ABOUT THE AUTHOR- The author of this article Subhendu Bikash Tahal, is a Gold medalist in BA(POL.SC) and is currently pursuing his Post-graduation in Political science at Utkal University, and has also qualified for Junior Research Fellowship(JRF) and eligibility for Assistant Professor in the National Eligibility Test(UGC-NET).
The nuclear and defence cooperation between the USA and India reached new heights during the first innings and continuing second innings of the PM Modi. The fertile ground for strategic convergence between the oldest and the largest democracy was provided by an assertive and rising China and the shifting of us interest from EUROPE and MIDDLE EAST to EAST ASIA, which was evident in the writing of Hillary Clinton, the then US Secretary of state, in the Foreign Policy titled “America’s pacific century”. The growing clout of China at a regional and extra-regional level which posed a direct challenge to America’s influence necessitated on the one hand for USA to grow a bilateral rapport and make India a strategic fulcrum as a regional counterweight to china in Indo-pacific, on the other-hand India’s concern over rising power asymmetry facilitated the relationship and gave it an extra mileage.
The illustrious testimony to the increasing strategic cooperation between the two democracies can be gauged from the fact that India was designated as the Major defence partner of USA during PM Modi’s visit to the US in June 2016 and finally got the official stamp on this status in the National Defence Authorisation Act of 2017. This status accorded is unique to India as it strives to institutionalise the progress made to facilitate defence trade and technology sharing at par with that of the USA’s closest allies thereby uplifting the status of India to a new level. The India-US Defence Relationship regained an impetus following the signing of “Joint Strategic vision” between Barack Obama and Narendra Modi in January 2015 for a shared vision for peace, stability and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region during president Obama’s visit in January 2015.
Renewing the bilateral commitments, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar and his US counterpart the US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter signed a ten year defence framework agreement in June 2015 and engaged in a “strategic handshake” as dubbed by the secretary. The first framework agreement was signed in the US in 2005 by the then defence minister Pranab Mukherjee and his counterpart US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, setting the US and India on a trajectory to increasingly broad complex and strategic cooperation.
Defence cooperation is a priority for both US and India but the pace and cooperation on defence technology and trade had been stymied by bureaucratic process. Therefore, In 2012, Secretary of Defence Mr. Leon Panetta directed Deputy Secretary of defence Dr. Ashton Carter to undertake an initiative to provide supervision at a senior level to get beyond these obstacles. The undertaking is known as Defence Technology and Trade Initiative (DTTI). The DTTI is neither a treaty nor a law but a flexible mechanism to ensure that senior leaders from USA are persistently focussed on the opportunities and challenges associated with growing Indo-us defence partnership. Under the DTTI many a projects have been undertaken.
The U.S. has four “foundational” agreements, that it signs with its defence partners and these are meant to build basic ground work and promote interoperability between militaries by creating common standards and systems. They also guide sale and transfer of state of the art technologies. US describe them as “routine instruments that the U.S. uses to promote military cooperation with partner-nations”. The first of the four agreements, the General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA), was signed by India and the U.S. in 2002. The agreement enables the sharing of military intelligence between the two countries and necessitates each country to protect the others’ classified information. It allows the sharing of classified information from the U.S. government and American companies with the Government of India and Defence Public Sector Undertakings but not with Indian private companies.
In 2016 during Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar’s visit to the U.S an India-specific version of the Logistics Support Agreement (LSA) i.e. Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA) was signed following a long period of negotiations, spanning over a decade. The agreement is crucial in formalising an ad-hoc arrangement already in place and promotes India-US military-to-military cooperation. The agreement provides access to each other’s military facilities for fuelling and logistic support on a reimbursable basis, with no obligations on India to provide any basing arrangements. It will primarily cover four areas port calls, joint exercises, training and Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief. Any other requirement has to be agreed upon by both sides on a case-by-case basis.
During Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s discussions with the US President Donald Trump at the White House in June 2017 a Dialogue mechanism on the lines of India-Japan was agreed upon giving a further boost to the existing brawny ties. The 2+2 dialogue between the foreign and defence ministers and their counterparts replaces India-US strategic and commercial dialogue(S&CD) which was in place since September 2015.
The 2+2 dialogue was held after repeated postponement and cancellation and against the backdrop of burgeoning joint exercises such as Cope-India, Yudh Abhyasand Vajra Prahar, in Air Force, Army and special Force respectively, in the month of September 2018. And on the side-line of this dialogue an India specific version of Communication and Information on Security Memorandum of Agreement (CISMOA) i.e. Communications Compatibility and Security Agreement (COMCASA) was signed. COMCASA is an important milestone in the defence cooperation between the two countries firstly, for being a foundational or enabling agreement that facilitate interoperability between militaries and sale of high end technology. Secondly, it allows India to procure transfer specialised equipment for encrypted communications for US origin military platforms like the C-17, C-130 and P-8Is. Currently, these platforms use commercially available communication systems. As unlike commercially available communication system the Sea Guardian drones that India is keen on acquiring, operate on a secure data and communication system, so the signing of this enabling agreement becomes imperative. Simply put, COMCASA meant to facilitate the use of high-end secured communication equipment to be installed on military platforms.
As a major breakthrough in august 2018, India became the third Asian country after Japan and South Korea to get the Strategic Trade Authorisation-1 (STA-1) status following the issuance of US federal notification to this effect, paving the way for high-technology product sales to India, particularly in civil space and defence sectors. The STA-1 status is unique to India in the sense that traditionally, the U.S. has placed only those countries in the STA-1 list who are members of the four export control regimes: Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), Wassenaar Arrangement (WA), Australia Group (AG) and the NSG. But to date, with the effective support of the U.S., India has been admitted to three of the four multilateral export control regimes, the MTCR on June 27, 2016, the Wassenaar Arrangement on December 7, 2017, and the Australia Group on January 19, 2018 except Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) because of the stiff opposition from China. By placing India in the STA-1 list, the United States in a way has acknowledged that for all practical purposes India adheres to the export control regimes of the NSG and sends a clear message to China for the inclusion of India into NSG. Apart from this the recognition facilitates and supports India’s military modernisation efforts with the U.S. as a reliable provider of advanced defence articles.
Meanwhile, on the backdrop of 2017 ASEAN Summit in Manila, to counter the rising China, an informal security dialogue forum was revived which is popularly known as QUAD or Quadrilateral Security Dialogue consisting of India, US, Japan, Australia bounded with a common glue. Quad in turn took the security cooperation between India and US to a new height, although an informal multilateral forum.
In June 2019 The United States Senate has passed a legislative provision that brings India as America’s North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) ally for increased defence cooperation. The National Defence Authorisation Act or NDAA for the fiscal year 2020, which was passed by the Senate India Caucus Co-Chair Senator John Cornyn with the support of Senate India Caucus Co-Chair Senator Mark Warner provides for increased US-India defence cooperation in the Indian Ocean in the areas of humanitarian assistance, counterterrorism, counter-piracy and maritime security. Unlike the member nations who have to contribute their gross national income to fund NATO, major non-NATO allies are only involved in strategic working partnership with NATO countries not in a mutual defence pact with US. This would enable India access a lot of military and financial advantages otherwise not available to non-members.
CHALENGES
A strong opinion has grown in India that the strategic tilt towards the US would undermine the national interest of India and also runs the risk of upsetting the country’s geopolitical image, from a strategically autonomous state to accepting the dictate of US. The strategic experts in India view LEMOA, COMCASA and other foundational agreement as carefully crafted documents aimed at achieving the American objective of building the defence relationship and synchronising it with foreign policy so that the foreign relationship can be remote controlled.
As the signing of the LEMOA and COMCASA demand access to each other’s bases and integrate each other’s communications networks. Apprehensions are, therefore, raised that signing the COMCASA would allow America to intrude into the space of Indian military communication systems. In addition, most of the military equipment in India are from Russia, the questions are being raised that would the COMCASS provided platform be compatible with the Russian origin technology.
For the US these are accords to create an artificial dependency for the client state. If we look at the cases of many client states like Pakistan that have a history of importing cutting-edge technology and state of the art weapons from America, they have had to considerably compromise even on their sovereignty. These nations are always forced into accepting the American order in their foreign and defence policies. A case in a point is the intrusion of US Special Forces into Pakistani territory during Operation Neptune Spear in May 2011 and the subsequent drone strikes against Al Qaeda and Taliban hideouts, which is a clear violation of Pakistan’s sovereign airspace.
Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement (BECA) for sharing sensitive geospatial intelligence gathered from satellites and other space-based platforms and the ISA which would involve the private sector in technology sharing, taking forward the commitments in GISOMIA, is yet to be signed.
The US law against Russia — Countering America’s Adversaries through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) – has become a major bone of contention between the two countries, which prevents India from doing business with Russian defence firms or as some sceptic underscores CATSAA would reduce India to an US ally, not allowing India to diversify its weapon.
The existing India-Russian defence relationship is in a state of throes as the nature of CAATSA may replace Russian weapons systems in the Indian Army, Navy and Air force with systems from the US-controlled supply chain by pulling apart the defence relationship between India and Russia. The sanctions under CAATSA could endanger India’s overall defence ties with Russia, and has the potential to impact spares procurement for weapons of which 70 per cent are of Russian origin thereby undermining India’s defence preparedness.
Spectre that haunts Indo-US defence cooperation is the scepticism of America over India’s continued reliance on Russia for its important defence procurement. The US is particularly sceptic about the consequences of operating alongside the Russian S-400 system.
The procurement of Russian S-400 bears the risk of plateauing of Indo-us defence cooperation as it may trigger sanction under CAATSA which may in turn in future lead to Indian inclination towards Russia.
The US lags behind in regard to the realisation of India’s ‘Make in India’ aspects of the defence trade.
Concerns of US regarding IPR run deep and create a dent in the strong ties, just as India’s expectations regarding transfer of technology and license production remain unfulfilled.
Way forward
If India is to play a role commensurate with its ambition and potential then defence modernisation is key to its goal. And the most potent source which can modernise India’s defence to its full extent remains the US, It is pertinent here to note that in the 1980s even China’s defence modernisation also benefitted from the close cooperation with the US as part of their ‘strategic alliance’ against the former Soviet Union. So it’s high time for India to forge strong cooperation now with the US to reap benefits in future. And the true potential of the relationship can be harnessed by signing the remaining foundation agreements like BECA and ISA and with the revival of Defence Policy Group (DPG). Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement (BECA) will allow India to use US geospatial maps to get pinpoint military accuracy of automated hardware systems and weapons.
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