A perceptive American view on US Arms Sales to South Asian states

Posted on May 5, 2016 by Bharat Karnad

An insightful view of arms transfers to South Asia by a former American diplomat who served in the Delhi Embassy. Published in ‘American Diplomacy’, April 2016 and accessible at http://www.unc.edu/depts/diplomat/item/2016/0106/ca/dorschner_arms.html.
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Are South Asian Arms Sales in the U.S. National Interest?
The Foreign Policy Implications
by Jon P. Dorschner

In 1989 I wrote an article urging the United States to stop selling weapons in South Asia.1 It took a liberal stance, arguing that such a step would enable the U.S. to occupy the moral high ground. The U.S. should not sell expensive weapons systems to some of the poorest countries on earth. The U.S. sells weapons to both India and Pakistan, which they then use in senseless wars against each other. The U.S. reduces its credibility as an honest broker by selling weapons to both protagonists, and cannot honestly mediate the Indo/Pakistan conflict.

In his latest book Indian security analyst Bharat Karnad2 approaches this issue from a very different perspective. Karnad is a hardcore realist. He wants India to assume its rightful place among the world’s “great powers” and become a formidable military power. However, he sees Indian dependence on weapons systems imported from the United States and other developed nations as a drag on Indian potential. He calls for India to eschew imports and embark on a radical indigenization program to replace imported arms with those made by an expanded Indian arms industry that includes both the public and private sectors.

At first glance it appear there is considerable light between the liberal take and Karnad’s realist stance. In actuality, there is considerable overlap. Arms imports drain the Indian national exchequer. They consume valuable resources better spent on economic development and poverty alleviation. India’s number one problem is poverty. Unless and until India makes sufficient inroads into its excruciatingly high poverty rate, it will never become a world power.

Karnad correctly asserts that India could produce practically everything needed by its armed forces if it took the necessary steps to mobilize its potential. Such a development would have a profound positive impact on India’s economic development. Instead of spending valuable hard currency abroad, India would use its funds to put its own people to work. Indigenous weapons systems would be considerably cheaper than imported ones, freeing up funding for investment in Indian infrastructure and social programs. India could change from an arms importer to an arms exporter, further boosting the Indian economy.

As a realist, Karnad insists all foreign policy decisions must benefit India’s national interest. The same holds true for American foreign policy decisions. The overwhelming majority of American policy makers shares Karnad’s realist orientation and utilizes the same national interest test when making decisions for the United States.

There are plenty of liberal arguments for the United States to get out of the arms business in South Asia. By selling high-ticket weapons systems, the United States is an accomplice to South Asian policy makers who place weapons purchases above poverty reduction. Taking a moral stance against such policies increases American soft power by increasing American credibility. Imagine if the U.S. announced that instead of competing for billions of dollars in weapons contracts, it would market alternative energy systems to India, or work with the Indian public health sector to help improve the country’s medical infrastructure. American companies would reap enormous economic benefits from such projects. While the American arms industry is a powerful player in the American economy, it is only one sector. Must arms sales drive U.S. policy even when they do not benefit U.S. national interest?

But realist arguments can be used to advocate the same policy. Karnad and American realists share the same security concerns. They are worried about the balance of power in Asia. They see a rising China as a potential security threat, and believe China is seeking to become the Asian hegemon. Both Indian and American policy makers do not want to see this happen. They are determined to ensure India’s future security and prevent Chinese hegemony in Asia.

India must devise and implement a military policy aimed at ensuring its security from its principal threat. The principal threat is China, not Pakistan. While India and Pakistan have fought repeated military conflicts, no one seriously argues that Pakistan poses an existential threat to India. To the contrary, realists agree that it is in the national interest of both India and Pakistan to end their military confrontation and begin cooperation to ensure economic development of the region. South Asia’s inability to establish a credible free trade zone holds all South Asian countries back and prevents economic development. All the ingredients have long been in place for a rapprochement between India and Pakistan based not on mutual affection but mutual interests. Realists are the first to argue that sentimentality plays no role in foreign policy formulation. States cooperate not out of affection but national interest.

Eventually, Indian and Pakistani policymakers will agree on this fact and find the courage to take the necessary steps to make this happen. The terrorist threat in Pakistan may prove to be the necessary catalyst. There is a growing realization in the Pakistani military that it needs peace with India to free up military resources to tackle the existential threat posed by Islamic militancy. Pakistan has diverted military forces from the Indian border to counter-terrorist operations. This has not reduced Pakistani security.

While India hopes to “manage” its relationship with China through diplomatic engagement, the Chinese threat will always be present and will only grow as China increases its military and economic power and becomes more assertive. The China/India border is not properly demarcated and protracted India/China border talks have made no progress. China continues to claim large tracts of Indian territory. To meet this security challenge, India must extricate itself from the India/Pakistan dispute and recalibrate its military. Ending its reliance on arms imports will make India stronger and its military more credible. It will provide India with the infrastructure to defend itself in a protracted conflict without worrying about potential arms embargos by foreign arms suppliers.

American policy makers should realize that the indigenization of the Indian arms procurement process in in the national interest of both countries. A stronger and more credible Indian military provides India with more options. This is because it can defend itself without relying on foreign patrons. This client/patron relationship has long been a source of humiliation for India that has prevented genuine close relations. It removal would make it easier for the United States and India to cooperate on a more equal basis to help provide security in Asia.

This would have a big impact on nuclear weapons in South Asia. India’s growing superiority in conventional military capability compels Pakistan to rely more and more on nuclear weapons. If India took concrete steps to convince Pakistan it has no designs on Pakistani sovereignty, it would remove Pakistan’s sense of insecurity and allow the two countries could begin to stand back from the brink.

An India militarily self-sufficient in conventional military hardware is more capable of providing its own security and less reliant on nuclear weapons, making it easier for India and Pakistan to negotiate credible limits on their nuclear arsenals. Nuclear weapons programs are incredibly expensive and serious economic drains. As both countries build more nuclear weapons and integrate them into their defense plans, the danger of nuclear war (either intentional or accidental) increases exponentially. Pakistan cannot continue to keep spending valuable resources on a massive nuclear arsenal aimed only at intimidating India.

Notes
1. “A Farewell to U.S. Arms on the Indian Subcontinent,” The Secretary’s Open Forum Options, Summer, 1989
2. Why India is not a Great Power (Yet), Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2015

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How the system of bribery works in military — Agusta-Westland case

Posted on May 2, 2016 by Bharat Karnad

In the context of huge bribes/payoffs being basic to the Indian military procurement system, and which reputation has been burnished with every big arms deal since the Jaguar deal in the late Seventies — the trend-setter in this respect, the foreign vendor companies happily and eagerly make illegal payments to secure rich, perpetually paying, contracts. This system of bribery/payoffs for military buys is entrenched and flourishes and is based on three conditions: (1) The political top order’s treating procurement of military hardware as channel for making often huge amounts of money ostensibly for the ruling party but actually to enrich itself, (2) a crooked service chief inclined to make his tenure as profitable (in the filthy lucre sense) for himself as possible, and (3) the chief exercising his administrative right to post any senior officer anywhere, carefully selecting officers for certain key posts in the service hierarchy on the basis of his having come to know over the years as persons willing to bend a little or a lot and otherwise to facilitate the skimming off of the cream in arms deals.

The most important thing for a service chief with a mind to laying his hands on a helluva lot of ill-gotten funds from arms contracts in the pipeline is to post the right sort of pliable officers as Deputy Chief (Plans) and the Assistant Chief (Plans). As reward for being pliant these two officers can expect to benefit from the payoffs and/or get guaranteed sought after postings post-time as Assistant Chief (Plans) and Deputy Chief (Plans). With these two posts filled with your own men, the path is cleared for the service chief to rake in the monies.

Now consider what happened in the Agusta-Westland VVIP helicopter deal with the Italian firm Finmeccanica. Soon after the Congress Party returned to power in 2004, the grapevine was that the VVIP helo deal on the anvil was to be milked, that the word had come down from the political high that the new regime was sticking with the Agusta-Westland rotary aircraft selection, and the IAF better get a move on with the procurement process. The political was managed by, yes, “AP” in the Italian court documents, who the media has speculated is Ahmed Patel — the closest confidante of Sonia Gandhi, but the routing had to be through the distaff side of the First Congress family with varied business interests.

The Central Bureau of Investigation is on the right track by calling in the then Deputy Chief of Air Staff (Plans) Air Marshal JS Gujral (retd) for questioning. Assuming he’s prepared to sing, there’s no better placed person to explain just what happened and how in the Agusta deal with the then Chief of Air Staff Air Chief Marshal SP Tyagi in the saddle. Tyagi has been named, along with the strangely sissyish-named first cousins of his from Chandigarh — longtime middlemen in import deals — the entire caboodle comprising the “Fratelli Tyagi” of the Italian indictment. But why is ex-chief Tyagi fairly confident Gujral will reveal nothing? Because as the protocol among thieves goes, if you rat to the authorities, there’s goods against you too that will be leaked to the same investigators. Gujral is thus stuck even as Tyagi, who the BJP govt is intent on sending to the slammer, is twisting slowly in the wind. Unless SP Tyagi’s association with the Vivekananda International Foundation — NSA Ajit Doval’s baby, can save him, which isn’t likely because then the ruling party won’t be able to get to the Gandhis — Sonia, Rahul, Priyanka (and Vadra) via Ahmed Patel and his characteristic role reportedly as bagman for the family.

But how did the payoffs reach SP Tyagi? Tyagi is listed as a consultant to the software development firm IDS Chandigarh owned by Tyagi cousins. What Tyagi knows about software one cannot say for certain, except to note he’d barely to do much advising besides identifying a laptop computer. So the consultancy was the payoff route to the former air chief, with the Italian vendor possibly using the IDS Chandigarh as the channel, perhaps, handing over a CD with some software development information which could be passed off as part of the offsets obligation worth $10-odd million.

CBI may already be on to this SP Tyagi payoff mode.

The larger issue remains unaddressed though. And it is not just the Western vendor companies that are in the business of buying into arms deals in the above fashion. The Russians have been just as active, where IAF is concerned, starting with the Su-30MKI contract. If the BJP is serious about making the defence procurement system “corruption mukt”, about rooting out corruption, it can task CBI to do time bound investigations beginning with the Su-30 deal in the 1990s and every procurement contract since then, including for the MiG- 21 bis upgrade, British Hawk, the Mirage 2000, the Mirage 2000 upgrade, and now the Rafale. Were the CBI to dig a bit it’ll find a whole slate of Chiefs of Air Staff, Deputy Chiefs of Air Staff, and Assistant Chiefs of Air Staff to hunt down. To just hang Tyagi or some other service chief would be to leave the corruption system in place intact.

MOD has to also alter the system to take the administrative power of posting away from service chiefs and to seriously vet officers shortlisted for the posts of deputy chief (plans) and assistant chief (plans) of all the services before they are appointed. That will be the first and significant step to end the rot in the military.

Prime minister Narendra Modi and defence minister Manohar Parrikar have so far proved they are clean and above board. They can make this basic systemic change in the military service chiefs’ authority to make it impossibly difficult for the political top order in the future to initiate corrupt deals and see them through to fruition. This small change will be like taking an ax to a major source of corruption in government — the biggest, most lethal, internal security threat to the Indian republic, and far more dangerous than terrorism, Naxalism, or even extremist Islam. Corruption has already eaten away at the entrails of the government, the armed services, and the nation.

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Losing face and its awful consequences

Posted on May 1, 2016 by Bharat Karnad

Nothing is more degrading in the Chinese mindview and cultural outlook than to lose face to a foreigner or in, international affairs, to a foreign country. By the same token to induce loss of face in an adversary is the ultimate triumph as token of acknowledgement by the rival of one’s superior status. Beijing managed to do just this, compel New Delhi to back down on the issue of visas to political dissidents which, as stated in an earlier post, does not fall within the purview of Interpol’s red corner notice. The BJP government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has still not realized the magnitude of disaster it has brought on with its rank kowtow to China.

The question is how did this happen? The scapegoating of Home Ministry by MEA for this entirely avoidable self-inflicted diplomatic and political self-goal and injury is laughable were the consequences not so far reaching. So,let’s deconstruct this GOI decision because, make no mistake, this was largely a PMO decision.

Is it even conceivable that the matter of visas to the Uyghur dissident Dolkun Isa and the two human rights campaigners from HongKong was thought up independently by MEA? No. So this was an exclusively PMO initiative and apparently NSA Ajit Doval’s brainwave. If the MEA is implicated it is to the extent of Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar okaying such a move by PMO. It is reasonable to assume that the Indian Ambassador in Beijing, Vijay Gokhale, who unlike Jaishankar is a China specialist and Mandarin speaker and, who senior intel officers claim would have approved of such a move in case he was consulted by the FS.

So the responsibility is squarely Doval’s who has no expertise re: China, but who was quick to assume the responsibility that other NSAs, such as Shivshankar Menon, have for, say, negotiating a border resolution despite his being a neophyte in the field, and has now created this quite enormous mess. Wasn’t he aware of Chinese sensitivities and, if he was, and still proceeded, seeing the Isa visa as a symbolic retaliation against China’s unending provocations, was he then prepared to weather the inevitable storm? Let’s presume he was. So far so fine. So how and why did GOI do an about turn and hugely compound the problem by withdrawing the visas to Isa, et al under Chinese pressure?

Did Doval get PM’s assent for the Isa invite? Likely. But Modi cannot be expected to weigh any decision without being informed of the pros and cons, in which case Doval’s articulation of the +ives and -ves was crucial. Whether he did or not, once the decision was made, Modi has to own it. That is our scheme of things, every decision, especially those that blow up in New Delhi’s face, is ultimately PM’s responsibility. However, having made the decision — however it got made — to resile from it, and cravenly to buckle under the weight of Beijing’s indignation was far, far worse. Who is responsible for that?

Considering the flow of events so far — assuming this is what actually transpired — once China reacted badly to the Isa visa issue and it became an international cause celebre, it was, in all probability, Modi alone who decided to cut his losses and protect his hot line to the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, whose promises of investment in infrastructure, etc he is relying on. This way out was the prudent thing to do, Modi perhaps thought, than to bask in the the momentary glow of cocking a snook at Beijing. Except being obviously ignorant of the importance of “face” and particularly of “saving” it in the Chinese universe, his hurried decision to make amends and keep Isa and other “troublemakers” out has amounted in effect to handing China an enormous political victory, and India a substantive reduction in its value. Next time Modi meets Xi just watch how much more puffed up and pro-consular the latter will be in his attitude for slapping down the former — leader of the “Western kingdom” as India is depicted in Chinese legends and lore. The hurt to India’s reputation will, like radioactive fallout, spread outwards through Asia.

May be the Indian government and politicians are so used to compromising national honour, this is another small incident — who cares. But this loss of face will matter. Beijing now knows that India can be badgered, bullied, and threatened into falling in line and compelled to follow its line. This is only the latest in the series of foreign policy downs and downs characterized by New Delhi’s bowing to China’s warnings one day, doing things to please the US the next. Messrs Modi & Doval seem to alight on ever newer and more novel ways for India to debase itself. Where will it end?

Posted in Asian geopolitics, China, China military, Geopolitics, Great Power imperatives, India's China Policy, India's strategic thinking and policy, Indian ecobomic situation, Indian Politics, society, South Asia, Strategic Relations with South East Asia & Far East, Strategic Relations with the US & West, United States, US. | 39 Comments

India’s Foreign Policy: The Foreign Hand — Has India outsourced foreign policy to American think tanks?

Posted on April 29, 2016 by Bharat Karnad

The following is published as ‘Open Essay’ in ‘Open’ magazine, dated April 29, 2016 at http://www.openthemagazine.com/article/voices/indias-foreign-policy-the-foreign-hand#all
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IN 2013, Brookings Institution, a prestigious American think tank, opened its New Delhi chapter, promising to disseminate ‘recommendations for Indian policymakers’. Three years later, its Washington twin, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, set up shop in the country, hoping to develop ‘fresh policy ideas and direct[ly] [engage] and collaborat[e] with decision makers in [Indian] government, business, and civil society’. It is reasonable to surmise that the policy advice proffered by these two organisations will, at a minimum, be in tune with the US interests and geopolitics.

In fact, at an event on 6 April, Sunil Mittal, owner of Bharti Airtel, a big donor and chairman of the board of trustees of Carnegie India, removed any doubts on this score. “We have put out our flag here,” he declared, without a trace of irony in a speech that to some seemed studded with many other cringe-worthy gems, such as his plea to numerous Indian moneybags in the audience to show more “generosity in moving our agenda forward”—meaning, presumably, the Carnegie (cum-Brookings)-qua-US government policy agenda in this country.

Carnegie and Brookings have established a presence financed by Indians, to influence the Indian Government and engender domestic policies that resonate with the United States’ regional and international posture. It is a business model last implemented when the famed Jagat Seths of Murshidabad subsidised the East India Company’s operations.

It marks an astonishing turn in Indian foreign policy that until the last years of the 20th century had made good by leveraging the country’s autonomous heft and independent standing in the world—keeping all big powers at bay while getting close to this or that major country on a contingency basis to advance specific strategic interests from time to time, and by scrupulously preserving its broad policy latitude and freedom of action. But Shivshankar Menon, a star in the Brookings India firmament, during his time as India’s Foreign Secretary and National Security Adviser in the Manmohan Singh dispensation, scoffed at Indian policies to ‘balance’ regional and international power as “oh so 19th century” and now foresees no detrimental outcomes from buying into US security schemes. That such sentiments are mainstream today is attributable to the institutionalisation in the late 1990s of the collaborationist school of national security policy thinking propagated by the late K Subrahmanyam, the ‘go to’ strategist for the Indian Government.

In a nutshell, Subrahmanyam’s idea was that in a world dominated by the US, it made economic, technological and military sense to foster a strategic partnership with it to help propel the Indian economy forward and enable the country to technologically and militarily compete with China, and, by acting as a ‘responsible’ country with ‘reasonable’ policies, become a stakeholder in a system of durable peace in Asia overseen by Washington DC. The policies of AB Vajpayee, Manmohan Singh, and Narendra Modi have hewed to the Subrahmanyam script. They have made capital purchases ($10 billion worth of transport planes, for example, with $25 billion worth of nuclear reactors in the pipeline), courted US trade and investments, enhanced military cooperation, and even compromised India’s nuclear security (by acquiescing in a testing moratorium cemented by the Indo-US nuclear deal and restricting India to a small nuclear arsenal for ‘minimum deterrence’). It may be recalled that Subrahmanyam and his acolytes campaigned for India’s signing the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in 1995-96, which would have left India stranded short of even basic low-yield fission weapons.

Subrahmanyam’s prescriptions found eager takers because toadying up to the West is in India’s genes. The retention, post- 1947, of the colonial-era civil services, administrative structure and armed forces wedded to British norms and values has perpetuated policies in the Western mould, notwithstanding the ‘socialism’ professed by its rulers. Moreover, the English-medium education system has had its effect. This is another colonial legacy that today mass produces software specialists, engineers, doctors and financial managers itching to service the post- industrial economies of the US, UK, Canada and Australia. Indian policies to keep this ‘brain bank’ solvent have helped firm up domestic support for US-friendly policies among the middle-class and other aspiring sections of the Indian society, complete with an annual song-and-dance celebration of our ‘pravasis’ staged by the Ministry of External Affairs which loops back into jam-packed NRI receptions for Prime Minister Modi on his jaunts to Western cities.

The outsourcing of India’s foreign policy begs the question: Does the Indian Government have a sense of India? India, in the minds of the new lot of Indian rulers, is thus increasingly only a cultural expression, not a national territorial entity whose interests have to be vigorously protected, pursued and advanced by any and all means. In their reckoning, the nation and national interest are fungible concepts and the policies meant to serve them can be entirely elastic. So, C Raja Mohan, director of the local Carnegie unit, argues for India’s becoming a part of the ‘political West’ and for its joining China’s ‘One Belt, One Road’ initiative, deeming these moves as “pragmatic economics and muscular geopolitics”. But cutting deals at every step reflects a susceptibility to pressure and an infirm will, compounding the confusion at the heart of Indian foreign and military policies. When aggregated, the effects of such moves can quickly hollow out the nation.

Central to giving legitimacy to the role of American think tanks in shaping Indian foreign policy is Ashley Tellis. As a senior Carnegie associate in Washington and heavyweight policy wonk, he finessed the Nuclear Deal with the US through Indian corridors. Tellis enjoys unprecedented access to the highest in the land, and rarely misses an opportunity to push US objectives in the guise of serving India’s interests. He, for instance, contends in a recent monograph that India’s best bet is to ally with the US and Japan because it will ‘never be capable of holding its own against… China or defining the international system to its advantage in the face of possible opposition’, and, that even Modi’s more modest goal of making India ‘a leading power’ will require it to lean on the US.

This is a self-serving thesis for the obvious reason that India has not discriminately built up its strategic capabilities or exercised its hard power options to make life difficult for China, nor reacted in kind to China’s elbows in the face. Beijing has had a free pass. Merely mentioning a transfer of nuclear missiles to Vietnam and the Philippines, or activation of the Tibet and Uyghur ‘cards’, is to hint at the sort of trouble India can create for China as payback for its nuclear missile arming of Pakistan and supporting insurgencies in the Indian northeast.

Consumed with pleasing Washington and fearful of displeasing Beijing, Indian governments—including Modi’s— have settled into a comfortable niche they have carved out of a small-minded, narrow-visioned Indian state that can be relied upon not to be disruptive, create trouble, or undermine regional and global orders that victimise it. Such weak-willed and weak-kneed regimes will, however, seek ‘narratives’ from Carnegie and Brookings that would justify their risk-averse, talk-much-do-little policies that hitch the country to the US bandwagon. This last, Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar said at the Carnegie do, constitutes “a contemporary agenda [that goes] beyond the debates of a less confident era”. India, he averred, must “leverage the dominant, collaborate with the convergent, and manage the competition”.

Subrahmanyam had observed that, “With the Americans, you purchase not just weapons but a security relationship… [We should] build it into [our] calculations.” Jaishankar didn’t explain how Modi’s forging a military alliance with the US by signing the ‘foundational agreements’ that Washington desires, such as the Logistics Support Agreement (LSA), Communications Interoperability and Security Memorandum of Agreement, and the Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement, which will tar India’s reputation in the Third World, limit India’s room for manoeuvre, alienate Moscow, hobble sensitive strategic projects involving Russian technical expertise, and comprehensively ground the country’s fighting capabilities featuring Russian hardware, even as America offers us armaments of 1970s vintage—F-16/F-18 combat aircraft, will ‘leverage the dominant’ and serve the national interest.

The LSA, for example, is unnecessary because it only formalises an existing arrangement whereby US ships and aircraft are refuelled and replenished on a barter basis to avoid negotiating the complex accounting systems in each other’s country and handling cash. The LSA will end up re-hyphenating India with Pakistan, as Islamabad is on the LSA grid and to get reimbursement for sustaining and servicing US troops in Afghanistan, has to jump through procedural hoops and face US Congressional scrutiny. Does Modi favour exposing the Indian military to this kind of public humiliation in another country? Apologists for the accords claim they will extend the operational reach of the Indian navy and air force. But why would New Delhi opt for such a short-term salve when the long term solution of developing distant bases (in the Agalégas in Mauritius, in northern Mozambique, Seychelles, et al) is available for the asking?

Modi’s approval of these agreements— to satisfy President Barack Obama, perhaps—may be traced to his palpable fascination with the US. He is planning his fourth visit to Washington soon. It is in keeping with the impetuous decisions he makes (such as committing the country to buy 36 Rafale fighter aircraft in Paris, initially disavowing India’s claim on the Kohinoor diamond, among others) as friendly gestures to his Western hosts.

Outsourcing of India’s foreign policy in small and big ways begs the larger question: Does the Indian Government have a sense of India, its role in the region and the world, of the nation’s inherent capacity to shape its own future, and to mobilise resources for it? The answer is iffy. Why else would one see India running in place for the last six decades and still expect it to get somewhere? When a country doesn’t know what it wants and how to get it, it will latch on to imported solutions. A facilitative factor is the Indian Government’s naiveté and gullibility when dealing with Western countries, resulting in its swallowing nonsensical promises such as Washington’s to help India become ‘a major power’. Related to it is the civilisational failing of mistaking tactics for strategy. It is the same old story all over again. Incapable of seeing beyond their immediate pecuniary profit, the Seths lent money to Robert Clive at Plassey, and, other repercussions apart, funded their own decline.

(Bharat Karnad is the author most recently of Why India is Not a Great Power (Yet). The author’s views do not reflect Open’s)

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Khibiny blinder/silencer

Posted on April 28, 2016 by Bharat Karnad

Over the past 50 years, the Indian military services have been armed mostly with Russian weapons and supporting hardware. These Russian systems have proved their utility and ruggedness, which last is not an attribute to be under-estimated. And yet, growingly, sections of the military officer cadre are being seduced by the supposedly superior Western counterpart systems, despite being aware that these are optimized for temperate fighting climates of Europe and northeastern Asia, and do not/cannot fare as well in the tropics where the heat and the dust are, if not disabling factors, can cause severe attrition in performance.

A case in point — special hangars for the French Mirage 2000 and potentially, Rafale, combat aircraft versus the frontline Su-30 MKI judged the finest fighter plane in business braving the Indian sun, sitting on the simmering tarmac without cover of any sort, all the year round, ready to fly off at a moment’s notice. Oh, sure, in the last few years the IAF has erected basic asbestos/corrugated tin-roofed shelters with sides open for the these hardy Sukhois (as at 2 Wing base at Lohegaon, Pune)!

And just what is the edge Western vendors have always claimed for their military equipment and weapons platforms and repeated ad infinitum by their well-wishers and pushers here, in and out of uniform? Their electronics/ avionics/software-driven systems, right? It turns out that is not any more the case. US military circles are still agog with how a Russian Su-24 tactical strike aircraft flew over an Aegis missile destroyer and in its first pass over the American warship venturing into the Black Sea during the Crimean crisis in April 2014 and before getting in range of its on-board weapons, completely and remotely shut down the radar at the heart of the Aegis system — rendering the intruding ship instantly blind and deaf.

The news of this is just getting out in the western media even as the Russian press had reported this incident at the time. The outcome was a shaken US Navy has not again deployed any vessels in the Black Sea. The attenuating circumstances trotted out are that Cook was in solo and that Aegis works best when there are more Aegis units sharing, triangulating, target info, etc. Except, the more complex the system, the easier it is, according to Russian EW/ECW specialists to knock them out. The means to do so — i.e.,impose a blackout on the USS Cook was the Khibiny electronic counter-measures system on the Su-24 which, after blinding and silencing the Aegis, made 12 attack passes to drive home the point to the crew on board the American missile destroyer about the extremely vulnerable state it had been reduced to, and so easily. So much for US’ avionics/electronics edge.

Khibiny, by the way, will be fitted/retro-fitted on all Russian combat aircraft, starting with the Su-35 plane — the very aircraft the IAF wouldn’t let the Strategic Forces Command buy for its nuclear mission!

I thank a correspondent for alerting me to this incident, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8s4sKAMgYsU
and for info on Russian EC/ECW systems refer https://russiandefpolicy.wordpress.com/2015/10/27/how-good-is-russian-electronic-warfare-part-i/

Posted in arms exports, Asian geopolitics, Europe, Geopolitics, Great Power imperatives, India's strategic thinking and policy, Indian Air Force, Nuclear Policy & Strategy, Nuclear Weapons, Relations with Russia, Russia, russian assistance, russian military, society, South Asia, Strategic Forces Command, Strategic Relations with the US & West, United States, US., West Asia | 22 Comments

Tyagi’s performance

Posted on April 27, 2016 by Bharat Karnad

Former IAF chief ACM SP Tyagi’s being perplexed by the Italian Court’s verdict on the payoffs for the Rs 3,500 crore Augusta Westland helicopter (to shunt VIPs around) deal was disingenuous even as TV performance (notwithstanding the uninformed questioning by Rajdeep Sardesai — who should keep to cricket and such other puffery, as he seemed entirely ignorant of how the armed services are run or the background of the subject at hand). Tyagi’s exculpatory case for himself rested on three points. One, that the VVIP helo deal was in the works from Vajpayee’s time with NSA Brajesh Mishra apparently objecting, per Tyagi, to IAF’s role in the selection of this aircraft — an attempt to drag in the BJP antecedents of the deal and muddy the waters so much that the investigation quickly congeals into a sticky political mess, and the “Fratelli Tyagi” are saved. Secondly, that his indictment means the DCAS and other senior air staff at Vayu Bhavan stand indicted too. And thirdly, that the timing of payouts suggests he was long out of office and hence not involved.

The involvement of Mishra and Vajpayee’s BJP regime is an interesting twist but in no way absolves the Tyagi brothers with the ACM in the van of pocketing commissions — some 10.5 million Euros according to court documents– Wow! While the underway CBI investigation may bring out the details, those who served on his staff know of CAS Tyagi’s role in trying to bring the deal to fruition. He won’t be able to get away pleading innocence.

Re: The second reason — it is astonishing for Tyagi to maintain he alone cannot be indicted for a Vayu Bhavan decision. The facts are otherwise, most centrally, that in the extant scheme of things the service chief as both administrative and operational head of an armed service has extraordinary powers of reward and punishment, with all senior postings, including the prized ones as theatre commanders, for instance, being decided by the air chief and only the IAF chief. Officers in posts from previous regimes can be moved around at his will too. So strong is this leverage that the service chief can virtually get the General Staff to do pretty much what he wants. So a DCAS and officers at that level are unlikely not to fall in line with the chief’s wishes on procurement or anything else for that matter. A whole list of pet projects and hardware acquisitions can be sourced to newly installed chiefs over the years. So this doesn’t work for Tyagi.

And the third reason about the payoffs schedule not overlapping with his tenure — he must be daft to believe this exonerates him. There’s such a thing as honour among thieves and foreign vendors are scrupulous in paying out the agreed amounts of bribes especially to helpful service chiefs instrumental in getting deals through. Paying up is bread & butter to them, which they will not shy away from come what may, because future deals depend on the certitude of payoffs and any damage to their reputation on this score has wholly negative financial repercussions for them, and is hence not tolerated. So, if a service chief helped a deal along he’d be paid even if 20 years after the fact. So, this doesn’t support Tyagi’s case either.

But Tyagi’s indictment if confirmed by a CBI investigation will raise still another issue. Can he continue to enjoy his pension and other post-retirement perks after being held criminally responsible of taking a bribe? He will be the first service chief to be caught out. There have to be consequences and to make an example of him the minimum punishment should be his demotion to below “flag rank” — Group Captain, say, or even lower, and the complete withdrawal of pensions and other benefits. GOI/MOD better begin thinking along these lines rather than deciding what to do after CBI lowers the boom on SP Tyagi.

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Red corner bull

Posted on April 26, 2016 by Bharat Karnad

The controversy regarding the visa issued by GOI to Dolkun Issa (or Isa), the Uyghur dissident residing in Germany gets curiouser by the moment with MEA washing its hands of the matter and blaming the Home Ministry for the snafu. Whether or not Home Ministry is the clearing authority at the Delhi end, the fact is the visitor’s or tourist visa is still stamped by the consular section of the Indian Embassy/Consulate General, and the ambassador in Germany would have known of Isa’s antecedents and his political notoriety. If the embassy was party to issuing the visa, MEA cannot then absolve itself of responsibility. If it has a black list or, it had decided, with the Dharamsala conference in view and Isa’s seeking entry, that it was a good occasion for some tit-for-tat with China in response to the latter’s protecting the Pakistani terrorist Mahmood Azar from Interpol, then why did it have second thoughts and, more important, when did it have them? Apparently MEA/GOI went weak-kneed immediately upon Beijing’s clearing its throat on the issue. The Home Ministry, in the event, was just a convenient scapegoat.

Rather than getting its tail immediately between its legs, the Modi government could have been snarky, sarcastic and dismissive of the “red” interpol notice. Beijing could have been reminded by MEA spokesman that, perhaps, its truculence would be better directed at Berlin, which has not implemented China’s red notice despite Isa living in Germany for many years. And, perhaps, the Chinese government should consider first handing over Paresh Barua, the Assamese secessionist, sheltered in Kunming (when last heard of). In this respect, some genius (unattributed source) in GOI brought up the matter of how the Mumbai gangster Abu Salim was secured from Portugal on the basis of an Interpol red notice, and how India’s ignoring it with respect to Isa would sully India’s reputation, etc, which’s so much poppycock. If Indian government officials are unable to distinguish a hardened low life from the Mumbai underworld from a leader of the ‘East Turkestan Freedom Movement’ than they need a stiff dose of re-education with transfer to some god-forsaken malarial jungle outpost or the waterless Thar.

But more to the point, New Delhi/MEA could have educated China in the nuances of the red colour notice (part of six colour-coded notice scheme Interpol follows to track and apprehend trans-national criminals) to the effect that “criminals” by Interpol’s reckoning cannot be equated with political dissidents and the politically oppressed and escapees from the Chinese Gulag. MEA responded with none of this except quickly to rescind Isa’s visa.

Interpol and more advanced democracies never take red corner notices on political opponents of dastardly regimes seriously. Reason why Germany has paid such Chinese notice no heed. There’s Interpol’s own legal reservation on this count that New Delhi could have cited. Not too long ago, the Russian government issued a red corner notice on Bill Browder, CEO of Hermitage Capital Management, for his arrest. Interpol refused to do so, saying the request was “predominantly political in nature and therefore contrary to INTERPOL’s rules and regulations”.

It is clear Berlin knows Interpol rules and regulations and MEA/Indian government does not. Or more likely, New Delhi is more afraid of upsetting Beijing than violating an Interpol convention. With GOI concerned about saving China’s face than furthering India’s strategic interests, which lie principally in stoking the Free Tibet and Free East Turkestan (Sinkiang or Xinjiang) Causes, Beijing will always have India over the barrel.

Posted in Asian geopolitics, Central Asia, China, domestic politics, Europe, Geopolitics, Great Power imperatives, India's China Policy, India's Pakistan Policy, India's strategic thinking and policy, Internal Security, Pakistan, Pakistan military, society, South Asia, Terrorism, Tibet | 1 Comment

Caving into China’s pressure

Posted on April 25, 2016 by Bharat Karnad

Predictably, at the first sign of China’s displeasure, the “56-inch chested” Narendra Modi government caved in and withdrew the visa it had issued in Germany to the Uyghur dissident Dolkun Issa to attend a democracy conference in Dharamsala, involving also the Tibetan-government-in-Exile. It is a development that reveals the extent of fear and cowardice informing India’s China policy and the depths to which it is prepared to go to please the Xi-dispensation. In an interview that presaged his callow treatment — http://www.thecitizen.in/index.php/NewsDetail/index/1/7504/I-Am-Not-Masood-Azhar-Says-Chinese-Dissident-Isa-As-India-Comes-Under-Chinese-Pressure,
Issa actually indicated the escape route New Delhi had kept open for itself in case Beijing reacted badly.

Issa said he couldn’t risk coming to India to attend the conference if he wasn’t provided full security because, he implied, Chinese assassins would eliminate him on Indian soil. The Indian government’s formal position could be that promise of security did not automatically follow on the issual of a visa to Issa. But because it was not sure Issa would be deterred from flying into New Delhi, it wouldn’t take that chance, whence the cancellation of the Issa visa.

This is among the most self-degrading stomach-churning kowtows New Delhi has affected in many years, a craven diplomatic back-pedaling on the Issa visa issue that has handed Beijing a political victory on a platter, and shown Asian countries who is boss. So much for NSA Ajit Doval and MEA Minister Shushma Swaraj’s finger wagging at China’s successful move in the UN to shield the Pakistan Army-protected terrorist chieftain, Mahmood Azar, from being designated a terrorist and put on the Interpol watch list. A watch list, ironically, China claims Issa is on and India should respect (by arresting him on his arrival)!

Tibet and Xinjiang are terribly oppressed by China, the PLA acting as brutal occupation forces in the last 60 some years. The brutalization of the Tibetan and Uyghurian natives in Tibet and Xinjiang respectively are instances of “cultural genocide” the world has not taken notice of. India is directly affected by the dissidence in these Chinese-occupied lands but shows so little appetite for a fight — even as New Delhi is always ready to flex its muscle and its mouth when it comes to a piddling Pakistan, that India is repeatedly shown up for the proverbial 110-pound weakling it is. It also reveals India’s real standing in the world.

It is becoming harder and harder to take Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “nationalist” professions/pretensions seriously. What is evident is that the Modi government when not bending to the US will, is kowtowing to China in abject submission. My longtime advocacy to payback China in the same card as it has deliberately disadvantaged India — by nuclear missile arming Vietnam and Philippines (in return for Beijing’s missile arming Pakistan), and aggressive activation of the Tibetan freedom and Uyghur secessionist cards by assisting armed Tibetan and Uyghur freedom fighters in exchange for China’s sustaining secessionist movements/rebellions in the Indian northeast, has thus hit a road block from the one source that this analyst had not anticipated. Whatever Modi’s Gujrati petty trader instincts for compromise in any and all situations, this prompt and willing surrender to China was not expected.

Trust the Indian government to lie down and let China walk all over India. Indians better get used to our country being the rag on the floor for every big country to step on and soil.

Posted in arms exports, Asian geopolitics, Central Asia, China, China military, domestic politics, Europe, Geopolitics, Great Power imperatives, guerilla warfare, India's China Policy, India's Pakistan Policy, India's strategic thinking and policy, Indian Politics, Internal Security, Missiles, Nuclear Weapons, Pakistan, Pakistan military, SAARC, society, South Asia, South East Asia, Strategic Relations with South East Asia & Far East, Terrorism, US., Vietnam, Weapons | 11 Comments

Abysmal lack of hard power/technical expertise in MEA, foreign service

Posted on April 24, 2016 by Bharat Karnad

The strength of Indian diplomacy was once considered its expertise in drafting international treaties. Familiarity with the English language and honing over the years of observing-reporting-analytical writing led after 20 odd years of service to the average Indian foreign service staffer being reasonably conversant with language pitfalls especially in drafting diplomatic papers. And, following upon the British FCWO (Foreign & Commonwealth Office) model, having embassy heads telegraphing in cipher mode weekly situation reports. With the internet and instant communications, however, the situation reports are passe even if the weekly reports are not, but are sent anyway and filed away at the Delhi-end w/o anyone caring even to have a deko, unless, of course, a PM, Presidential or VP visit is on the way whereupon the local envoy becomes important and then for the local “bandobast”. In recent years this has entailed liaising with the NRI community and hiring halls/stadia, etc for PM to court Indian-origin types assuming there are enough such in that host country. Otherwise, technology has enabled a complete centralization of control of foreign policy conduct and management by PMO (whence MEA is kept in the loop as a formality).

All the writing/drafting activity doesn’t, however, grow, sharpen or expand one’s technical domain competence, this despite the IFS lately attracting professionals, disconcertingly IIT grads and doctors of medicine into its fold. As many studies emanating in the US and elsewhere — one such is by Daniel Markey who many years ago faulted MEA for its policy “software” support void — have concluded the IFS is not large enough, has not developed any great advisory skills in technical subjects, which tells on the quality of advice, handicaps Indian policymakers, and hurts national interest.

This is especially true with regard to military-natl security policy areas — an outcome of GOI, MEA and Indian diplomats having traditionally ignored the hard power aspects of international relations, which is turning into a giant void for the service. This knowledge gap can be quickly filled with lateral entry into IFS by military officers on cross-postings, and from other technically capable govt services, and experts from outside the govt — which is the norm in advanced countries but something zealously opposed by IFS. So, we have an MEA trying to help frame documents like LEMOA, CISMOA, etc without any deep information, understanding or insights into the subject and incapable therefore of weighing the technical pol-mil-econ ramifications and the larger strategic impact of such agreements, even as the US plenipotentiary has at his side a bunch of experts knowledgeable about even the minutiae.

So, what happens is the Indian side rarely has a draft agreement ready for negotiation purposes but rather reacts to and works on the draft produced by the other side to alight on its own basic draft document. This is what happened in the case of the 2008 nuclear deal with the US, and with the LEMOA — a pared down or tweaked variant of the standard LSA document the US tabled and which was fashioned into the draft LEMOA and CISMOA. India thus plays disadvantaged in this high-stakes game.

Just how innocent of specialized knowledge senior IFS ambassadors are may be evidenced, for instance, in a discussion on LEMOA, CISMOA, BECA in a TV program (‘Latitude’ on Times TV) aired last weekend, featuring the host, a recent ambassador to the US Meera Shankar and yours truly. But judge for yourself whether Shankar has much to offer besides banalities: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmdAe9bAjxY&index=2&list=PLAQGzpyU01aEC1XGo7rjfPfxI-Rc9weUP

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How choices get made: Develop indigenous Vs. lisc.produce

Posted on April 23, 2016 by Bharat Karnad

In the ongoing perennially profitable game of supplying arms to India, foreign vendors follow certain invariable procedures, in cahoots with the three armed services (with air force in the van followed by army — the navy is more selective!) to maximize their take and ensure a competitive Indian defence industry simply doesn’t grow (detailed in my 2002, 2nd ed 2005 tome — ‘Nuclear Weapons and Indian Security: The Realist Foundations of Strategy’):
(1) The QRs (qualitative requirements) of items are put up by the individual Services (and are usually collations of best features picked from foreign arms brochures, etc),
(2) the vendors scrutinize the QRs and offer lesser technology item in the genre,
(3) DRDO offers to mount an indigenous effort to produce it,
(4) MOD tasks DRDO,
(5) Depending on if it is a platform (such as Tejas), the concerned service keeps modifying the QRs thereby delaying the agreed upon time lines and screwing up the cost estimate,
(6) The services pounce on the delays caused by their repeatedly changing/”updating” QRs to demand import of items to meet “urgent need”,
(7) Should a tech development program somehow get going going and succeed in reaching the designated QR level, the vendors who were previously unwilling to part with the high technology now suddenly realize they actually can deliver it, immediately!
(8) The concerned service sides with the foreign vendors and the indigenous project — absent MOD benevolent intervention, which’s the norm — spirals into peril. Case in point: DRDO ‘s UTTAM Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar project has achieved fruition, developed within good timeframe a proficient AESA for fitment on combat planes, including Tejas for instant performance upgrade. AESA radar permits the aircraft to switch missions mid-flight from ground attack to air-to-air and back. With UTTAM AESA radar on the point of availability to IAF, the Israeli company ELTA that was developing an AESA radar with the US-supplied 2032 computer because the US had earlier denied the superior 2052 computer for Indian use does an instant turnaround and informs IAF/HAL/MOD it can now produce the higher performance 2052 based AESA. So, MOD/GOI has to decide whether to go with the all-Indian UTTAM, or do the predictable, opt for th Elta 2052 AESA — favoured by, who else, IAF. This decision is pending. Any bets which way Parrikar will go — buy, buy 2052 AESA and bye, bye UTTAM, or UTTAM and bye, bye Elta?
If past/present is future, UTTAM will be dumped.

Another such but slightly different, decision may soon be on MOD’s table. It involves the jet power plant for Tejas. The original General Electric F-404 capable of 80-85 KiloNewtons of thrust equipping Tejas is to be replaced by the GE 414-INS6 engine capable of 98KN or 22,000 lbs of thrust, turbofan, with afterburner. This was an indent for the navalised version. IAF, always the laggard fetched up later to demand the same engine. In 2010, India contracted to buy 99 of the 414s for the Tejas Mk-2 program, with the delivery begun in 2013. With the total requirement of 500-600 engines for the Tejas (with each 414 engine estimated to pull 3,000 hours of flying, and 3.5 engines for the lifetime of each aircraft), HAL is seeking to license produce them in Banglaore, in its well-honed SKD-CKD assembly mode that guarantees HAL continues to learn nothing about ingesting and innovating technology, and even less about designing and making aircraft engines.

The incorrigible IAF, meanwhile, reconsidered the up-powered engine for the Tejas, and decided that because the heavier S6 power plant would require a heavier rear fuselage and hence a redesigned Tejas, it was in too much of a hurry and couldn’t wait for this modification to be engineered into Tejas. So, could it have 44 more Rafales (beyond the 36 of these French items PM Modi so kindly, and w/o much forethought, approved for purchase) please!

Russia, after being disappointed with India turning down offer to co-produce the FGFA Su-PAF FA engine, is now offering to collaborate with the GTRE (with experience of designing and developing the indigenous Kaveri engine for Tejas that attained 81KN on its testbed before it was abruptly ended) to design and develop an engine exactly to fit the redesigned Tejas Mk-2 to accommodate the larger 414 engine to meet the heightened performance standard of the GE 414 EPE (enhanced performance engine) able to produce 26,400 tons or 120 KN of thrust and a 11:1 thrust-weight ratio. Incidentally, the 414 EPE is powering the Super Hornet F-18 and the advanced Gripen the US and Sweden respectively are offering India should it ditch the French Rafale. Thus, up-powered Tejas would be an extraordinary all-INDIAN combat aircraft. In fact, the imported old 414s (in the 99 unit lot) could exclusively equip the export version of the LCA for which many countries are already lining up as potential customers, among them Sri Lanka and Egypt (both friendly states dropped their interest in the Chinese-Pakistani JF-17 Thunderbird after their representatives saw the Tejas put on a show in Bahrain a few months back). Neighbours and friendly states such as Vietnam, Philippines, Afghanistan, Bangladesh and states in Africa will not need much persuasion to buy it.

So the GE 414 EPE equivalent is what Russia is offering to design and build from scratch in India at GTRE, and get Indian jet engine designers and engineers in on its development from the start. The choice is then between a Russian-assisted Indian advanced engine or HAL license-manufacturing an American engine that is already 25 years old. Russian-assisted projects — Arihant SSBN, for instance, have not turned out badly, have they? It would be preferable to GE even permitting HAL to screwdriver the EPE, which’s the likely offer the American company will make to counter the Russian proposal. Because, insofar as one is able to confirm, the combat aircraft engine parameters the US has offered to co-develop with India (one of the projects on DTTI’s “doable” list the recently visiting US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter mulled over with the Defmin Parrikar), are below the 414 EPE level.

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