The National’s 5th July 2017 edition has a piece on the geopolitical implications of India — Israel defence ties. It carries my views on India — Israel bilateral relations. Reposting my opinion here.
Q: Are there particular reasons that India under Modi and the BJP sees Israel as a natural defence partner?
No doubt, this government is pretty vocal and open with regards to its collaboration with Israel. However, this is not evidence enough to prove that the growing defence partnership with Israel has anything to do with party ideologies in India. In fact, there is bipartisan political consensus in India on a narrowly defined defence partnership with Israel. Throughout the 10 years of the Congress-led government, there were significant contracts signed between the two countries — ranging from Heron UAVs (2005) to anti-aircraft missile systems (2008) to advanced version of Phalcon AWACS (2011).
Rise in yearly bilateral defence trade numbers are not a reliable measure because such payments are spread over multiple years and hence each year’s defence trade figure has a significant component of committed liabilities which are spread across multiple governments.
Israel’s attraction as a defence partner for successive Indian governments is due to the following reasons:
One, the partnership with Israel is seen as being an important cog for developing India’s own defence-industrial complex. This is because unlike other defence partners, Israel is willing to share technology and set up joint ventures for defence manufacturing. This willingness is especially important if the current government wants its ‘Make in India’ plans to take off. Going ahead, Israeli companies can be expected to play a major role under the ‘Strategic Partnership Model’ released by the Ministry of Defence recently.
Two, after the dissolution of USSR in 1991, India was looking out for procurement alternatives. Israel’s exercise in upgrading Soviet-era equipments, which constitute a significant chunk of India’s military assets, gave the initial push towards greater collaboration in defence procurement with Israel.
And three, Israel’s defence capabilities are complimentary to India’s. Israel has carved a niche for itself in surveillance equipment and ballistic missile defence systems. These are exactly the areas where DRDO has not delivered. So, it made sense to procure these items from Israel.
Q: What happens to India’s relationships with West Asian and Arab countries if it grows closer and closer to Israel?
From a strategic perspective, it is appropriate that India is diversifying its partnership with Israel. Diversifying the partnership in multiple sectors with countries which are key defence suppliers will ensure that India has appropriate levers to hedge against changing geopolitical equations vis-a-vis the supplier nation.
But, let’s assess the risks of this engagement.
The first risk is the domestic implication of taking sides in what was essentially a religious conflict. This was the major reason why India chose not to accord full diplomatic status to the Israeli partnership for more than four decades, after recognising it in 1950. At one point of time, the reverberations of politico-religious movements in far West Asia — which was a key centre for Islam — could be felt in India’s domestic politics as well. But as the power centre of the Islamic world started shifting to Arabia after the oil boom, West Asian politics started becoming a normal foreign policy issue for India. A lot of the current fear towards the increasing collaboration with Israel stems from this old idea of the domestic impact on India’s Muslim population. But it is a dated view.
As a foreign policy issue, there is second and a far more important risk. India is uniquely placed because it has been able to maintain a non-adversarial relationship with almost every West Asian nation, no mean achievement given the mosaic of West Asian geopolitics. This is partly because India has kept itself at safe one-arm distance from virtually every state in West Asia, in the fear that building relations with one will come at a direct cost of alienating several others. The implication is that it has thus far allowed all the collaborations in West Asia to settle at a low level equilibrium, with none of them taking the form of a strategic partnership.
As India tries to increase its engagement with Israel, this equilibrium will face initial shocks. This risk however is not new. When the Narsimha Rao government accorded full diplomatic states to Israel in 1992, similar fears of estrangement with other West Asian powers were raised. But even after that move, India continued to vote for the Palestinian cause at the UN on one hand, and managed to consolidate its relationship with Israel on the other. A strong economic growth engine and a pragmatic view in international policy will be key to assuaging the partnerships with other West Asian countries. It has been done before and so, I think the Ministry of External Affairs has this base covered.
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