India-US Logistics Pact: Moving Beyond Tactical Dissonance

Long-term strategic goals should be uppermost during talks with US defence secretary Carter, writes C Uday Bhaskar.

US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter being welcomed at Dabolim airport in Goa on 10 April 2016. (Photo: IANS)

(As Defence Minister, Manohar Parrikar visits US and it’s being speculated that India and US could sign the Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA), The Quint is re-publishing a piece from its archives on the contentious defence pact and its strategic importance. The article was first published on 11 April 2016.)

The current visit to India (April 10-12) of US Defence Secretary, Ashton Carter, which began in Goa has been described by him as a “strategic handshake”. It is expected that the uneven bilateral defence cooperation, first mooted more than 20 years ago after the end of the Cold War, will now be firmly rooted in tangible long-term projects that will enhance India’s composite military capability.

Dr Carter is an experienced defence official and no stranger to India. Over the years, he has been identified with the technology transfer initiative, now formalised between the two countries as the DTTI – the Defence Technology and Trade Initiative. This programme naturally complements the Modi government’s ‘Make in India’ focus, and will hopefully enhance India’s very modest indigenous defence production capacity.

However, in as much as there has been earnest rhetorical commitment between the two countries, actual progress on the ground remains limited and the tactical dissonance over other issues poses a challenge to the realisation of the ‘strategic handshake’ goal.

Contentious Defence Pacts

• LSA (Logistics Support Agreement): Gives US forces access to bases in India and vice versa.
  
• CISMOA: Allows interoperability of Indian and US Equipment; critical in a multi-national rescue/disaster relief operation.
  
• BECA: Facilitates exchange of geospatial information between governments for military and civilian use.
  
• India fears the fallout of sharing sensitive data by inking these deals with the US.
  

Union Minister for Defence, Manohar Parrikar, meets the US Secretary of Defence Dr Ashton Carter, on the sidelines of the 3rd ASEAN Defence Ministers` Meeting in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on 3 November 2015. (Photo: IANS/PIB)

Biting the Bullet

A high-visibility item on the bilateral agenda is the Indian reluctance to sign three agreements that are often described as ‘foundational’.

These include:
The LSA (Logistic Support Agreement)
The CISMOA (Communication and Information Security Memorandum of Agreement) The BECA (Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement for Geospatial Information and Services Cooperation).

This hesitation goes back to the Congress-led UPA era when the prevailing political orientation in the Cabinet remained wary of entering into any military-related agreement with the US in a formal manner, lest it be perceived as the beginning of an alliance – however invalid the proposition was.

To the credit of the Modi team, they have been able to bite the bullet, as it were, albeit in a cautious manner and it is understood that during the current Carter visit, the purely logistic agreement (the LSA) would be inked, but in a different semantic. The India-specific agreement will be called the LEMOA (Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement) and this will be the equivalent of two porcupines who want to be friendly – exchanging a quill at a time!

Vibrant democracies, India and the US have a history of an estranged and bitter security-cum-strategic relationship that was tentatively overcome in 2005. Now, the challenge for both capitals is to nurture and sustain a domestic political consensus that will be able to locate the bilateral in the context of the many radical global changes that characterise the early 21st century.

India and US army personnel participating in a joint military exercise. (Photo: Reuters)

Managing Bilateral Ties with China

Critical to both countries is the rise of China.  The current combination of prickly nationalism and asserting the primacy of Beijing’s version of history is more visible in the Xi Jinping leadership. Yet in the current contour of globalisation, these three nations – the US, China, and India have no option but to remain economically engaged, even as they seek to manage their complex security dissonances.

In this context, the visit to China on 20 April by the Indian National Security Advisor (NSA), Ajit Doval, for the SR (Special Representative) acquires salience.  The SR framework was constituted during NDA-1, when PM Vajpayee was at the helm in Delhi to provide a high-level forum for managing the unresolved territorial and border dispute. However, despite 18 rounds of such meetings, there has been little visible progress between India and China. On occasion, the incursions of troops across each other’s perceived line of actual control (LAC) had the potential to spiral out of political control.

An astute assessment would indicate that the only option for India to manage this uneasy and imbalanced bilateral with China would be to enhance its own composite national power – particularly the economic, technological and military strands. In this endeavour, the US can be a valuable partner for the long-term, as it represents the high end of the global spectrum in military technology and will be the world’s second largest single-state GDP – even if China were to overtake it soon.

Enhancing India’s Military Profile

The tactical dissonance on India’s part in relation to the US is the latter’s regional policy which seeks to indulge Pakistan despite its many transgressions – ranging from the AQ Khan nuclear Walmart, to the support to radical state-nurtured groups that are committed to jihadi terror.  The US is unlikely to make any change to this policy in the near future, and Afghanistan is a case in point, where the current Beltway orientation is to accept even the death of US troops through Pakistani perfidy.

India will have to acquire the perspicacity and patience to stay the course in its engagement with the US, if it wishes to realise the long-term objective – enhancing India’s holistic military profile over the next decade.

Reiterating Delhi’s fidelity to the DTTI in an unambiguous manner during Ashton Carter’s visit would be a welcome first step.

(The writer is a leading expert on strategic affairs. He is currently Director, Society for Policy Studies)

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