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Defence cooperation has many dimensions today including the sale, purchase and joint development of military equipment, transfer of technology, intelligence sharing and coordination for counter-terrorism and counter-proliferation, cooperation in jointly providing relief and succour after natural calamities, coordination in transnational anti-drug trafficking activities and the joint patrolling of sea lanes of communication against piracy and terrorism. India shares good defence relations with several friendly countries. Indo-US defence cooperation has also gained prominence in recent years due to the shared interests that emerged after the end of the Cold War.
Though India has been a user of defence equipment produced in the United States (US) since the 1960s, the defence relationship never went beyond platitudes as the US had perceived India to be firmly in the Soviet camp during the Cold War.
Enterprising defence initiatives like the 1984 MoU on technology transfer, 1987 Lindstrom report, 1991 Kickleighter proposals and 1995 Agreed Minute on Defence, driven entirely by the US, kept military relations alive but lacked strategic underpinnings. During the 1990s India had differences with the US on various issues like the NPT and the CTBT. Just when India’s relations with the US had begun to improve, the Indian nuclear tests in May 1998 set back the relationship by several years. However, despite the sanctions (mandated by US law) imposed on India immediately after the nuclear tests, the Clinton Administration soon realised that India was an emerging power and it would be in the US interest to engage India. The Bush Administration was particularly appreciative of India’s potential as an emerging power in Asia and for the first time the two countries engaged in a genuine dialogue on cooperative security issues. The September 11 attacks in New York and Washington D.C. further changed the India-US relationship as both began to cooperate on terrorism and a multi-faceted relationship developed.
The US has always recognised Indian military expertise, both at the high and low end of the spectrum of conflict – especially India’s excellence in high-altitude warfare, peacekeeping and counterinsurgency. While the US military has been keen to improve interoperability, India coveted US high technology and advanced weaponry. The two countries entered into a mutually beneficial strategic partnership during the tenure of the BJP-led NDA regime. This led to the Next Steps in Strategic Partnership (NSSP) under which several layers of sanctions on India were removed by the US. The US began to look beyond sales of defence equipment and expressed its readiness to discuss defence transformation with India, including in terms of command and control and early warning. The US now sees India in a different light and the Framework Indo-US Defence Agreement was signed on June 28, 2005 on co-equal terms.
The new relationship is mutually beneficial both for India and for the US. Both the countries expect to benefit equally. The US has technology and hardware and India is a leading player in the knowledge economy and has demonstrated its soft power potential. The US now accepts that India has good information security SOPs and is capable of ensuring the ‘security’ of technology transferred to it. The US has realised that the lower cost of production in India, particularly of manufacturing sub-systems and components, will make US products more cost-effective. Lower repair costs are also attractive. Factors that will sustain this relationship in the long-term are people to people contacts, industry-to-industry relations and a military-industrial partnership. The US is now more flexible in its approach to technology transfers. This does not imply that the US will cut short its export control procedures. US officials have explained to India in greater detail the various clearance processes mandated by US domestic laws and their efforts to expedite these processes.
Four new sub-groups are now working under the aegis of the Defence Policy Group (DPG) towards keeping up the momentum of the process:
• Military Co-operation Group: Army-to-Army, Navy-to-Navy, Air Force-to-Force discussion on exchange of personnel, joint exercises, training courses.
• Defence Procurement and Production Group: Very strong forum to make the relationship sustainable. Issues: Co-production, joint development, supply relationship to leverage Indian capabilities for cost-effective production.
• Joint Technical Group: This deals with defence R&D and cooperation in life sciences, aerospace, and simulators etc.
• Senior Technical Security Group: Exchanges on technical security.
India and US are working closely on maritime co-operation including joint commitment to free flow of commerce, safety of maritime assets, search and rescue, marine pollution and natural disasters. The post-Tsunami disaster relief operations carried out by India were much appreciated in the US in terms of their strategic outreach. Indian concerns on “Reliability of Technology Transfer” have been expressed. The US is working to allay this fear by sensitising India about the processes involved, which cause delay and also action being taken to expedite these processes. The US and India have begun to share civil (narcotics and terrorism) and military intelligence. In future, India will work towards cooperation in joint R&D, joint production, more reliable supply arrangements and more open transfer of technology.
The Indo-US Civil Nuclear Cooperation Agreement will lead to the lifting of most of the remaining sanctions on dual use technologies and India will at long last be rid of the draconian technology denial regime that it has been a victim of. This will result in the free flow of US defence technology to India and will considerably aid India’s quest for self-reliance in weapons technology. Indo-US defence cooperation is not an end in itself but a major part of the strategic partnership between the two countries. It is in the interest of both the countries to maintain the momentum of this process. Defence cooperation is not just about defence or nuclear energy, it is also about understanding each other better and working together on areas of mutual benefit. There should be no question of India’s national interests ever being compromised or of India playing a subordinate role in the relationship.
(Courtesy : PTI)
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