By Nitin Gokhale
June 12, 2012
The U.S.
might hope for a closer military and strategic alliance with India. But
don’t expect New Delhi
to get excited about the proposal.
If he felt any disappointment at
not achieving any substantial breakthrough in talks with Indian Defense
Minister A.K. Antony, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta didn’t show it
publicly. On a swing through Asia that started with Singapore’s annual Shangri-La Dialogue, Panetta
had hoped to bring the Indian defense establishment on board for a rebalancing
strategy that many believe is aimed squarely at China.
But it wasn’t to be.
Antony,
known as a particularly cautious policymaker, reportedly
told Panetta politely but firmly that India
doesn’t wish to be seen as a U.S.
alliance partner as it embarks on its Asia-Pacific strategy. His comments came
within days of Panetta’s announcement
in Singapore that the United
States intended, by 2020, to have 60 percent
of its naval fleet based in the Asia-Pacific even as it looks to build new
alliances in the region.
Speaking to an audience of
strategic thinkers, defense officials, diplomats and journalists at one of the
biggest events on the annual Asia defense calendar, Panetta
stated that the “United States military…will be smaller, it will be leaner,
but it will be agile and flexible, quickly deployable, and will employ cutting
edge technology in the future.
“While the U.S. military will remain a global force for
security and stability,” he added the United States “will of necessity
rebalance towards the Asia-Pacific region. We will also maintain our presence
throughout the world. We will do it with innovative rotational deployments that
emphasize creation of new partnerships and new alliances.”
Yet while New
Delhi has been open to increasing bilateral engagement with Washington – and does in fact undertake a number of joint
exercises across the three defense services – the establishment in India is still wary of any military alliance, or
even a formal partnership with the United States.
Why? It’s partly because India doesn’t want to upset China, its main competitor in Asia, by openly embracing
the United States.
However, more fundamentally, Indian lawmakers and politicians continue to have
reservations over the United States itself, doubts born largely from India’s
perception of the past half a century that Washington has tended to side with
India’s arch rival, Pakistan.
Antony,
who last month became India’s
longest serving defense minister, has been especially careful not to publicly
cozy up to Washington.
Indeed, he has often instructed ministry officials to downplay joint bilateral
exercises with the United States,
resisted signing deals tied to weapons systems weapons, and he has consistently
told officials that India
believes any U.S.
disputes should be dealt with bilaterally.
As a result, even as India has agreed to scale up training for Afghanistan’s armed forces, it has
refused to openly back the U.S.
lines on the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean.
Although India is aware (and wary) of China’s increasing assertiveness in both
expanses of water, it prefers to work with smaller countries in the region –
such as Vietnam, the Philippines and Indonesia – as well as China to resolve
regional tensions.
Antony raised exactly these issues at
Shangri-La. “As countries seek to bolster their capabilities to respond to
perceived challenges in the maritime domain, there also arises a need to avoid
conflict and build consensus,” he said. “In this connection, keeping in view
the issues that have arisen with regard to the South China Sea, India has welcomed the efforts of the parties
concerned in engaging in discussion, and the recently agreed guidelines on the
implementation of the 2002 Declaration on the Conduct of Parties between China and ASEAN.
We hope that the issues will be resolved through dialogue and negotiation.”
According to Defense Ministry
sources, Antony’s plain talk, both in Singapore and in bilateral talks with Panetta,
was a disappointment to Panetta and U.S. efforts to weave together an
“anti-China” alliance. But Panetta apparently hid his disappointment well at a
talk delivered immediately after conversations with Antony at the Indian Defense Studies and
Analyses (IDSA), a government-funded, New Delhi-based think tank. Indeed, despite
the setback, Panetta tried to stay upbeat.
“I believe our relationship can
and should become more strategic, more practical, and more collaborative,” Panetta
said. “Our defense policy exchanges are now regular, candid, and
invaluable. Our partnership is practical because we take concrete steps through
military exercises and exchanges to improve our ability to operate together and
with other nations to meet a range of challenges. And our defense relationship
is growing ever more collaborative as we seek to do more advanced research and
development, share new technologies, and enter into joint production of defense
articles.”
Still, although Panetta didn’t
say so explicitly, accompanying U.S.
officials told their Indian counterparts that they are looking to move beyond a
transactional relationship between the two countries as far as weapons and
platforms are concerned. India,
which recently became the world’s largest weapons importer, is in the process
of buying U.S.
arms worth more than $8 billion dollars over the next two years. However, India is also
eyeing high technology, dual-use items. If such deals can be achieved, it would
mark a notable shift in the U.S.
from the late 1990s, when many Indian entities found themselves sanctioned
following India’s
twin nuclear tests.
With the changing geo-political
environment, and the impending U.S. drawdown from Afghanistan, Washington
sees India as a critical
partner in ensuring stability and security in Asia,
including over cyber and space security, which are seen as potentially major
areas of collaboration. This view is backed by two IDSA scholars, Ajey Lele and
Cherian Samuel, who argued
in a commentary on Panetta’s visit that there are a number of potential
areas of military collaboration on space and cyber security, including
satellite navigation. They noted that the Indian Space Research Organisation
has an ongoing GPS-Aided Geo Augmented Navigation (GAGAN) project that’s
expected to yield major benefits for the civil aviation sector.
“Since the currently used GPS
does not guarantee the availability of precision services during conflict
situations, it is important for India
to invest in space assets…India
and the United States
could work on compatibility and interoperability aspects of both these
systems,” they wrote.
Washington
can be expected to continue to push New Delhi to
accept a role as a lynchpin in a U.S.-led security architecture in Asia. But for now, at least, India will at best be a very
reluctant ally.
Nitin Gokhale is Defence
& Strategic Affairs Editor with Indian broadcaster, NDTV 24×7.
Courtesy:
The Diplomat
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