Defence minister A.K. Antony visited Washington on September 27-28, with a high-level delegation, which included the Eastern Army Commander Lt. Gen. Bikram Singh and Commander of the Andaman and Nicobar Command (ANC) Admiral D.K. Joshi — two officers who are expected to take over as service chiefs in the near future — and director-general (operations) of the Indian Air Force, Air Marshal A.K. Gogoi. During this visit, he met US defence secretary Robert Gates and national security adviser (NSA) Gen. James Jones.
Shortly after the announcement of this visit, when C-in-C, Western Air Command, Air Marshal N.A.K. Browne, interacted with the media, as a prelude to the forthcoming Indian Air Force (IAF) Day, the matter about the US supplying fighter aircraft to Pakistan came up. Later, speaking to this newspaper, Air Marshal Browne, said: “The F-16s Block 50/52, configured by Lockheed Martin for Pakistan, are not as advanced as the F-16 IN medium multi-role combat aircraft (MMRCA) meant for India, but they will reduce the technological gap between the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) and the IAF, which has had a decisive edge in its size and platforms. The PAF has been major part of Pakistan’s programme of modernisation of its armed forces, since 2004-5. The F-16s, which the PAF received in June this year, plus beyond visual range missile systems, precision guided munitions — not to mention the JF 17 aircraft ‘developed jointly’ with China — are not the kind of arms and systems needed for fighting terrorism, but those which enhance day and night operational capability in war.”
This visit, the Western Air Command C-in-C’s observations and the defence minister’s earlier expressed concern about the US arms aid to Pakistan and its sponsorship/export of terror groups against India, yet again, raises the issue of what the India-US strategic relationship has amounted to, since it got going in June 2005. That was when India and US signed a 10-year agreement paving the way for stepped up military ties, including joint weapons production and cooperation on missile defence. Titled the “New Framework for the US-India Defence Relationship”, it was signed on June 27, 2005, by then US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and India’s then defence minister Pranab Mukherjee.
Under this agreement, then hailed as a very important step, Washington was to have offered high-tech cooperation, expanded economic ties and energy cooperation. It was also to step up a strategic dialogue with India to boost missile defence and other security initiatives, launch a “defence procurement and production group,” and work to cooperate on military “research, development, testing and evaluation”. It was expected then that know-how transfer would perhaps be even more valuable than the technology transfer. Mr Mukherjee had expressed India’s position that all military technology restrictions should be dropped. While there was no hope of that happening then, it was felt that restrictions would be eased considerably from fighter aircraft to the even the more important maritime patrol category and that further as trust and cooperation would grow.
Four-and-a-half years after that “historic” agreement and much water flowing down the Yamuna and Potomac rivers, when Mr Gates visited India in January this year, after one of the severest attacks in Kabul, he gave a “clean chit from the US to Pakistan” and propounded some fresh theories about the India-Pakistan problem. Conveying India’s concerns about denial of export licences for various requirements of the armed forces to Mr Gates and also the inclusion of some Indian defence PSUs and Defence Research and Development Organisation laboratories in the US government’s “entity list”, Mr Antony pointed out that such restrictions were anomalous in the context of the steady improvement in the bilateral defence relations between both countries. Mr Gates responded to this by assuring that US President Barack Obama’s comprehensive reform of US export control regulations, would, in fact, involve “facilitation in the supply of defence technology and equipment to India”. While some agreements were signed, Mr Antony did not sign certain umbrella agreements much pushed by the US, like the Communication Interoperability and Security Memorandum of Agreement and Logistics Support Agreement, stating that they needed to be assessed on how they would benefit India.
While a US government official is reported to have said the defence ministry as well as the PMO were given “non papers” on the three pacts, the Indian government’s response is still awaited and no pacts or defence deals are to be signed during this visit.
What should be on the top of the defence minister’s agenda during this visit is concerns over the military aid to Pakistan, including the recent transfer of advanced F16 fighters to the country for its “war against terror”, that these weapons could be diverted against India, and that there should be a “monitoring mechanism” to prevent this from happening. Also, what should be discussed are a variety of issues, including the security situation in the region, Pakistan still sponsoring terror groups against India and China increasingly flexing its military muscles.
In view of what was stated and hoped for in the New Framework for the US-India defence relationship and what all has transpired since, where does India stand? Obviously, this relationship has changed quite drastically from the time it was envisaged by the George W. Bush administration and now viewed by the Barack Obama administration through its “AfPak” prism.
WikiLeaks has blown the lid off on Pakistan’s devious designs, which have repeatedly caused the death of many American and other countries’ soldiers and Afghans as well as much damage and destruction of properties/assets of the coalition countries and Afghanistan. The latest is the unprecedented destruction of 27 tankers and trucks carrying Nato stores, that too, near Islamabad, at a depot in Rawalpindi on the road to the Peshawar, which is the main Nato supply route into Afghanistan.
There is nothing on the cards so far to suggest that America’s AfPak policy changes for its own good and India’s. Apart from all the India-US joint military exercises and cooperation related to America’s concerns on terror, it has so far done little about India being targeted by Pakistan’s terror groups.
Over the last two years, India has purchased over $3 billion in military equipment from the US, including eight maritime reconnaissance aircraft and six C-130-J Super Hercules transport aircraft. Also being considered is largest defence transaction yet — of about $2.5 billion — with India poised to purchase 10 strategic airlift aircraft. There is no progress known on India’s bilateral defence trade relations with the US moving from a purely buyer-seller relationship to a more comprehensive relationship covering transfer of technology and joint production. Lockheed Martin’s F-16IN is in the contest for 126 MMRCA tenders of the IAF against American Boeing’s F/A-18s, Russian RAC-MiG’s MiG-35, French D’Assault’s Rafale, European consortium EADS’ Eurofighter Typhoon and Swedish SAAB’s Gripen.
While it remains to be seen what the impact of the defence minister’s visit will be or what sops President Obama will come with on his visit, New Delhi must seriously plan on contingencies and also muster the political will of changing tack on the principle of God helps those who help themselves.
Anil Bhat, a retired Army officer, is a defence and security analyst based in New Delhi