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.

Posted in arms exports, Asian geopolitics, civil-military relations, corruption, Culture, Defence Industry, domestic politics, Europe, Indian Air Force, Indian ecobomic situation, Indian Politics, Internal Security, Military Acquisitions, society, South Asia, Weapons | 21 Comments

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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Rafale, really?

Posted on April 15, 2016 by Bharat Karnad

The India Today TV news channel just announced (April 15 evening) that the deal for 36 Rafale combat aircraft has been done. Perhaps, what is meant is that the contract worth 7.8 billion Euros has been finalized, and will await the signature of the two countries which is expected, the report said, in the next 3-6 weeks.

That the contract is ready is stale news. It has been signature-ready for some time now, especially because there were no great technical details involving technology transfer and attendant details about the mode of transfer, to which Indian party, and with what continuing/residual French supplier responsibility, to sort out. This is all a cash on the barrel head kind of transaction.

What is surprising is the Modi government, having made a perfectly horrible initial mistake with PM Modi deciding on his own to short circuit the entire MMRCA (medium-range, multi-role combat aircraft) procurement process, is insisting on compounding it by actually going through with it. This despite his regime being made aware of the aircraft in the Indian inventory turning into a liability: operationally for IAF in that because the first full squadron with its full complement of weapons won’t be flying before 2019 at the earliest (if the contract is signed by this year end), the Rafale acquisition will not immediately make up for depleted fighter strength. As has been argued by this analyst this requirement was only conjured up by IAF brass as a means of hurrying a strategic-cum-militarily myopic, if not entirely ignorant, Indian government into a Rafale contract. Should Rafale in fact be secured and IAF’s main demand thus met, Vayu Bhavan will happily turn around and acquiesce in Defence minister Manohar Parrikar’s favoured option of buying more Su-30MKIs, to quickly make up its g fighting strength. So much for a barefaced subterfuge. And, to think the enormous financial investment is for an aircraft that doesn’t have the range to fight other than Pakistan, and with a potentially high mortality rate with PAF likely deploying five or more of its cheapest JF-17 Thunderbirds for every Rafale IAF’s able to muster. What chances of Indian Rafale pilots surviving such ordeals — one against five fights? The IAF brass has made monkeys out of the Modi government alright.

The deal should it come to pass would mean its success was the result of two sets of egos being attached to it — IAF’s and, more crucially, the Prime Minister’s. Modi will thereby show he is entirely immune to good economic sense which as a Gujrati with good trading sense he’d have instinctively sensed, when his own ego is on the line. It is a pity that in “the world’s largest democracy” there’s no institutional check on the PM’s excesses — other than a No Confidence motion in Parliament — the nuclear option, and the person occupying that position at any given time can commit India to the most deleterious treaties, as Manmohan Singh did vis a vis the nuclear deal with the US, and not have to answer for it, or for that matter approve any transaction however financially onerous it may be for the country and, ultimately, for the Indian taxpayer forking out the funds, without Parliament having a say by way of right of ratification.

And the Rafale will be an enormous financial drain on the treasury for decades to come, and will put at risk other military capability build-up programmes. Where exactly will Finance minister Arun Jaitley find the funds, for instance, for the Rafale even as monies have been sequestered for all the deals President Vladimir Putin has cannily signed with India, tying up GOI to the purchase of a whole bunch of very expensive hardware in the years ahead — S-400 anti-aircraft system, the Fifth Generation Fighter Aircraft, missile destroyers, and the leased Akula-IIs, the one in service with the Indian Navy, and the second SSN, Iribis, under fitment, and a host of classified projects underway with Russian technical assistance? If Jaitley previously said the formation of the single offensive mountain corps to field against Chinese PLA in the north and northeast was being stretched over a longer period of time because GOI simply lacked the Rs 64,000 crores needed for raising such an army formation in the normal timeframe of 8-10 years, then imagine the problems he’ll have in ponying up the 7.8 billion Euros or approx Rs 57,0000(on life-time basis), which works out to Rs 1,584 crores per Rafale.

The weapons load on the Rafale will be only exorbitantly priced French items, in light of Paris’s unwillingness to integrate any Indian-made missile including the deadly Brahmos cruise missile with the onboard fire control system. Some deal this!

If you factor in the likely depreciation of the Indian rupee versus the Euro over the next decade (of the fulfillment of the Rafale contract), the sum total for the 36 Rafales will rocket to in excess of Rs 70,000 crores, or nearly Rs 2,000 crore per Rafale inducted into IAF.

If there’s no technology transfer and no “Make in India” benefits, why is GOI being so generous? And what exactly has the MOD’s price negotiation committee been negotiating? May be the deal is being lubricated by Paris by dangling that old bait of providing Indian nuclear weaponeers access to its inertial confinement fusion (ICF) facility in Bordeaux. ICF assists in facilitating miniature thermonuclear explosions in order to help scientists design credible thermonuclear weapons for the Indian arsenal in lieu of explosive underground tests. If that’s the big hook on which the BJP govt is going to hang this Rafale deal they better make sure that sustained access is provided first before Delhi writes any check for the deal. And, in any case, that payments be contractually obliged to be made only after receipt after delivery of every plane along with first and second line spares and servicing support. Only Russia to-date has provided Indian weapons designers access to its ICF installation in Troitsk outside of Moscow. Is France being cultivated as an alternative ICF source with this Rafale deal?

But if the govt wants to avoid the situation of inevitably being shortchanged by the wily French, and to avoid the besmirching of his BJP regime in the manner Congress party regimes after the one headed by Rajiv Gandhi have been by the political taint of the Bofors gun deal, then there is still time for Prime Minister Modi to wake up, trash the Rafle deal, and tell Paris to take a hike, and that way regain a semblance of self-respect for himself and his government. There’s absolutely no compulsion to go ahead with the Rafale transaction. Until the deed is actually signed, India has all the latitude; once the contract is inked it will be India that will have to dance to the supplier firm, Dassault Avions’, and France’s music. Invoking sovereign guarantees, assuming the government of Francoise Hollande has relented enough to offer it, will require Paris to pay such guarantee heed. Having taken the money, where’s the incentive for France to to do so?

Be done with it, Shriman Pradhan Mantriji, drop the Rafale, for your personal reputation and the good of the country if that matters to you.

Posted in arms exports, Asian geopolitics, China, China military, civil-military relations, Defence Industry, domestic politics, DRDO, Europe, Geopolitics, Great Power imperatives, India's Pakistan Policy, India's strategic thinking and policy, Indian Air Force, Indian Army, Indian democracy, Indian ecobomic situation, Indian Navy, Indian Politics, Military Acquisitions, Missiles, Nuclear Policy & Strategy, Nuclear Weapons, Pakistan, Pakistan military, Relations with Russia, Russia, russian assistance, SAARC, society, South Asia, Strategic Relations with the US & West, Technology transfer, Weapons, Western militaries | 62 Comments

Shkval — correction!

Posted on April 15, 2016 by Bharat Karnad

Brought to my notice and it caused a shudder when I realized a mistake that shouldn’t have been made — deadline pressure, no excuses, I apologize — but the Russian Shkval weapon mentioned in the previous post (first published in ‘The Citizen’) is a torpedo, of course. A unique torpedo that I have mentioned in writings going back awhile, Shkval is able to attain extraordinary underwater speeds (what to speak of the variant promised India that will be out-of-water and reach hypersonic velocity in getting to the target) because it travels in an air bubble meeting no water resistance whatsoever. In fact, this technology only with, and perfected, by Russia is motivating Russian-trained Chinese submarine designers in their efforts to design a submarine able to ride a similar vacuum bubble. What China sets it mind on getting military technology and hardware-wise, it gets. That’s another headache down the road for India to deal with.

Posted in arms exports, China, China military, Indian Navy, Weapons | 7 Comments

Has PM Modi Developed Cold Feet Over The Logistics Agreement with the US?

Posted on April 15, 2016 by Bharat Karnad

The Bharatiya Janata Party government of Narendra Modi is conflicted and confused about just how close it wants India to get to the United States. The intimacy was to be cemented with the signing of the first of the three “foundational agreements”, the standard Logistics Support Agreement (LSA) the US insists on with its allies and strategic partners suitably tweaked for Indian sensibilities and called the Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA). It will permit US forces to refuel, replenish stores, afford rest and recreation (R&R) to its military personnel in India, and otherwise sustain their extended deployment in the “Indo-Pacific” region. It is a hallmark agreement that was supposed to crown the US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter’s second visit to India, April 11-12, 2016.

The media was agog with this development, the public discourse leading up to it being peppered with reports and news commentaries welcoming the many benefits India stood to reap from this new and novel twist in foreign policy, one predicated on formal military ties with the United States. But then, virtually at the last minute, Prime Minister Modi had second thoughts and stopped the proceedings in their track, leaving Parrikar to lamely announce at the end of the delegation-level talks that LEMOA was only “a concept” of logistics support. Moreover, seeking an escape route for the BJP government, he added, that this agreement could be “signed in months, if not weeks”. What was left unstated was that, if it meets with hostile reception and turns into a political liability, the timeline could well stretch to never. Like the impetuous announcement by Modi in Paris to buy 36 Rafale fighter aircraft and peremptorily bury the medium multi-role combat aircraft procurement process, the decision on LEMOA, initiated with much enthusiasm, too could become a bilateral issue without closure.

The West-oriented English language media, quite unaware of the apprehensions creeping into the government’s calculations, went overboard. The unsigned document notwithstanding, a Times of India headline, for instance, screamed “Indian bases to open doors to US warships, planes”! Such was the tenor of most press reporting on LEMOA. By raising expectations and giving it a too positive spin, the media has exacerbated the situation for the Modi regime, which is caught between balancing public opinion and dealing with the growing political opposition to foundational agreements with the US led by the Congress party. The erstwhile Defence Minister, A.K. Antony slammed this accord as “a disastrous decision” and demanded its retraction, tartly reminding the country that “When UPA was in power, India had all along resisted such proposals [and] always resisted pressure from everybody to be part of a military bloc.” Not to be elbowed out of the picture, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) called it a “dangerous and anti-national” move, asked for its reversal, accused BJP of “crossing a line that no other government has done since independence”, and warned, it could end in “converting India into a full-fledged military ally of the United States.”

Parrikar has made much of the fact that LEMOA is limited in its ambit, and is not a license for stationing US troops and military wherewithal in this country. This is to miss the larger point that the mere fact of India’s agreeing to aiding and abetting the US in its military objectives is to compromise India, its national interest, and to introduce a foreign extraneous element into India’s strategic calculus and military decision-making. There will be no getting around the objective reality of US forces staging out of Indian bases and ports in military ventures India will have no say in. Absent Indian expeditionary policies, only the US will resupply in India – making this arrangement completely one-sided. The financial reimbursement for Indian supply of fuel, victuals, and other support, and for military infrastructure use, will do more to re-hyphenate India with Pakistan in US’ reckoning than almost anything else. Look at the hoops Islamabad has to jump through by way of US Congressional scrutiny to get the money legitimately owed it to understand the humiliations awaiting India.

While the response of the Leftist parties was along expected lines and the Congress party’s criticism a bit rich considering it was responsible for the 2008 civilian nuclear cooperation deal with the US that has stymied the country’s nuclear weapons capabilities, such reaction is precisely what the Modi government fears will allow the opposition parties to mock BJP’s “nationalist” credentials, make light of its patriotic effusions, and undermine its pretensions to militant guardianship of the national interest. This is no small political risk for the ruling dispensation to take because of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s somewhat cautious attitude to its America-friendly overtures, but more worrisome still, of the Obama Administration’s actions, in the traditional US policy mould that are guaranteed to rile Indian public opinion – Washington’s transfer of F-16 combat aircraft and Viper attack helicopters to Pakistan even as it talks up friendship with India. With friends like the US, who needs enemies?

The foundational agreements also fail to address the core issue of whether and how political and military intimacy with the United States serves India’s national interest. Yes, it is a strategic imperative for India to counter and neutralize China. Yes, it helps for India to join the rimland or littoral states in Southeast and Northeast Asia in configuring a strategically effective collective security system designed to crimp Beijing’s room for military and diplomatic maneuver. Yes, the emerging scenario demands that India more proactively use and deploy its military forces and strategic fighting assets in concert with the other affected countries on China’s periphery, who singly cannot offer resistance to China but together can firm up a strong front against China. This much is basic geostrategics. Should the US want to join in such an organically Asian security enterprise, India should have no objection.

But it is definitely detrimental to India’s vital national interests, its reputation as a would-be great power and, not least, its amor propre, for the Modi government to reduce the country to another cog in the American military machine and accept legally binding agreements that will compel India to provide assistance to American forces in the Asian theatre on missions now and in the future that may directly imperil friendly regimes, such as in Iran, undermine Indian interest, and undermine long term Indian political goals and strategy. But of far greater significance is the potential harm that will be caused to relations India has nurtured over time with putative foes of the US – in the main Russia.

Moscow alerted Delhi to the likelihood of immense injury to the traditional military supply relationship should Modi approve CISMOA (Communications Inter-operability and Security Memorandum of Agreement), for example. A draft-CISMOA was apparently ready for Carter’s and Parrikar’s signatures. It will result in Moscow promptly pulling the Akula-II nuclear-powered attack submarine (SSN) out of the Indian Navy. More problematic, other collaborative programmes, such as Russian assistance in designing and developing a powerful nuclear reactor for the two indigenous aircraft carriers after Vikrant, and offers of super-advanced armaments, such as the latest variant of the Shkval anti-ship missile that, in its terminal stage, pops out of the water and homes in on target at hypersonic speeds, will shutdown.

Moreover, if one were to tally the sensitive technologies and hardware Russia has given, transferred, and is prepared to part with, and compare it with the sorts of technology the US is eager to sell India – the 1970’s vintage F-16 and F-18 combat aircraft and M-777 light howitzer and, as part of the Defence Trade and Technology Initiative (DTTI), development of tactical drones, battery pack, etc., it is laughable. That DTTI is touted as the vehicle for Modi’s “Make in India” programme, makes this a grim joke.

If all this wasn’t bad enough, the Modi government seems to have bought into the nonsense Condoleeza Rice peddled 15 years ago during Bush Junior’s US presidency, namely that Washington will help India become a “major power”. The gullible Manmohan Singh regime swallowed it whole, ignoring a small detail – no great power in history has helped an aspiring state become a consequential power and thus grow its own rival. True, the US duo of Nixon-Kissinger in the Seventies violated this axiom and gave China a leg up. Look where that’s gotten Washington. The US is confronted and confounded by an economic and military monster, China, it created. But India is not China, and even with all outside help it may not make it and, in any case, Washington won’t repeat that mistake. Recall in this respect that in return for New Delhi’s fulfilling the conditions of the nuclear deal, Washington had promised India “the rights and privileges” of a nuclear weapon state and entry into the Nuclear Suppliers Group. India has complied fully but the quid for the quo is nowhere in evidence.

One had so desperately hoped – and this analyst was amongst the first to voice this hope as far back as 2011 — that the advent of Modi, a plucky provincial politician, who had pulled himself up by his own bootstraps, would root a liberal rightwing Edmund Burke-ian type of conservatism in the country, an ideology based on liberty and small government, and one that put a premium on the individual’s desire to better his lot by the dint of his own effort, and in so doing improve society and country. Most of all, one fervently prayed for the articulation of a grand national vision and the injection of commonsensical precepts into foreign and strategic policies. Instead, the BJP regime has not deviated an iota from the Congress government’s pusillanimous approach and outlook. India continues to acquiesce in security schemes on terms dictated by extra-territorial powers — US and China. For this to happen, rulers in New Delhi have had to be compliant and/or complicit, otherwise a country India’s size and potential simply cannot be manipulated.
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Published in ‘The Citizen’ on April 14, 2016; available at http://www.thecitizen.in/index.php/NewsDetail/index/1/7426/Has-PM-Modi-Developed-Cold-Feet-Over-The-Logistics-Agreement-with-the-US

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No LEMOA — possible reasons

Posted on April 13, 2016 by Bharat Karnad

The Logistics Support Agreement the US has been keen on and which the visiting US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter had hoped to sign, has been put off. This despite advance notices in the media of the draft-Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA), a watered down variant of the standard LSA providing restrictive, case-by-case, access for the deployed military of each side to the other’s military bases for replenishment and R&R purposes, being ready for signature. However, LSA is “tweaked” it will still bear the taint of a formal military partnership, will be used more by US forces in the IOR theater than Indian forces will use American bases and, hence, will always be one-sided. Moreover, where’s the need for such an agreement tying India down, willy-nilly, to the US strategic camp when in these past many years, US assets have been refueled and replenished on an as and when requested-basis w/o any formal accord?

So, the signing of LEMOA is postponed. That’s a relief for the nonce. A last minute rethink may have been occasioned for the followings reasons: (1) It would have raised a political storm. However tattered the country’s unaligned status, deciding so overtly to go over to the US side, as it were, reduces hugely India’s room for policy maneuver. (2) The troubling transfer of F-16s and Viper attack helos to Pakistan in the face of Delhi voicing its discomfiture, suggests Washington’s ongoing military supply relationship with Islamabad is unlikely to be moderated even a bit whatever closeness may be achieved by higher degrees of military cooperation. Meaning in practical policy terms, while the US retains its policy latitude, India losses its freedom of action. (3) China can be kept quiet with fluid and contingent partnerships of the kind India has tried out, including with Southeast Asian states, Japan, Taiwan, Russia, and US, perhaps, far better than by signing on with the US. And most importantly (5) It will really throw a monkey wrench into the hardy and resilient Indo-Russian relations. Moscow had formally warned Delhi that should it sign CISMOA, for instance, the Akula-II in service with the Indian Navy would be immediately pulled, and the 2nd such SSN — the Iribis, will, of course, not be lent to India, and the transfer of other more advanced Russian military hardware could also be affected. Why specifically the Akula pullout? Because, per sources, the Russians fear that the air-to-submarine communications, which this agreement will technically facilitate, will permit the Americans to spoof the communications hardware on the ex-Russian SSN, etc., a risk the Russians are unwilling to take notwithstanding any assurances in this regard at any level by the Indian state. The ending of a Russian role in the country’s strategic armaments field will be a singular development, and perhaps grievously hurt India’s strategic posture in the future. This warning may have led to the draft- CISMOA, which was also negotiated, being put on ice.

Indira Gandhi signed the Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation with the Soviet Union in summer 1971 as cover for the military operations she expected to launch in East Pakistan later in the year. But she successfully prevented Moscow in subsequent years from using this document as a tool for Russian navy to gain permanent military access to India’s warm water ports — despite sustained political and diplomatic pressure from President Leonid Brezhnev. It is precisely military access when required that the US too seeks some 45 years later, except the Bharatiya Janata Party government of Narendra Modi, over-tilting to the West, is not proving as adroit in maintaining distance from the US or in balancing American, Russian and Chinese influences. Modi seems smitten by America (and the West, generally), and losing the plot on how to further the national interest. LEMOA is the thin edge of the wedge. It will be used by Washington to widen the US military and other presence in India, which an over-committed Modi, a little too gung-ho on the supposed technology benefits of getting close to America, will be unable to resist.

Before the prime minister proceeds down a ruinous path that will terminally hobble India, he should get some credible persons, even if informally, to do an objective analysis of the comparative levels of military technology the country has procured from the US and Russia, and if Russian tech TOT deals haven’t fructified, whether it is not the extant DPSU and public sector dominated-mil R&D system and entrenched arms import lobby to blame, and whether his “make in India” programme really needs such treaty intimacy with the US for it to prosper. Of course, if such a study is tasked to the usual lot of compromised, retired and serving, civil servants, MEA diplomats, and militarymen, we already know what their conclusions will be, and it will be a wasted effort.

Modi, Parrikar, and those advising them should pause and consider if they are doing the right thing by the country in light of the historical record of India’s relations with the United States, and US’ own interests in the immediate region and Asia, and its overarching deep political and economic interlinkages with China. Modi is here today, may not be here tomorrow, but India will always be there. Don’t do anything, Mr Prime Minister, that will harm India’s prospects.

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Offer Ash Carter a meaningful multilateral initiative to counter China

Posted on April 9, 2016 by Bharat Karnad

India’s attitude and policy towards China, surprisingly, hasn’t deviated even a little bit after the BJP assumed power in May 2014. If anything, Narendra Modi’s government has shown even greater reticence if that’s possible than the predecessor Manmohan Singh setup in taking on China. This despite Beijing’s moves steadily to grow its presence in the Indian Ocean region and to emerge as a player regional states have to reckon with. It was expected — this was more a hope than any real indication by candidate Modi — that BJP with a view to burnishing its “nationalist” reputation would be less passive on the northern and the northeastern borders, and that the forward deployed Indian army units would be told to be more “in the face” of the Chinese PLA troops facing them. It turns out just the reverse is happening. Indian units have been told actually to cease doing anything the PLA objects to. Thus, according to a press report, Indian troops who were constructing a water channel from a hot spring source on the Indian side of LAC in the Demchok area of Ladakh were instructed to heed PLA’s objections to such activity and stop it. This water was sought by the local people who, understandably, are upset that New Delhi is more concerned about placating the Chinese than meeting their need in the high-altitude arid terrain they subsist in.

This is the usual submissive approach to China that I have long decried. So the recommendation that follows for the Indian Defence Minister Parrikar to propose to the US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter in their April 12 meeting joint or, even better, multilateral actions to stop Beijing from realizing its expansive “nine dash line” claims in the South China Sea, will obviously be ignored by a fearful Indian government.

The context for such multilateral action is China’s dredging the waters around the Scarborough Shoal 125 miles from the Philippines preparatory to what Manila fears will be the creation of yet another artificial island air base conjured out of cementing dredged up sand, corals, and earth, which will then be used to justify Chinese claims and exclusive ownership of these narrow seas.

The US has informed Beijing it does not respect the ADIZ (air defence identification zone) in the skies off the Chinese coast, and has sent a US warship on a “freedom of navigation” (FON) patrol through the disputed waters, attracting nothing more than a bit of finger wagging by the Chinese. This has to be followed up with more such patrols but constituted with warships from a whole bunch of countries effected by the disputable Chinese claims. Parrikar should offer, for a start, that Indian naval ships will join American warships in periodic sailings through these waters on FON mission. And agree to persuade littoral states in the region — Japan, Vietnam, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Brunei, Australia to also join in such patrolling. The problem with single state FON sailings is that China can easily intimidate and thwart them by pressuring the country undertaking it. Even the US has not been immune to such pressure. But a flotilla comprising naval vessels from three, five, or seven regional states will be more difficult for Beijing to handle in the manner it has done single states — by huffing and puffing, and hinting at more decisive military action. This way forcefully to impose the collective will of regional states will have a more salutary effect on China than anything else.

For once, New Delhi needs to lead such an initiative to gain credence especially with Southeast Asian states who are convinced India is all talk and no action. Carter will be taken aback by this show of new found Indian resolve, no doubt, and will likely jump at it. Even if Carter doesn’t, India should proceed with this initiative, try and get other regional countries to join it in opposing China’s adventurism. It will be a welcome departure for the staid and stale no-risk national security strategy New Delhi has followed. It could be the first among other such actions India could take to push China on the defensive.

But, realistically, does the Modi government have the moxy for such enterprise that will serve India’s distant defence interests very well? Nah.

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