and exploited America, its wealth decanted through unfair trade transactions and military pacts requiring the United States to expend its resources while allies strengthen their economies and free-ride on security. How can India expect to benefit from aligning itself with such a destabilising commander-in-chief?

India is no exception to Trump’s wrath

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been no exception to Trump’s scant respect for allied leaders, negligible interest in addressing what allied leaders want, and unreasonable expectations of loyalty.4 While Trump reciprocated the Indian leader’s trademark public hugs during Modi’s June 2017 Washington visit and made the usual noises about shared democratic values, Trump soon thereafter stuck it to India.5 Despite Modi’s fervent appeals, the Trump administration weakened India’s flagship US$167 billion information technology industry by all but killing off H1B visas — a generally tech-focused visa, of which some 70 per cent go to Indians.6 Furthermore, the United States has imposed tariffs on Indian steel, aluminium and engineering goods, accused India’s cost-competitive pharmaceutical industry of price-fixing, and challenged the Indian government’s agricultural subsidy scheme at the World Trade Organization.7 These measures reflect an attitude that is not just unsympathetic to Indian concerns but inimical to India’s national interest.

The Debate Papers

Weak on China and indifferent to Indian security

The basic geostrategic reason for India and the United States getting together is ostensibly to balance China’s power in Asia. As a candidate, Trump promised that he’d label China a “currency manipulator”, put Beijing under economic pressure, and join Asian states and Australia in arresting the spread of Chinese power and influence in the Indo-Pacific region. As president, however, he seems eager to humour Chinese President Xi Jinping and, far from penalising China, has reversed the technology ban on the Chinese telecommunications giant ZTE, tweeting that this would have cost “too many jobs in China” — the sort of solicitousness not shown towards India.8

With Washington spurning the hard line with China, it will likely flinch in military crises involving its Asian partners and the People’s Liberation Army.9 In this regard, Trump virtually urged Japan to get its own nuclear weapons.10 He has not, however, encouraged India to resume nuclear testing (barred by the 2008 Indo-US civilian nuclear cooperation deal) and secure for itself a proven thermonuclear arsenal (because the fusion device tested in 1998 had fizzled) even though it would be an Asian deterrent to China’s aggression, and lessen the military dilemma for the United States.11

Indeed, the nuclear deal is only the latest diplomatic contrivance in a series of US nonproliferation policies and actions from the early 1960s when the Indian nuclear energy program reached the weapons threshold. The US aim thereafter was to prevent India from obtaining nuclear weapons and, post-1998, proven thermonuclear armaments and intercontinental ballistic missiles.12 Given that its extended deterrence policy lacks credibility, Washington’s continued antipathy to India emerging as a thermonuclear weapons-armed Asian military counterweight suggests an absence of trust and Washington’s desire to keep India from becoming an independent power.

Few dividends for India from US alignment

Trust is the glue binding strategic partnerships. Its absence ensures that geopolitical plans remain only intentions. A trust deficit has always marred Indo-US relations, with Washington continually disregarding contractual obligations, retroactively changing agreements, and imposing economic and technology sanctions that have hurt India’s growth prospects and disabled its fighting capabilities.13

Post-nuclear deal, the United States has not walked the talk, even denying India high technology already accessed by China.14 The US-Indian Defence Technology and Trade Initiative, created in 2012 to help increase defence ties between the two nations, has yet to produce any collaborative projects in advanced military technology. Yet India is nonetheless still asked to seed trust by buying more high-cost, non-lethal goods (transport and P-8I maritime surveillance aircraft) and obsolete weapons systems — F-16 combat aircraft, M-777 howitzers, etc.15

Finding support outside of the United States

Juxtaposed with Moscow’s supply of frontline weapons systems (Sukhoi Su-30MKI fighter planes, T-90 tanks, and leasing of the nuclear-powered Akula-II-class SSNs) and assistance to sensitive indigenous projects like the nuclear-powered ballistic missile-firing Arihant-class submarine, and America ends up looking less like a friend than a proto-adversary intent on keeping India down.

It is an impression reinforced by the US Congress denying India the waiver from sanctions under Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) targeting Russia and sought by Defense Secretary James Mattis.16 CAATSA will seriously hurt the Indian military considering 70 per cent of its equipment is of Russian origin. The twist here lies in the hint by some in US policy circles that CAATSA’s impact would be especially mitigated if India followed up the Logistics Support Agreement by signing the Communications Compatibility and Security Agreement (COMCASA).17 But COMCASA, the Indian armed forces fear, will permit the United States to penetrate – vertically and horizontally – the official communications network, including the country’s strategic forces’ command and control links, which is an unacceptable outcome.18

Far from getting Delhi to thin its ties with Russia, CAATSA led Modi to a mini-summit with President Vladimir Putin on 21 May 2018. There, Indo-Russian ties were upgraded to, in Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s words, a “special privileged strategic partnership”.19 Maybe the Indian government is waking up to the unpleasant reality that it is more onerous to have America as a friend than foe, because an adversary at least knows where it stands with Washington.

End-notes

  1. Ken Thomas, “US will need to give Kim Jong Un security assurances: Pompeo”, AP, ABC News.go.com, May 13, 2018, https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/pompeo-us-give-kim-jong-security-assurances-55129977https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/pompeo-us-give-kim-jong-security-assurances-55129977↩
  2. Jon Henley, “Angela Merkel: EU cannot completely rely on US and Britain anymore”, The Guardian, 28 May 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/28/merkel-says-eu-cannot-completely-rely-on-us-and-britain-any-more-g7-talks ↩
  3. This according to General Michael V. Hayden former director, CIA. See Fareed Zakaria GPS, CNN Live Today, May 13, 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24Ht34aUBIo↩
  4. Matthew Karnitschnig, “Analysis: Trump nukes Europe’s Iranian dreams”, Politico.com, May 9, 2018, https://www.politico.eu/article/trump-nukes-europes-iranian-dreams/; Rebecca Morin, “Trump team sends mixed signals to Europe”, Politico.com, May 13, 2018, https://www.politico.com/story/2018/05/13/bolton-pompeo-trump-iran-sanctions-584206 ↩
  5. “Trump: Relations with India better than ever” – White House speech welcoming Modi, June 26, 2017, CNN, https://edition.cnn.com/2018/02/07/opinions/trump-india-china-opinion-andelman/index.html ↩
  6. “Why the American dream just got tougher”, Times of India, April 2, 2018, https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/india-business/h-1b-visa-why-the-american-dream-just-got-tougher/articleshow/63576179.cms “H-1B visa approvals for Indian companies drop sharply: Report”, NDTV Profit, April 25, 2018, https://www.ndtv.com/business/h-1b-visa-approvals-for-indian-it-companies-drop-sharply-between-2015-17-report-1842507; “India’s IT, ITeS exports clocked $111 billion in 2016-17: ESC data”, Business Standard, January 25, 2018, http://www.business-standard.com/article/technology/india-s-it-ites-exports-clocked-111-billion-in-2016-17-esc-data-118012501003_1.html; “IT and ITeS industry in India”, India Brand Equity Foundation, April 2018, https://www.ibef.org/industry/information-technology-india.aspx ↩
  7. Kirtika Suneja, “India to check if US’ move to hike duties on steel, aluminum follows global norms”, Economic Times, March 5, 2018, https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/economy/policy/india-to-check-if-us-move-to-hike-duties-on-steel-aluminium-follows-global-trade-norms/articleshow/63164621.cms; E Kumar Sharma, “Price fixing allegations, a new worry to deal with for some leading Indian pharma companies in the US”, Business Today, November 3, 2017, https://www.businesstoday.in/sectors/pharma/price-fixing-allegations-indian-pharma-companies-in-the-us/story/263225.html; Jayshree Sengupta, “A toothless and weak WTO”, The Tribune, March 27, 2018, http://www.tribuneindia.com/news/comment/a-toothless-weak-wto/564012.html ↩
  8. Ana Swanson, Mark Landler & Keith Bradsher, “Trump shifts from trade war to concessions in rebuff to hardliners”, New York Times, May 14, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/14/business/china-trump–zte.html. And, recall that Trump billed himself (during the 2016 presidential campaign) as India’s “true friend in the White House”. For this Trump quote refer footnote # 6.↩
  9. “US, China drop tariffs, put trade war on hold”, Reuters, Times of India, May 21, 2018↩
  10. Jesse Johnson, “Trump warns China it could face ‘big problem’ with ‘warrior nation” Japan over North Korea”, Japan Times, Nov 4, 2017, https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2017/11/04/national/politics-diplomacy/trump-warns-china-face-big-problem-warrior-nation-japan-north-korea/#.Wvu-8u8vzIU ↩
  11. Bharat Karnad, Nuclear Weapons and Indian Security: The Realist Foundations of Strategy, Second edition [New Delhi: Macmillan India, 2005, 2002], 607-647. ↩
  12. Ibid, 179-196, ↩
  13. Bharat Karnad, Why India is Not a Great Power (Yet) [New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2015], 187-219.↩
  14. Thus, the US approved the Israeli use of the Elta 2032 computer, and not the more powerful Elta 2052 computer, in the Indian AESA (Active Electronically Scanned Array) radar project for the indigenous Tejas Light Combat Aircraft while allowing the transfer of the Elta 2052 computer technology to China. See Karnad, Why India is Not a Great Power (Yet), 186.↩
  15. See fn #13.↩
  16. Yashwant Raj, “US defence secretary James Mattis seeks waiver for India from sanctions on Russia”, Hindustan Times, April 27, 2018, https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/us-defence-secretary-james-mattis-seeks-waiver-for-india-from-sanctions-on-russia/story-9OErUOwDva2YTb5cKOBJML.html ↩
  17. Indian official sources; unattributable.↩
  18. Karnad, Why India is Not a Great Power (Yet), 201-207.↩
  19. Jayanth Jacob, “Defence buys won’t be dictated by US: India on Russia sanctions”, Hindustan Times, May 18, 2018; “PM-Putin meet elevates ties to ‘spl privileged strategic partnership’”, Times of India, May 22, 2018.↩
  20. https://in.usembassy.gov/u-s-india-defense-relations-fact-sheet-december-8-2016/; https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/05/world/asia/india-russia-s-400-missiles.html↩
  21. https://www.cna.org/cna_files/pdf/DRM-2016-U-013926-Final2.pdf↩
  22. https://www.defensenews.com/home/2016/06/07/us-names-india-major-defense-partner/↩
  23. https://carnegieendowment.org/2015/04/22/u.s.-and-india-should-collaborate-to-counter-china-in-indian-ocean-pub-59887↩
  24. https://www.defense.gov/News/Article/Article/1325107/mattis-meeting-with-indian-defense-minister-comes-at-time-of-strategic-converge↩
  25. http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/08/09/will-china-and-india-go-to-war-over-this-tiny-12-mile-strip-of-land-border-dispute-bhutan/↩
  26. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.KD.ZG↩
  27. http://www.business-standard.com/article/economy-policy/india-s-population-to-surpass-china-s-by-2030-un-report-117062600039_1.html↩
  28. http://mea.gov.in/press-releases.htm?dtl/27019/Statement_on_Award_of_Arbitral_Tribunal_on_South_China_Sea_Under_Annexure_VII_of_UNCLOS↩
  29. https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/india-feeling-the-heat-on-belt-and-road/↩
  30. https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/why-india-missed-china-s-belt-and-road-summit↩
  31. http://www.pmindia.gov.in/en/major_initiatives/make-in-india/↩
  32. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/india-business/f-16-jet-production-in-india-will-be-exclusive-lockheed/articleshow/63365324.cms↩

[Published as a ‘Debate Paper’ on the subject “Should India Increase Military alignment with the United States?”, The United States Studies Centre, University of Sydney, Australia, 21 June 2018, https://www.ussc.edu.au/analysis/should-india-increase-military-alignment-with-the-united-states-the-debate-papers ]

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