India-US defence ties

The news from Washington brings good tidings for Indo-US defence ties that anyway have been on an upswing for the past decade. Both Houses of the US Congress have passed a Bill that confers on India major defence partner (MDP) status. US President Barack Obama is now expected to sign it into the law. Theoretically, MDP status should remove misgivings India has nursed against the US. Its main grouse has been the American parsimoniousness in passing on top-end defence technologies. The American complaint about India is its reluctance to partner Western armies on their taming missions in our part of the globe.

Does the new status change the way India has conducted its defence relations? If two recent high-level visits are any indication, India will continue with its catholic approach to defence purchases. The visit by Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shogu was followed by the seventh and last visit to India by Ashton Carter as the US Defence Secretary. This Indian style of parallel courting of two military rivals is unprecedented for any true blue American defence ally such as the NATO countries or Australia, Japan and South Korea. Unlike India, all of them participate enthusiastically in American military adventures. And unlike India, they are content to use American military hardware instead of harbouring ambitions of manufacturing weapons on their soil.

The India-US defence axis is a completely new paradigm for the Americans who have normally played the zero sum game in defence ties with other nations. As India was singed by an abrupt stoppage of US defence partnership in 1965 (Indo-Pak war) and 1998 (Pokhran tests), it is unlikely to put all its military eggs in the American basket despite the siren call of licence-free access to a wide range of dual-use technologies. The truth is often more prosaic. India will have to be seen as playing the American game with gusto for some military technology to come its way.  But much will also depend on the predilections of the incoming US President Donald Trump because he will have to decide how to carry forward the “enhancing defence and security cooperation with India” project.