The US seeks a counterweight to China on the Subcontinent
The visit earlier this month by India’s Home Minister P Chidambaram to Washington, DC is the latest manifestation of how much the geostrategic picture is changing in South Asia as the India-US partnership deepens, causing consternation in Islamabad as Pakistan’s traditional ally cosies up to New Delhi. It is an arrangement that is causing concern in Beijing as well.
The four-day official visit to America focused on Indo-US anti-terror cooperation, technological assistance, an assessment of the security situation in South Asia and a study of counter-terrorism institutions and structures. Chidambaram met as well with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, a strong indication that America under President Barack Obama is continuing one legacy of the Bush administration, and that is defense. Doubts that the Obama administration might re-look the strategic depth of Indo-US relations have been removed.
China and India have been engaging in a growing rivalry for primacy across Asia and in South Asia in particular. Beijing’s growing concern at the US’s deepening relationships with India was manifested last September, when China attempted to scuttle an agreement at the Nuclear Suppliers Group to allow India access to US nuclear technology. China in turn has continued to strengthen its ties with Pakistan and is developing port facilities in Bangladesh and Burma as well as Pakistan to protect its sea lanes.
India has been building on improved strategic ties with America with the civilian Indo-US nuclear deal signed last October as one significant signpost of achievement. Defense and tackling terror are two more areas of growing cooperation. India’s defense efforts in the short term look to build an effective arsenal against Pakistan, while in the longer term aim at deterrence against China, which remains far ahead of India in military capability. The two Asian giants have been squabbling for decades over thousands of square kilometers of disputed territory in India’s northeast adjacent to Kashmir.
Apart from the business generated by defense contracts (India’s defense modernization exercise is estimated at over US$50 billion in the period 2007-12), Washington’s strategic interests in the region extend to bolstering India as a counterweight to the influence of China in the Asian continent.
The September 13 revelations of former Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf in an interview with a Pakistani television station that he had ordered the diversion of US aid money intended to deal with Taliban and Al Qaeda to strengthen the country’s defense against India has only validated India’s resolve to buttress its military. On terror, Washington has been receptive to India’s concerns since the Mumbai terror strikes on two luxury hotels in November 2008. Reportedly the Indian military is being given access to classified information by Washington about terror activities in Pakistan as a key to pre-empting strikes.
Meanwhile, some momentum has already been gained in nuclear energy following the removal of international impediments, with India looking to generate 40,000 MW of atomic power by 2020.
Indo-US Defense Picks Up
Earlier this month, America cleared the high-technology, futuristic shipboard Hawkeye E-2D aircraft for Airborne Early Warning (AEW) and battle management, manufactured by Northrop Grumman. After the UAE, India is the second country to be cleared by the US State and Defense Departments for sale of this sophisticated system. India can now get the aircraft within three years of a contract being signed.
It was during Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s visit to India in July that the End User Monitoring Agreement of military equipment supplied or sold by the US to India was signed.
Earlier this year, the Obama administration also approved a US$2.1 billion sale to India of eight Boeing Co P-8I maritime patrol aircraft, the biggest US arms sale to India to date. The long-range maritime reconnaissance (LRMR) aircraft for the Indian navy will replace India’s eight aging and fuel-guzzling Russian-origin Tupolev-142Ms. The P-8I has been derived from the commercial Boeing 737 airframe. For the P-8I, Boeing beat several rivals, including EADS Airbus in the race to win the contract.
It was in 2005 that India and America signed the Defense Framework Agreement under the aegis of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Bush that blueprints progress in the next 10 years. Ever since, the US impact on Indian defense has grown, posing a tough challenge to traditional European partners such as France, Britain, Sweden and Israel and Russia in particular.
India’s additional defense modernization plans include a mega-fighter jet deal valued over US$11 billion, for which US firms Boeing and Lockheed are also bidding alongside several others.
In January 2008, Washington and New Delhi signed India’s previous largest US arms purchase: six Lockheed Martin Corp C-130J Super Hercules military transport planes at a price of US$1 billion. Last year, India also purchased an amphibious transport vessel, the USS Trenton (re-christened the Jalashwa), for nearly $50 million with six-UH-3H helicopters to operate alongside, costing another $49 million. The Jalashwa is the first-ever warship acquired by the Indian navy from the US and the second-biggest that India now possesses after the aircraft carrier INS Viraat.
The US’s only substantial (and comparatively less in value) arms deal with India in recent years has been the US$190 million contract of 2002 to supply 12 AN/TPQ-37 fire finder weapon-locating radars.
India has also been looking at joint efforts with the US to build a ballistic missile defense (BMD) system, especially in the wake of the Mumbai attacks and the threat of non-state players and other loose cannons increasingly gaining ground in Pakistan.
Officials say that Indian intelligence agencies perceive a potent terror threat from the skies. A missile shield would also provide cover against inter-continental ballistic missiles (ICBM). The BMD system features radar and anti-missile missiles, or interceptors, which are able to destroy incoming and possibly nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles, both of which Pakistan and China possess. In March this year India successfully conducted the third missile intercept test in Orissa, as part of plans to build BMD system by 2010. India is now looking at a more advanced version of its Star Wars ambitions that seeks to shoot down ICBMs in the 5,000 km range.
Tackling Terror
During Chidambaran’s visit, the home ministry furnished a list of 70 Pakistani terrorists to US officials, along with their addresses in Pakistan. New Delhi has been frustrated by what it regards as Pakistan’s intransigence’ in carrying forward investigations in the Mumbai 26/11 attacks and particularly is upset about letting off Jamaat-ud Dawa chief Hafiz Saeed, whom India sees as an alleged conspirator.
Chidambaram and the accompanying officials looked at anti-terror attack measures that could be deployed in India, the functioning of the New York Police Department, met FBI Director Robert Mueller, Director of National Intelligence Dennis C Blair, National Security Adviser James Jones and visited the National Counter-terrorism Centre in Virginia.
The visit will lead to follow up visits by Indian civilian and police officials and military commanders to America to study security systems, a process that has already begun.
It maybe recalled that following 26/11 India has been implementing an internal security revamp that includes a national investigation agency, new counter-insurgency and anti-terrorism schools, additional deployment of the crack anti-terror National Security Guards and a unified coastal command.
American involvement in Indian security has deepened in the last few months. The two countries have been associating in sharing of intelligence and investigations on the Mumbai strikes and other aspects.
In August this year, a six-member Anti Terror Assistance Team from America visited two main stations in Mumbai that have witnessed terror strikes.
US anti-terror teams are now in the process of devising training modules for Indian forces involved in the protection of the Railways. Again in August, US Ambassador to India Timothy J Roemer and federal home minister P Chidambaram discussed joint anti-terror measures.
US teams are known to be interacting closely with intelligence agencies to map out ways to develop intelligence networks as well as protect soft terror targets such as crowded markets, malls, airports, rail stations and places of worship. In Delhi the South Block, President’s House and Parliament, located in close vicinity and under grave threat from militants are being revamped with the help of American security experts. The aim is to replicate security systems installed at the Pentagon
South Block houses the Prime Ministers office, defense, foreign and home ministries and the headquarters of the armed forces. Heavily armed Fidayeen terrorists unsuccessfully tried to storm the Parliament House in December 2001 after entering the inner precincts using a vehicle with fake identification. It was fortuitous that Indian lawmakers inside survived.
Like in the Pentagon, South Block is being fitted for the first time with a new Surveillance and Access Control System for time bound and constant monitoring of vehicles, visitors, officials and other staff. The security systems in Parliament upgraded following 2001 are in for another round of advancement with the installation of 300 new and advanced closed-circuit vision cameras (CCTVs) to replace the existing ones.
