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.

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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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Steering into troubled seas with eyes wide open

Posted on April 8, 2016 by Bharat Karnad

As anticipated some weeks back (“India in America’s coils”), the Modi government seems bent on having the three foundational agreements — logistics support agreement (LSA), Communications Inter-operability and Security Memorandum of Agreement (CISMOA), and the Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement (BECA) in some form for signing when US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter is here next week. We are told MEA and MOD negotiators have been hard at work with their American counterparts to obtain draft accords tailored to specific Indian needs that also serve US purposes. There are fundamental problems even with the India-specific content of these agreements.

Consider LSA: For many years now, Indian and the US warships at sea have had a “barter” arrangement in place whereby an Indian ship with fuel excess to its mission needs transfers a fuel quantum to an US warship on the basis that a passing American warship can be tapped mid-ocean by an Indian ship at low tank for the exact quantum of fuel. So there’s some kind of a running account between the two navies. There is no exchange of monies — because the different accounting systems make for a mess, making reimbursement in value, rather than in kind, difficult. This was an expedient stop-gap arrangement arrived at by the two navies over the course of the Malabar and other naval exercises, joint piracy patrols, etc. This working scheme is operational. Other consumables — food items, potable water, servicing tools, naval maintenance kits, etc. can likewise be accommodated by simply enlarging the barter arrangement that has so far worked well. Why does India need a formal LSA for these things, especially on a “reimbursable” basis? This last, whether any one in the Indian govt concedes it or not, will do two things: (1) Place India in a position similar to Pakistan vis a vis US ISAF presence and military operations in Afghanistan, and (2) make reimbursements for materials offtaken by US forces in the region from Indian military stores subject to financial subventions from Washington. This will bring India under Congressional scrutiny which, in turn, will create its own difficulties. New Delhi, in effect, will have to account for the quality of every item or service rendered, and be compelled to respond on pain of non-payment. This is the punishing procedure all US’ formal allies undergo. Does it help the country’s cause even a little for India to be thus ensnared by the United States? And if high-technology is the big deciding issue: Is the US willing to TOT the EMALS (electromagnetic aircraft launch system) for the two Indian-built carriers, following Vikrant? Of course, not. But the Americans will happily part with technologies considered advanced in the 1970s — F-18 Super Hornet! Boy, are we dumb. Even Pakistan has not proved itself so naïve and gullible and is keeping its arms supply lines to China open. Why is the Modi govt so enamoured of US-sourced military technology when Russian topend hardware available to the Indian armed forces is tech-wise, generationally superior?

In a discussion on this topic, a former naval chief had no answer to the kind of objections I have raised above, or why the Navy in particular would rather rely on US warships or the base at Diego Garcia for mid-oceanic resupply and replenishment than speedily invest in and build-up the naval and air bases on North and South Agalega Islands offered by Mauritius, or on shore in a base in northern Mozambique offered by that country.

CISMOA: news reports portray Indian negotiators being satisfied with something called the “pre-bid guarantee” in case India chooses to manufacture an US armament system here — a combat aircraft, for instance. This “pre-bid guarantee: is supposed to require the US govt to guarantee the full transfer of technology. One can foresee how this will pan out. Such a guarantee is given but the supplier companies keep to the old way of doing things with India, namely, merely exporting first SKD kits, followed years later, by CKD kits while claiming there is full TOT. If questioned, they’ll point out that it is not their responsibility to ensure Indian firms, DPSUs, ingest and innovate the technologies passed on to them — which will be an irrefutable case. And hand over the full tranche of contracted funds, please! This guarantee, in the Indian context, is worth nothing.

The more significant issue is why the Modi PMO is going down this route. And shouldn’t it have been advised better, asked to temper their enthusiasm, not go full out, without being aware of booby traps down the supposed primrose path? The trouble is those in MEA advising the PM have long since jumped on to the American bandwagon. Foreign Secretary S, Jaishankar — his father K Subrahmanyam’s son alright — is in the van on these accords. Recall it was Subrahmanyam during the previous BJP govt’s tenure who persistently advocated buying peace with the US — sign the CTBT he said in 1996 along with his acolytes, such as Air Cmde Jasjit Singh, and for making the sorts of concessions his son first negotiated (as Joint Secretary, Americas) in the 2008 nuclear deal with the Congress party apparatchik Manmohan Singh as PM, and now as head of the foreign service, is configuring these foundational ags for an ideologically different, supposedly “nationalist”, BJP regime.

If China is the major worry and military cooperation with the US is deemed necessary, India can maximize collaborative activity and have similar outcomes by other solutions than committing to agreements that only bonafide allies of the US have so far accepted. Close embrace with any big power is always to the lesser state’s detriment. For India that sees itself as a great power in the process of being, it is all the more necessary to keep its distance but work with all powers, especially Russia and the regional states, such as Japan, and on the extended Indian Ocean and Southeast Asian littorals to more effectively stymie Beijing.

But this is obviously not the sort of counsel Modi hears, indicating the lack of professionalism in MEA and at the centre of foreign policymaking in New Delhi. Neither Modi — a politician, nor NSA, Ajit Doval, an ex-policeman, can be expected to know the complexities of friendship with the US formalized in treaty-like agreements. But MEA staffers are expected to do so. That they are failing in their duty to warn the PMO of pitfalls ahead, is what’s worrisome. By the time India begins to pay the full price of such accords pushed on the run, the present dramatis personae will have vacated the scene, and no one will be held accountable for the loss of India’s freedom of policy maneuver, its basic autonomy, and worse.

All we will be left with is the chant “Bharat Mata ki Jai”.

Posted in Afghanistan, Africa, arms exports, Asian geopolitics, China, China military, civil-military relations, Culture, Defence Industry, domestic politics, DRDO, Europe, Geopolitics, Great Power imperatives, India's China Policy, India's strategic thinking and policy, Indian Air Force, Indian Navy, Indian Ocean, Indian Politics, Military Acquisitions, Pakistan, Pakistan military, Russia, russian assistance, russian military, SAARC, society, South Asia, South East Asia, Strategic Relations with South East Asia & Far East, Strategic Relations with the US & West, Technology transfer, United States, US., Weapons, Western militaries | 12 Comments

N-security summit on ‘Public Forum’ & ‘World Panorama’ TV programmes

Posted on April 7, 2016 by Bharat Karnad

Both the ‘Public Forum’ programme on Lok Sabha TV and the ‘World panorama’ programme on Rajya Sabha TV discussed the recent nuclear security summit in Washington. These shows were broadcast over the past weekend. ‘Public Forum’ is available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGu52lu9QyQ0, and ‘Panorama’ at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CETo0836Zw&index=1&list=PL9E8D2AED720ECC2B.

Posted in Asian geopolitics, China, disarmament, Geopolitics, Great Power imperatives, India's strategic thinking and policy, nonproliferation, nuclear industry, Nuclear Policy & Strategy, Nuclear Weapons, Pakistan, Pakistan military, Pakistan nuclear forces, SAARC, society, South Asia, Strategic Forces Command, Terrorism, United States, US. | Leave a comment

Modus operandi of payoffs to the military

Posted on April 6, 2016 by Bharat Karnad

The Panama Papers leaked by a root source, apparently for altruistic reasons, has tarred a lot of public figures, including the baritone-voiced Amitabh Bachan, who had set himself up in recent years as spokesman for Gujrat Tourism garbed in the toga of national pride (and is now reduced to explaining, as if this has an iota of credence, that his name was perhaps misused by Panama-registered shipping companies, etc. since 1993! and, contrarily, that it revealed no illegality!).

The more interesting sidebar story (http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/panama-papers-mossack-fonseca-files-iaf-navy-italian-firms/) related to the system of payoffs to the Indian military, in the Panamanian case, to officers in the IAF and Indian Navy, by the Italian firm, Elettronica SpA, peddling elint (electronic intelligence) equipment, radar warning receivers, laser warning receivers/missile warning systems, electronic support systems (for helos), and self-protection jammers. The commissions range mostly in double figures from 13% to 17% of the deal amount for basically spares supply and servicing contracts. Thus, a top-end 17% commission for just one 1996 deal totaled 112,399 Euros or approx Rs 85.5 lakhs (at today’s conversion rate) for distribution by the Indian agent to corrupt Indian militarymen. Any delays in delivery that draw penalties result in the penalty sums being deducted from the commissions disbursed. And if the supplier is ever caught in this nefarious payoffs scheme, it invariably responds by brazening it out with statements, to wit by Elettronica SpA, that it “rejects any wrong or illegal practice and can adhere to facts…”, etc.!

Indian arms agents operate on retainer plus basis and Elettronica SpA is a relatively small firm. There are as many as 300-odd foreign arms companies active in the New Delhi circles, the majors with more than a single company representative presence to further their interests. The bulk of these up-front commissions, according to informed persons, are for disbursal to officers in the procurement loops in the three armed services and to officials in MOD, with the registered or unregistered agents being paid off through separate channels.

While rules require arms agents to register with GOI, these are often flouted, so there’s only minimal accountability. Moreover, because the payoffs process is necessarily secretive, just about every minor and major arms vendor has Panamanian-kind of offshore instruments to channel payoffs that are impossibly difficult to trace and their activities just as difficult to track, and well nigh impossible to bring to book. It is a system tailor-made for uniformed and civilian staffers in the procurement process to help themselves with payment — their choice — in cash or kind. So the Panama Papers have uncovered only a small part of the corruption system — the proverbial tip of the iceberg.

This is precisely why I have been maintaining over the years that the armed services which do not admit to the taint of corruption, are about as soiled as the politicians and bureaucrats. Just visit the residences services chiefs build for themselves to get an idea. I know only of one retired service chief who survives on his pension income — Vishnu Bhagwat. He lives frugally in a two room apartment in Colaba. Recall, he was the naval chief dismissed by the socialist defence minister, George Fernandes, in Vajpayee’s govt in 1996, and who followed in the footsteps of ADM Ronnie Periera. The day after his retirement, Periera took to a bicycle coz’ he admitted he couldn’t afford a car. He finally upgraded his conveyance, I am told, to a scooter.

Corruption — the fundamental weakness and historic failing of South Asian societies is the principal cause of internal insecurity and why countries of the subcontinent will always remain vulnerable. It is also one of the main reasons why India will never become a great power, because there’ll always be people within the policy establishment and in the system who’ll do a foreign country’s or an adversary’s bidding for a price.

Posted in arms exports, Asian geopolitics, civil-military relations, corruption, Culture, domestic politics, Geopolitics, Great Power imperatives, Indian Air Force, Indian Navy, society, South Asia | 10 Comments

Conversation with a reputed Service Chief and an IAS officer

Posted on April 5, 2016 by Bharat Karnad

Belated though it is, readers of this blog may want to see and hear a “conversation” the 6th Goa Arts and Literature Festival Dec 10-12, 2015, scheduled between former Navy chief Admiral Arun Prakash, an ex-IAS official who was in Vajpayee’s PMO, Shakti Sinha, and myself. The contents of my book — ‘Why India is Not a Great Power (Yet)’ was the subject. A video of this event is available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0geeoQNjII.

Posted in Africa, arms exports, Asian geopolitics, Central Asia, China military, civil-military relations, Culture, Defence Industry, domestic politics, DRDO, Europe, Geopolitics, Great Power imperatives, India's China Policy, India's Pakistan Policy, India's strategic thinking and policy, Indian Air Force, Indian Army, Indian democracy, Indian ecobomic situation, Indian Navy, Indian Ocean, Indian Politics, Internal Security, Maldives, Military Acquisitions, Missiles, nonproliferation, Northeast Asia, Nuclear Policy & Strategy, Nuclear Weapons, Pakistan, Pakistan military, Pakistan nuclear forces, Relations with Russia, Russia, SAARC, society, South Asia, South East Asia, Strategic Forces Command, Strategic Relations with South East Asia & Far East, Strategic Relations with the US & West, Terrorism, United States, US., Vietnam, Weapons | 1 Comment

Will Obsolete NATO be able to Assuage India’s Security Concerns?

Posted on April 4, 2016 by Bharat Karnad

On April 4, 1949, twelve countries, with the United States in the van, created the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). It was the victorious alliance in Europe of the Second World War transformed to resist the military threat posed by one of its erstwhile members, the Soviet Union. Flush with its success on the battlefield, Moscow had carved out its own exclusive sphere of influence in the Baltic states and central and eastern Europe captured by the Red Army and conceded as spoils of war by the US and UK. In response to NATO, Russians in 1955 set up a matching bloc — the ‘Warsaw Pact’.

Sixty-seven years later, with the Cold War long since won, NATO is floundering, consumed by differences over handling a freshly assertive Russia under President Vladimir Putin in a reshaped Europe, an America strained by involvement in too many conflicts and by the effort to contain China, and by squabbles relating to the equitable sharing of alliance costs and military effort.

How NATO comports itself in Europe is of secondary concern to India. But should the US and NATO over-balance toward European contingencies, the prospect for Asian states feeling menaced by a belligerent and expansively oriented China becomes commensurately bleak, more difficult, and will impact India’s security interest.

The trouble for NATO began with Washington’s hubris-laced interventions in the new Century to depose Saddam Hussein in Iraq, Moamar Gaddafi in Libya, and to destabilize the Bashir al-Assad regime in Syria. It led to the prevailing awful mess in the Islamic arc stretching from the Tigris to Tunis, which fraught situation was compounded by the simultaneous US military foray to eliminate the Taliban in Afghanistan. These various adventures have facilitated the rise of the brutal Islamic State, which in confluence with sections of the Afghan Taliban, constitute the adversary in America’s Global War on Terrorism.

NATO’s dilemma is plain enough. The maelstrom churned in the Maghreb, Middle East, and Southwest Asia is draining the US of its wealth and political will, and exhausting its military. With Washington footing over 75% of NATO’s bill and only the US, UK, Greece, and Estonia meeting the minimum standard of defence expenditure of 2% of GDP agreed upon in 2006, the American Defence Secretary, Robert Gates, in 2011 foresaw “a dim, if not dismal future”. “The blunt reality is that there will be dwindling appetite and patience in the U.S”, he had warned, “to expend increasingly precious funds on behalf of nations that are apparently unwilling to devote the necessary resources or make the necessary changes to be serious and capable partners in their own defense.”

The situation will deteriorate sharply for NATO if Donald Trump is elected US president. He will up stake and leave unless the European (and Asian) partners pay the full cost of US force deployment. This is at a time when Putin is strengthening Russia’s military clout, and used Article 10 in the treaty that permitted NATO’s expansion to 28 states, with the newcomers being mostly members of the defunct Warsaw Pact, as threat and justification for detaching Crimea from the Ukraine in 2014.

Washington is up a creek. Attending to NATO needs will necessarily denude the Indo-Pacific of US military presence. This is reason for serious worry, especially in light of the 2014 declaration by US Assistant Secretary of Defense Katrina McFarland that owing to budgetary cuts “the [Asia] pivot … can’t happen.” Meaning Pentagon’s 2012 promise of, for instance, redeploying naval assets from a 50/50 split between the Indo-Pacific and Atlantic to a 60/40 split favouring the former, is voided. This is in part because as the US naval chief Admiral Jonathan Greenert revealed, the navy has only 289 ships when a 450-ship fleet is required to meet world-wide commitments.

With the US security attention thus divided between Russia and China at the two ends of Eurasia, New Delhi is confronted by a stark fact: India cannot anymore free-ride on security afforded as public good by Washington (and earlier by Moscow). It will have to protect itself with its own resources the best it can. Tragically, the Indian government and military are not strategically geared, materially or policy-wise, to do so.
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Published in The Quint April 4, 2016, at http://www.thequint.com/opinion/2016/04/04/will-obsolete-nato-be-able-to-assuage-indias-security-concerns

Posted in arms exports, Asian geopolitics, China, Culture, Defence Industry, Europe, Geopolitics, Great Power imperatives, India's China Policy, India's strategic thinking and policy, Pakistan, Russia, russian military, society, South Asia, Strategic Relations with the US & West, United States, US., Weapons, West Asia, Western militaries | 9 Comments