UNCLOS, an American Ship and India's Maritime Boundary

Earlier this month, the US announced that a warship of theirs, the John Paul Jones had sailed 130 nautical miles west of the Lakshadweep islands, within India’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) without India’s prior consent.

This was what the US terms a Freedom of Navigation Operation (FONOPS) aimed at challenging states like India who they say have gone beyond the provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Seas (UNCLOS) to assert  “excessive” maritime claims.

Indians were rightly upset by this. Former navy chief Admiral Arun Prakash termed it an “act of breathtaking inanity” considering the atmosphere of rapidly warming Indo-US ties and “within weeks of the US-led Quad leaders virtual  meetings and on the heels of a major Indo-US naval exercise”.

Though this generated many headlines, this was certainly not the first time this has happened. By its own count , the US has conducted such operations in Indian waters 19 times in the past 30 or so years since 1991. The only difference is, that for reasons best known to itself, the US decided to immediately publicise it. Usually, such operations around the world, affecting various countries, would form a long list which would be issued by the US Department of Defence annually.

While countries like India which are close to the US are baffled, those like China see a sinister motive behind this. They say the US uses the provisions in UNCLOS that do not explicitly prohibit military activity in its Exclusive Economic Zone to keep a close deployment off China’s coast. The US has, famously, used FONOPS to challenge Beijing’s over-the-top maritime claims in the South China Sea where a UNCLOS tribunal has ruled Chinese artificial islands do not merit the maritime claims Beijing is makingThere is also a benign explanation for this is. The US has not ratified the UNCLOS, but says it observes it as customary international law. One of  its principles, as a Belfer Center explainer notes, is the US does this is to prevent the law itself from changing over time. According to the explainer, “states must persistently object to actions by other states that seek to change those rules.” As a maritime power, it is usually the US which ends up sailing into other state’s territorial waters or conducting military activity in their Exclusive Economic Zone. So, it needs to ensure that the current rules stay.

Under UNCLOS, states have the right to conduct military manoeuvres and movements within the 200 nm EEZ of a state. Indeed, they have the right of “innocent passage” where they can come into the territorial waters within just 12 nm of the country, if they sail straight through without turning on their weapons-related sensors.

At the time of signing and ratifying the UNCLOS, India had made a declaration that in its view, the Convention does not authorise other states to carry out “military exercises or manoeuvres… without the consent of the coastal state.” Later this was incorporated into domestic legislation.

But this was merely an expression of India’s “understanding” of the spirit of UNCLOS, not its letter. The US says it conducts FONOPS to challenge the claims in excess to those provided by the letter of the treaty.

So, the US has for the past 30 years challenged India’s claim that you need to notify us before you conduct military manoeuvres in our EEZ. We have been able to live with it; indeed, short of taking on the US Navy, we had little alternative.

But there is another problem in the Lakshadweep islands. They are some 200 nautical miles from the Kerala coast which puts them at the edge of the EEZ. But because of them, we can extend the EEZ another 200 nm or so out to a part of the high seas which have huge strategic importance. This is the Nine-Degree Channel through which a vast amount of shipping goes.

Lakshadweep’s strategic location. Photo: marinetraffic.com as of April 16, 2021

Maritime boundaries follow a simple principle. Twelve nautical miles out from your shore are territorial waters where the laws of the land are in force. Some laws can be applied for the next 24 nm of waters called the contiguous zone. Thereafter comes another 200 nm of what is called the Exclusive Economic Zone, which are technically the high seas where your laws do not hold, only that you have the right to exploit its fisheries and seabed resources.

Maritime boundaries lead off from what is called a baseline point on your shore – it is the low-tide point from which the count 12+24+200nm outward to the sea is measured. So, usually, your territorial waters, contiguous zone and EEZ mimic your land boundary.

Islands like the Lakshadweep and Andaman and Nicobar also follow the same principle of 12+24+200; in addition, if there are outlying rocks, they generate contiguous zones of 24 nm (and low tide elevations fetch nothing).

Now in an option given to archipelagic states like Indonesia, Fiji and the Philippines, instead of landing up with  a polka dot pattern maritime boundary, they are allowed to define a boundary by creating straight baselines by joining the baseline points of their outermost rocks/islands and enclosing the area within as their internal sea.

In Lakshadweep, India has, through a 2009 notification, claimed a boundary using straight baselines drawn with nine or so baseline turning points, though this is a provision not available to India or any other continental state till now under the UNCLOS. So far, barring Pakistan, no one has protested this move. And though the USS John Paul Jones was 130 nm away from the Lakshadweep, there is no indication that the 2009 Indian straight baseline claim was challenged. In fact, there is no indicator in a check list of the US State Department whether Lakshadweep is on their target list. But they do have issues with the Indian claims in the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Bay.

At the end of the day, challenges close to India’s shores are likely to come only from states which have the ability to mount it. So far, there is only the US which can do it. But China is rising and there are worries that it may take the path of the US. That would be ironic, since China itself has drawn straight baselines around the Paracel Islands which the US has challenged by sending a ship through them. But in power politics, you should be prepared for all kinds of surprises.

The Wire April 19, 2021

https://thewire.in/security/unclos-an-american-ship-and-indias-maritime-boundary

The world in 20 years:Global Trends report puts forth likely scenarios, some alarming

The US National Intelligence Council’s 20-year forecast, released last month, makes for disquieting reading. Issued once in four years, the seventh edition of the Global Trends Report is coming out at a time when the world, and especially, the US is reeling from the consequences of the Covid pandemic, as well as deep social and political divisions in its society, something not very different from what we are experiencing back home in India.

Global Trends 2040 talks of scenarios that will shape the global environment in the next two decades and their implications for US national security. The NIC supports the Director of US National Intelligence and its focus is on longer-term strategic analysis. It relies on expert opinion in the US and abroad and is aimed at alerting policy makers and the broad policy community of the emerging developments. The report is not a simple prediction of what will happen in 20 years, but an examination of past and future trends, working out of scenarios of evolving developments, their dynamics and the key uncertainties ahead.

The experience of 2020 tells us that even the best forecasts can be upended by the black swans and grey rhinos on the path ahead. The former refers to highly improbable and unexpected events like the Covid pandemic, which impact on the unfolding of social and political trends. The latter are obvious and foreseeable events which we sometimes willfully ignore till they hit us, such as the global financial crisis of 2008 or climate change.

The report has identified four structural forces that are likely to shape the world — demographics, environment, economics and technology. Demographic trends are the easiest to predict and we know that the populations of well-off countries will age and even shrink in size. But areas like Sub Saharan Africa and South Asia will continue to show younger population profiles and their numbers will continue to grow.

There is an obvious challenge for countries like India which need to ensure that these young are provided adequate nutrition, healthcare and education. A failure to do so would result in large-scale social breakdowns. As it is, the World Bank has estimated that as many as 75 million people have slipped back into extreme poverty in India because of the pandemic.

An equally easy prediction is the impact of climate change whose burdens will be unevenly distributed around the world and result in social and political unrest. This is a classic grey rhino standing on the middle of the road ahead of us, and yet, we don’t seem to care as we drive on. Just three months ago, we had a President in the US who did not believe that there was any such thing as climate change.

India’s population, likely to overtake that of China by 2027, its geography, nuclear weapons and economic prospects make it a potential global power, but, says the report, ‘it remains to be seen whether New Delhi will achieve domestic development goals to allow it to project influence beyond South Asia.’ It says that India faces ‘serious governance, societal, environmental and defense challenges’ that will constrain how much it can invest in developing military and diplomatic capabilities for playing a larger global role.

Incidentally, whatever the high-flying rhetoric about India and the US being the world’s largest democracies, as far as the report is concerned, there are no ‘liberal democracies’ in South Asia as of 2020. India is presumably one of four ‘electoral autocracies’ in the region which hold free and fair multiparty elections, and guarantee freedom of speech and expression, ‘but do not uphold the rule of law and/or do not have constraints on the executive.’

The biggest black swan ahead is technology. This is also the fuzziest area to forecast. The next two decades will see increased global competition for ‘core elements of technological supremacy’ such as talent, knowledge, markets which could lead to a new crop of tech leaders and hegemons. The US has long used it as a tool of national power, but the next two decades will see increasing competition for the core elements and the competitor here is China.

Technology can help us mitigate climate change and disease, but it can also aggravate societal disruption as it is doing today by manipulating information on a large scale or through job displacement. The report forecasts that some technologies that are already showing their hand such as AI, biotechnology, smart materials and manufacturing, and ‘hyper connectivity’ could, in the next 20 years, have a transformative effect on the world.

As for the international system, the report forecasts that it will be ‘more contested, uncertain, and conflict prone.’ The US and China will have the greatest influence on global dynamics and their rivalry ‘will affect most domains’, reshaping today’s alliances, international organisations and the norms and rules that we call the international order. This competitive environment makes the risk of conflict more likely and deterrence more difficult.

Looking at the future, the report rolls out five alternative scenarios — a renaissance of democracies with the US in the lead, a world which is adrift where China is a leading, but not the dominant state, competitive coexistence where China and the US compete for leadership, separate silos where globalisation and countries are divided into ‘aatmanirbhar’ security and economic blocs. And finally, the possibility of ‘tragedy and mobilisation’ where a devastating global environmental crises and collapse leads to a bottom-up change.

The Tribune  April 13, 2021

https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/comment/the-world-in-20-years-238284

What US Warship’s Lakshadweep Sail Means for India & China

The US action in sailing the destroyer John Paul Jones past the Lakshdweep islands has got India’s normally hawkish strategic commentariat in a tizzy. Having advocated marching lockstep with the US to deal with the Chinese encroachments into the “rules-based international order”, they are aghast at Washington questioning their own commitments to some of those rules.

Make no mistake that the action was a signal both to China and India.

Beijing is being told that it should not get too excited when the US carries out the exercise in South China Sea – it is part of a global US practice to challenge those, even allies like India, who, in its opinion, make “excessive maritime claims,” beyond those specified by UN Convention on the Law of the Seas (UNCLOS).

On the other hand, the message to New Delhi is that when the Biden administration talks of rules based international order, it makes no exceptions, the rules apply equally to all.

There is another hidden message we also need to explore in relation to Indian maritime claims around the Lakshdweep Islands.

UNCLOS & India’s Policy of Prior Notification

Not surprisingly, the Ministry of External Affairs issued a mealy-mouthed statement merely re-stating India’s 1995 declaration at the time of ratifying the UNCLOS.

It does not amount to any change in the law, but merely states that it “does not authorse other states… to carry out military exercises of maneuvers in India’s EEZ or continental shelf”.

As per UNCLOS, a state can claim 12 nautical miles (nm) territorial waters, a 24 nm contiguous zone to these waters where some law and order activity is permitted and another 200 nm Exclusive Economic Zone( EEZ) whose seabed and fishery resources it has the exclusive right to exploit.

The value of these categories differ in the case of islands, rocks, and low tide elevations. Islands follow the same 12+24+200 nm formula. Rocks have 12 nm territorial sea and a 24 nm contiguous zone, but no EEZ and low tide elevations generate nothing.

Under UNCLOS, war vessels can transit through another state’s territorial waters in what is called “peaceful passage”, with its weapons radars and system turned off. But in the contiguous zone or the EEZ, which are international waters, there is no restriction on military exercises and maneuvers.

Under domestic law India requires prior notification for all these activities and the Chinese go a step further and demand prior permission for these actions. 

 

UNCLOS & India’s Policy of Prior Notification

Not surprisingly, the Ministry of External Affairs issued a mealy-mouthed statement merely re-stating India’s 1995 declaration at the time of ratifying the UNCLOS.

It does not amount to any change in the law, but merely states that it “does not authorse other states… to carry out military exercises of maneuvers in India’s EEZ or continental shelf”.

As per UNCLOS, a state can claim 12 nautical miles (nm) territorial waters, a 24 nm contiguous zone to these waters where some law and order activity is permitted and another 200 nm Exclusive Economic Zone( EEZ) whose seabed and fishery resources it has the exclusive right to exploit.

The value of these categories differ in the case of islands, rocks, and low tide elevations. Islands follow the same 12+24+200 nm formula. Rocks have 12 nm territorial sea and a 24 nm contiguous zone, but no EEZ and low tide elevations generate nothing.

Under UNCLOS, war vessels can transit through another state’s territorial waters in what is called “peaceful passage”, with its weapons radars and system turned off. But in the contiguous zone or the EEZ, which are international waters, there is no restriction on military exercises and maneuvers.

Under domestic law India requires prior notification for all these activities and the Chinese go a step further and demand prior permission for these actions.

US – The Lord of the Seas

The US says the Indian, and for that matter, the Chinese position, is “inconsistent with international law.” So, Washington, which has itself yet to ratify the UNCLOS, has decided to uphold “the rights, freedoms and lawful uses of the sea” recognised by the law.

• Last year, according to an official release, it challenged 28 different “excessive maritime claims by 19 different claimants throughout the world,” and it has been doing this for decades.
• The US conducts what it calls Freedom of Navigation Operations (FONOPS) since 1979, but the earliest record we have with regard to India is of 1992, when it sent a warship to enter our 12 mile nautical mile territorial sea to challenge our requirement that the US inform us before doing so.
• This time around, fortunately, they were some 130 nm west of the Lakshadweep. And this is itself another 200 nm from the Kerala coast.

A 2016 listing by the office of the US Judge Advocate General reveals the various excessive claims that the US accuses India of making. Besides the issue of prior notification for entering India’s territorial seas and EEZ, is the issue of straight baselines.

It has made it clear that it objects to India’s claim that the waters of Palk Bay and Gulf of Mannar, till the boundary with Sri Lanka, are historic waters formed by straight baselines. The US does not recognise this and conducted FONOPS there in 1993, 1994 and 1999.

Is US Challenging India’s Baseline ‘Violation’?

What is perhaps more worrisome is the possibility that the US FONOP near Lakshadweep islands relates to prior notification, which as we noted, they have been doing so regularly in the past, or whether they have come up with a new challenge. This could relate to the 2009 Indian decision to declare straight baselines to enclose the entire group of Lakshdweep islands.

• Baselines are points at the edge of the land at low tide from which territorial sea, contiguous zone and EEZ are measured outwards to the sea.
• UNCLOS allows archipelagic states like Indonesia and the Philippines to draw straight lines between two basepoints of islands that may be spread out, thus entitling them to claim territoriality over waters enclosed, even if they do not fit the 12+24+200 formula.

But as we said, only archipelagic states have this privilege, not continental states like India and China, which may happen to also have island chains.

By drawing straight baselines around the Lakshadweep chain, India is in violation of its commitment to UNCLOS. New Delhi may view its action in declaring the straight baselines as an important security measure, but, as they say, the law is the law.

But even now, we do not know if the US has challenged our straight baselines in the Lakshdweep. While in the case of China, which has done the same thing with the Paracel Islands group, US in 2016 sent in the USS Decatur into the island group where it loitered within the islands, however, ensuring that it did not cross the 12nm limit of any individual island

Why India Wants to Safeguard Lakshadweep

The challenge in Lakshadweep is fraught. The islands lie at a very strategically sensitive part of the country. Ships in great numbers from the Persian Gulf and the Suez Canal go to East Asia in sea lanes on either side of the Lakshdweep islands.

To the immediate south of Lakshdweep lies Maldives, which had just some years ago, decided to build a joint observation station with China on its western Makunudhoo island and leased some islands to the Chinese.

By enclosing the islands using straight baselines, India is acting to ensure that foreign navies, especially survey ships, do not loiter in between the islands since those waters are now designated as territorial waters, even if the process is a self-declared one in violation of UNCLOS.

Only the navy of a powerful country like the US would dare to challenge India on that point and what the recent FONOP tells us is that, at the end of the day, what matters in international law is power.

The US today has the ability to conduct such operations around the world and even the second most powerful navy cannot stop them in the western Pacific. We, on the other hand, can chase away a Chinese survey ship from the Andamans, as we did a while ago, but taking on the US on the issue is not an option.

China’s navy is steadily accruing power, in its own region, as well as the Indian Ocean where it is allied to Pakistan. The US example could well provide it with an opportunity to stir up trouble along our coast, on the pretext of challenging our so-called “excessive maritime claims”.

The Quint April 11, 2021

https://www.thequint.com/voices/opinion/us-navy-warship-lakshadeep-message-to-india-china#read-more

China’s retail nationalism

The long-running self-destructive streak in the People’s Republic of China seems to be manifesting itself again these days. This time in the conduct of its foreign policy. The latest is the attack on the Swedish retail giant H&M’s China business over the issue of a 2020 statement made by the company that its products do not use cotton grown in Xinjiang, because of forced labour allegations there.

The action, in response to the European Union sanctions on Chinese individuals on account of rights violations in Xinjiang last week, could upend the promise of better China-EU ties that seemed to accompany the Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI) in December 2020.

The goings-on will also have a chilling effect on efforts of US firms to have the Biden administration lift curbs placed by Trump on exports to China.

Alarmingly for China, this was a coordinated action where the US, the UK and Canada also imposed sanctions. But where they had targeted some lower-level Xinjiang officials, the Chinese upped the ante and imposed its own counter-sanctions on 10 EU individuals, including four Members of the European Parliament (MEPs), four entities, including the European Council’s Political and Security Committee, and the well-known think tank MERICS. Not only were the officials placed under sanctions, but also their family members.

As for the US and Canada, the Chinese targeted the bipartisan US Commission for International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) Chair Gayle Manchin and Vice-Chair Tony Perkins, Canadian MP Michael Choong and the rights subcommittee of the Canadian Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee. Manchin is the wife of a US Senator and the PRC officials appear to be waving a red rag at the US Congress where religious freedom is a big issue.

This is not the first time China has used its market power to punish a foreign company. Some years ago, it attacked Lotte, a major South Korean company, because the Korean government decided to give a golf course it owned for the setting up of a US-built THAAD anti-missile defence system. The crippling sanctions were lifted after two years, and since then, South Korea has taken care not to get on the wrong side of Beijing.

More recently, China has targeted Australian goods, including coal, wine and barley, for trade reprisals because of the call by PM Scott Morrison’s government for independent investigations into the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic.

H&M has an old relationship with China, where it sources its products for the global market. It is also a big market for H&M which has 400 retail stores in the country. In the line of target are other majors like Nike, Adidas, Uniqlo, Gap, and Burberry, who have made similar statements, though for the present, H&M seems to be the main target.

Chinese celebrities have renounced their promotion contracts with H&M and the company has been erased from mapping, ride hailing and e-commerce apps in China. Reports say that the campaign against Nike and Adidas is being kept on hold perhaps because of the advertising these companies are likely to provide for the Winter Olympics scheduled to be held in China next year. The alarming message coming out of Beijing for western companies who have long enjoyed a profitable run in China is that if you are on the wrong side of issues like Xinjiang, you can forget doing business in China.

What would be of interest is the way forward for the EU to ratify the CAI that it had signed with China over American objections. European governments may find it difficult to proceed with the process as long as four of their members are under Chinese sanctions. But the Chinese are hanging tough on this, with foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying declaring that the CAI ‘is not a gift bestowed upon one side by the other side, but is mutually beneficial and reciprocal’. The goings-on in China will also have a chilling effect on efforts of American firms to have the Biden administration lift the restrictions placed by the Trump administration on exports to China.

Biden’s arrival has changed the tone of the US-EU relations. Last week, the US President participated virtually as an honorary EU leader in a summit meeting of the European Council. Around the same time, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken was interacting with EU leaders in Brussels, and the two sides have decided to relaunch the EU-US dialogue on China to enhance coordination of their policies. This can only increase Beijing’s headaches.

It is not as though there is total congruence between the EU and the US. One issue looming large is that of the Nordstream 2 pipeline bringing gas from Russia to Germany. The US has threatened to impose sanctions if the work on the pipeline is completed. The Americans worry that the pipeline will increase the dependence of the EU on Russian gas.

But the strongly Atlanticist approach of the Biden administration has overcome the distrust engendered by the Trump administration’s ‘America first’ policy. Increasingly, Europeans are making common cause with the US. One manifestation of this is the increasing interest of countries like the UK, France, the Netherlands and Germany to join the US in establishing a naval presence in the South China Sea. A few ships will not make a difference from the military point of view, but the fact that these important European countries are willing to show the flag in what is for them a remote part of the world, will be a message to China of the growing coalition willing to take a stand against its policies.

The Tribune, March 31, 2021

https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/comment/chinas-retail-nationalism-232252

Indigenisation plus: From the great Shivaji to Sardar Patel, learn the right lessons for India’s defence strategy

Earlier this month, PM Modi delivered the valedictory address to the annual combined military commanders’ meet in Kevadia, Gujarat. The  meeting was held at the site of the Statue of Unity dedicated to Sardar Patel and junior officers and jawans also participated with a view of making it an “informal and informed event”. No doubt, beyond these theatrics, the meeting had a substantial and practical core.

This said, some aspects of the PM’s message are troubling. The text of his remarks is not available, but an official press release noted that he “stressed the importance of enhancing indigenisation in the national security system, not just in sourcing equipment and weapons but also in the doctrines, procedures and customs practised in the armed forces”.

We can understand the call of enhancing indigenisation of equipment, given the shameful level of imports which our military depends on. But the notion of applying indigenous “doctrines, procedures and customs” is an issue.

When it comes to war, the bottom line is the need to win or prevail over the adversary. Whether you use Japanese, Chinese, American or Vietnamese doctrines and procedures, it doesn’t matter, all that matters is victory. Promoting atmanirbharta is good politics, but fetishising the indigenous to this point could well lead to disaster.

India, of all countries, should know that we haven’t been particularly well served by “Indian” doctrines or any “Bharatiya” way of war. In the past millennium we’ve been repeatedly overwhelmed by invaders because we failed to adapt to the cutting edge military technologies, organisation and doctrines. Gunpowder was common by the 14th century but only after Babur’s invasion in early 16th century did it become part of the Indian defence doctrine. At the time, the Indians still viewed the war-elephant as their decisive weapon.

The bravery and grit of Indians was legendary, but self-sacrifices don’t win wars. The major weakness of the Indian military came from divisions in society that prevented the creation of disciplined forces and saw king fight king, even as foreign invaders knocked at our doors. As a result, Indian kings and emperors could rarely export military power, unlike their Ottoman or European counterparts. Even the mighty Mughals were, more often than not, reduced to fighting off rebellions, rather than attempting conquests abroad.

The one king who broke these stereotypes was the great Shivaji, who successfully bridged the social structures of Maratha society and created a professional force without European guidance. He was the first king to pay the army from the central treasury and insist on unit discipline. Though his successors messed up things, Shivaji did give us a concept we could explore today – swarming. The Maratha tactic of “ganimi kava” could form the basis of a doctrine that helps us deal with the asymmetrical situation we confront.

Hopefully in his actual remarks, the PM spoke not so much of adopting indigenous doctrines, but adapting the best ways of war to service the needs of the Indian military. Here, he and his colleagues ought to have drawn inspiration from Sardar Patel, the remarkable politician who within months in 1947 transformed himself from a Gandhian to a war leader, paying the minutest attention to the details of the Kashmir and the Hyderabad operations.

What the country needs today is more, rather than less, attention of the political leadership to the task at hand, which is of restructuring and reforming the Indian military. As it is, with declining defence budgets, the growing gap between the comprehensive national power of India and China, there’s need for a careful re-positioning of India’s defence strategy.

This needs serious and sustained political attention and engagement and cannot be left to CDS Rawat or the babus of the defence ministry who have so far not gone beyond some rhetoric and grandstanding. Theatrics have no place here, political leadership does. The 2020 events in the Himalayas underscore the huge agenda before us.

Times of India March 26, 2021 

https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/15741297/5090806581198417931

Indo-US Meet: What Defence Secy’s Visit Means in Relation to China

We should neither overstate, nor underplay the importance of US Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin’s visit to New Delhi. At one level, this is part of his Asia tour, which has taken him to important allies like South Korea and Japan. On the other hand, that New Delhi has been included in the itinerary indicates a level of interest of the current Biden administration on good ties with India.

Austin’s visit must also be placed in the context of the Biden Administration’s efforts to give shape to a new China policy. Indeed, Austin came to New Delhi via Seoul and Tokyo, where he along with Secretary of State Anthony Blinken participated in a 2+2 dialogue with their counterparts.

While Blinken and US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan went on to Alaska to talk to the Chinese, Austin came away to India, which is being seen as a key anchor in the Biden policy that aims to outcompete China in a range of areas, including humanitarian relief, tackling pandemics and harnessing emerging technologies, rather than merely focusing on security issues.

Speaking at a press briefing after his officials talks, General Austin said that, “India is an increasingly important partner among today’s rapidly shifting international dynamics.” He met Prime Minister Modi and National Security Adviser Ajit Doval on Friday, 19 March, and held official talks with Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Saturday, 20 March. He also met External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar.

According to a Pentagon press note, the two sides discussed their partnership through the prism of regional security cooperation, military to military interactions and defense trade.

Following his meetings, Gen Austin confirmed that he had raised the issue of human rights of minorities with his counterparts, presumably with Rajnath Singh, Doval and Jaishankar. He said it was important for partners to have “those kinds of discussions”.

But both sides played down the issue with the Americans excising it from their readouts and the Indians claiming, somewhat incredulously that the human rights discussed were in relation to Afghanistan, not India.

Why Defense Is Key to Indo-US Relations

It is no accident that the first top official of the Biden Administration to visit India is a Secretary of Defense. This is the area where most of the things are happening in the Indo-US relationship.

Over the years the US has emerged as a major seller of arms to India, a provider of technology transfers and a country that has laid the groundwork for greater cooperation through a mesh of agreements. India has signed all four of the so-called US foundational agreements, the last being the Basic Exchange Cooperation Agreement (BECA). This last has been useful in accessing US-origin geospatial information India has needed in its confrontation with China in the Himalayas.

In addition, it has been given the STA -1 status and the designation of a “major defense partner”.

Austin’s visit was aimed at seeing if all this can now be taken up to a qualitatively higher level where these agreements yield results in terms of new industrial ventures, technology transfers, as well as activities such as joint patrols.

The Significance of the Indian Ocean in Indo-US Talks

On the eve of the visit, an unnamed senior Pentagon official noted that the visit was aimed at “operationalising” the defence partnership that the US has with India. Equally significantly, he mentioned that the aim was to “network and build partnerships with India and with other partners, whether it’s in the Indian Ocean or the Pacific Ocean.”

The reference to the Indian Ocean is significant because Indo-US defence cooperation has been run by the US Indo-Pacific Command, whose remit runs only to the eastern Indian Ocean. But, as is well known, India’s primary maritime security concerns lie in the western Indian Ocean, which includes the northern Arabian Sea through which the bulk of our oil comes from.

Currently all the exercises and exchanges that take place are with the Indo-Pacific Command. However, we can now expect that the US will factor in Indian concerns and include India in the cooperation activities of its important Central Command, which includes the fifth Fleet based in Bahrain.

In line with this, the discussions that Gen Austin had with his Indian counterparts will in all likelihood have included issues relating to Afghanistan, as well as the traditional ones relating to China and the Indo-Pacific.

US Warns India as Relations Rest on Adherence to ‘Democratic Values’

The US is, of course, signaling complex intentions. On one hand it is marking out India  for attention for its ambitious Indo-Pacific Strategy. On the other, it is also warning the Modi government that it will not get a free pass.

This was evident from the letter of Senator Bob Menendez, Chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee wrote to Gen Austin on the eve of his visit. In the letter the Senator noted that while the US-India partnership is “critical to meet the challenges of the 21st century, the partnership must rest on adherence to democratic values”, which in his view, India was “trending away” from.

The government of India seems inclined to ignore these complaints in the belief that the US needs India to operationalise its Indo-Pacific strategy. But they need to pay heed the fact that this administration is shaping up its contest with China as an ideological battle between democratic and authoritarian countries. As long as India was somewhat peripheral to American concerns, it could afford to tweak Washington’s nose and get away with it. But as its importance to American goals increases, it will have to bear the burden of increasing scrutiny, which often comes with a democratic administration.

However, there are also huge positives available to New Delhi if it is willing to play ball. Along with a bipartisan group of Senators, Menendez has sponsored legislation like the Democracy Technology Partnership Act. Under this, the US will establish an inter-agency office at the Department of State to lead in the creation of a new technology partnership among democratic countries in opposition to China. The new office will seek to create an International Technology Partnership for setting policies and standards, conducting joint research and coordinating export controls and investment screening in areas like 5G, AI, quantum computing and other emerging technologies.

In other words, India has the opportunity to play the role that China had played so far, in becoming a chosen destination for high-tech investment from the west. But that requires the government of India to do much more in terms of providing the infrastructure and regulatory mechanisms. Mere slogans or a sense of entitlement will not work.

The Quint  MArch 21, 2021

https://www.thequint.com/voices/opinion/india-us-relations-defense-secretary-austin-lloyd-visit-impact-china#read-more