By Dr Subhash Kapila
16-Dec-2014
India under Modi Sarkar sits atop the strategic pyramid with Russia and the United States at the base at opposing ends intending to reinforce their respective Strategic Partnerships with India to their advantage.
Russia has had a long standing and time-proven Strategic Partnership with India until its misconceived recent Defence and Security Agreement with Pakistan. President Putin’s recent visit to New Delhi retrieved the Russia-India Strategic Partnership Strategic Partnership by offering explanations for its Pakistan-policy change and with a slew of military and nuclear-related agreements to bring back the Russia-India Strategic Partnership on the rails. India repaid the strategic trust reposed by Russia in India’s rising power by awarding nearly $ 100-115 billion worth of contracts to Russia.
The US-India Strategic Partnership is only a decade or so old and this time span stood marked by strategic bumps arising from United States propensity to underwrite Pakistan Army’s military adventurism in South Asia and thereby endangering its evolving Strategic Partnership with India. President Obama’s forthcoming State-visit to India as the Chief Guest at the Republic Day 2015 celebrations raised hopes that this visit underwrote United States renewed intentions to add both substance and intent on raising the US-India Strategic Partnership to a higher level.
Regrettably, the official reactions pouring out of Washington in the wake of the strategically and financially high-value agreements signed between President Putin and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi last week were peevish in nature. Worse still were some reactions of a demanding nature that India would be well advised to desist from entering into trade agreements with Russia. Such reactions are likely to sour the optimism which ensued on the announcement of President Obama’s visit to India next month. While India would welcome a revitalised Strategic Partnership with the United States, it no longer can be expected that India would ‘outsource its foreign policy to Washington’ as it was in the last ten years.
In effect the spectacle that is being presented in terms of international relations is that India is being strategically wooed by both Russia and the United States arising from India’s rising global stature with the unfolding of her strategic, military and economic potential. Pointedly, this recognition of India by both Russia and the United States has surfaced in sharp contours with the emergence of India’s dynamic, bold and decisive Prime Minister in the person of Narendra Modi.
India’s potential was always there, even in the last ten years, but global recognition was withheld as in these years, since India stood projected as lacking in dynamism and assertiveness befitting a regional power.
Reverting to the India-Russia-United States Strategic Pyramid, I elected to put India at the apex of the Pyramid arising from the new global consciousness surfacing that India is an emerging and rising power and could swing the global balance-of-power either way with her strategic inclinations.
India also stands placed at the apex of the Pyramid in the context of a military-rising China whose strategic ambitions are increasingly becoming unsettling for Russia and the United States. India comes into their focus because India’s rising power is perceptionaly viewed as benign and as one of a responsible stakeholder in global peace and security.
The next question that awaits an answer is as to which side India would be inclined in terms of its strategic preferences in relation to Russia and the United States.
On the face of it, Russia seems to be the more natural choice in view of the time-tested Strategic Partnership with India and having stood by India in challenging times when the United States strategic tilt to Pakistan continued unabated at the cost of India’s national security interests.
United States and India at the inception of their Strategic Partnership constantly refrained that the United States and India were “Natural Allies”. The rhetoric however was not matched by actions and deeds because of United States Pakistan-Centric strategic formulations in its South Asian policies.
In Indian public opinion it is deeply embedded hat the United States is not a reliable strategic partner of India as at each step the United States tended to backslide towards Pakistan prompted by political expediencies. This Indian public opinion perception persists despite the reality that large numbers of Indians make a beeline for the greener pastures of the United States.
Comparatively, the US-India Strategic Partnership would continue to be plagued by strategic bumps till such time the United States policy establishment gets over its narcisstic strategic obsessions with Pakistan and China, both figuring as India’s military enemies by their demonstrated hostility and adversarial stances against India.
Russia and the United States at the opposing ends of the base of the Pyramid at which India stands placed at the apex are likely to intensify their tussle to win over India. Besides India’s growing strategic clout is the matching reality that the Indian economic growth having regained momentum in the last six months offers lucrative avenues especially to the United States.
India also offers a lucrative defence sales market and this particularly attracts the United States which is intent on replacing Russia as the main source of defence armaments to India. However, with PM Modi’s emphasis on ‘Make in India’ US defence companies long-used to American exceptionalism may lag behind others in the ensuing competition. Modi Sarkar would be well advised not to follow the previous Government’s escape route of FMS sales bypassing global tenders’ requirement.
Prime Minister Modi has already made it clear to Russia in the context of its recent misconceived Pakistan policy that India has many other options and would not countenance any country adopting postures strategically discomfiting India in its neighbourhood.
Prime Minister Modi’s assertion was timely and it is hoped that he would make the same assertion to the United States during President Obama’s forthcoming visit to India. Prime Minister Modi’s pointed assertion to Russia was made in connection to Pakistan.
Prime Minister Modi therefore needs to make a dawning and matching pitch to President Obama also that India is no longer willing to accept any substantial elevation of the US-India Strategic Partnership or offer substantial opening of India’s defence sales market to the United States if the United States persists with its Pakistan-Centric strategic obsession hanging from American coat-tails.
Concluding, one needs to assert that while Russia and the United States would be engaged in bestowing increasing strategic recognition on India’s potential, this strategic reality should also prompt in the Indian policy establishment a strategic consciousness that in the end-game “India Needs to Stand Alone as a Strategically Tall, Bold and Assertive Power on its Own Two Legs” devoid of the crutches of Strategic Partnerships with Russia or the United States.
(Dr Subhash Kapila is a graduate of the Royal British Army Staff College, Camberley and combines a rich experience of Indian Army, Cabinet Secretariat, and diplomatic assignments in Bhutan, Japan, South Korea and USA. Currently, Consultant International Relations & Strategic Affairs with South Asia Analysis Group. He can be reached at drsubhashkapila.007@gmail.com)
- See more at: http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/node/1679#sthash.fLmwjzAL.dpuf
No comments:
Post a Comment