Realpolitik behind N-deal: US needs partnership with India

by Maj-Gen Ashok K. Mehta (retd)

(December, 07, New Delhi, Sri Lanka Guardian) Time is running out for the 123 Indo-US Civilian Nuclear Agreement which most thinking people say is good for the country. The recent debate in Parliament on the agreement was instructive — the BJP supports ties with the US but opposes the deal in its present form; the Left allies of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government, who are congenitally opposed to any relationship with the US, oppose the deal irrespective of its advantages. By snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, the government is subordinating national interest to political survival.

Such timidity it has shown in the past. In the 1990s, while the Congress single-handedly assembled a nuclear bomb, it was the BJP that finally tested it. In 2004, the BJP initialled the Next Steps in Strategic Partnership which laid the framework for the 123 Agreement. The Congress is once again showing a conspicuous lack of political will.

Paradoxically, the nuclear tests which opened the door to the NSSP and the 123 Agreement are the catalysts to a possible Indo-US strategic partnership. The word “strategic” has become inflationary and is employed loosely to describe relations between different countries. Only the 123 accord, when consummated, could result in a strategic tie-up and would be the most important relationship since Independence.

The 20-year Indo-Soviet Treaty of 1971 was a strategic necessity but without any ideological affinity. It served India well in war and peace but linked it with the Eastern Bloc. We are still strategically allied to Russia for 70 per cent of our military supplies and spares, the key elements of the conventional deterrence.

At present, this is the only strategic relationship. The 123 Agreement has been the most keenly debated and most seriously negotiated document though unfortunately the nuclear energy element has obscured the potential for a transformation of Indo-US relations.

The love-hate relationship took a clear pattern after 1962 when during the Cold War both countries parted ways, India being on the side of the USSR. The tilt to Pakistan in 1965 coincided with the first tranche of sanctions, followed by others in 1974 and 1998. During this period India continued to receive PL-480 consignments of wheat. The defining point was 1971, the arrival of USS Enterprise in the Bay of Bengal and Henry Kissinger’s use of seven and five-letter words beginning with B to describe Indian leaders. Americans say that as in those Cold War days, India had voted against the US in the UN, more than the USSR, references to relations between them were “unfriendly friends”, “estranged democracies”, “impossible allies”.

The transformation from “estranged” to “engaged” and “impossible” to “natural” allies was occurring imperceptibly sustained in part by a growing defence relationship, end of the Cold War, economic liberalisation, the nuclear tests and 9/11. USS Enterprise returned but this time on a friendly visit to Cochin, and Indian naval ships were escorting US vessels through the Malacca Straits. The US archives reveal that USS Enterprise was first sent to the Bay of Bengal in 1962. President Kennedy was contemplating the use of nuclear weapons but the Chinese had declared a unilateral ceasefire. Only last month, Henry Kissinger was in India proclaiming that the destinies of India and the US were linked. Americans and Indians agree that their societies and economies have changed and that “we are comfortable with each other and on the same side after the Cold War”.

The drivers for change were US Vision 2020 and a host of strategic evaluations which underscore the redistribution of power and emergence of new power centres like China and India. The decline of US military power was another factor. A recent report by Richard Armitage and Joseph Nye, “How to Become a Smart Power”, underlines the US current predicament and the need for reliable partners. Helping India become a global player is driven by realpolitik and in furtherance of US national security goals. The US needs the partnership with India (and vice versa). But the nuclear issue is the hurdle. The 123 Agreement is meant to overcome it by bringing India into the nuclear club, accepting it as a responsible state with advanced nuclear technology and de facto a nuclear weapons state outside the NPT. US sanctions can then be lifted giving access to civilian space, nuclear energy, high technology trade and missile defence, all ingredients of the NSSP.

Enough has been said about India’s strategic autonomy, the viability of the nuclear arsenal and the three-stage fuel programme. The overwhelming assessment is that India has secured the best-possible agreement under the circumstances. The prospects of a nuclear deal have upset China, Pakistan and Russia, especially the first two who enjoy the world’s most notorious and durable strategic nexus. India-US relations will never be free from Sino-US relations which began in 1972. China has said the US cannot change international nuclear law. As for Pakistan, it does not want any strategic shift in the power balance with India, but China has promised to redress it.

Russia, a time-tested strategic ally, is miffed with growing Indo-US relations. Its recent diplomatic rebuff to three Central ministers, including the Prime Minister, was accompanied by raising difficulties like delays and price hikes of several key military projects, not the least the nuclear-powered submarine for India’s sea-based deterrent. After resisting for two years, it has allowed the sale of Russian RD 93 engines to China, eventually bound for Pakistani jet fighters.

Defence is a key component of India-US relations. India will be able to access high-tech US defence equipment and diversify its Russian-predominant inventory. The US has $30 billion earmarked for defence acquisitions in the 11th Plan, and 52 US companies have set up offices in Delhi. Washington has a long list of defence interests: joint exercises, interoperability, a joint logistics agreement, the Container Security Initiative, the Proliferation Security Initiative, the Maritime Security Cooperation Framework and an institutionalised strategic dialogue to replace the current security exchanges. The prized jewel for America is learning from the Indian military, the low end of conflict — counterterrorism, counterinsurgency, high altitude warfare, IED, peacekeeping, disaster management and vigil over the sealanes of communication. Most of this will remain a wish list till the Left shows the green flag.

The other hurdle is the credibility of US spares and a trust deficit. As late as 2004, the India-UK Advanced Jet Trainer contract included the clause that there will be no US parts. Assurances of “trust us” have come from US officials and one even said: “India means more to us than Pakistan”.

The Left has allowed the government to obtain a draft India-specific safeguards agreement with the IAEA which they will clear. This is a charade as Left leaders have consistently said they will oppose an Indo-US nuclear deal anyhow. This was reflected in the debate in Parliament as well. So, for all practical purposes, the 123 Agreement is on a drip. The Left has succeeded in depriving the Bush Administration of a foreign policy triumph.

But the Democrats are not far behind. Bruce Riedel and Karl Inderfurth, who will return to key jobs if Hilary Clinton becomes the next US President, in a new report, “Breaking More Nan with Delhi: the Next Stage in Indo-US Relations”, say: “The deal is not everything!” They echo Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s epitaph on 123 — “it is not the end of road/life”. Breaking bread with the non-proliferation hardline Democrats will be much tougher than with the Republicans.

Whichever administration is there in 2009 in Washington and New Delhi, India and the US will have to reconcile their differences on foreign and security policies. Till the 123 deal is clinched, the technology-denial regime will remain in place. How can an India under sanctions have an equitable relationship, leave alone a strategic partnership with the US?