How India will prosper from strategic deals with US

India's relationship to the United States is warming and Shaukat Qadir explains why

US president Barack Obama meets with Indian prime minister Narendra Modi in the Oval Office (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

American overtures to India date back to the 1970s. At that time, India was not too interested. It was still reliant on Soviet military hardware. Since then, however, a lot of water has flowed under the bridge. Russian hardware is no longer that attractive and the United States’s desire to see India emerging as a counterweight to China, coupled with the offer of assistance in nuclear energy, has won Delhi’s heart.

There are four “strategic” agreements on offer to India by the US: the communication and information security memorandum, the basic exchange and cooperation agreement, the logistic exchange memorandum and, finally, the defence technology and trade initiative.

The first two agreements are useful for the acquisition and denial of electronic intelligence. By their nature, these are intrusive and extrusive.

Since the current Indian intelligence capabilities are extremely modest in comparison to the US, Delhi is understandably hesitant.

The logistics exchange has been on offer for many years. However, a recent comment from the US is interesting in this context and, perhaps, it might be responsible for making it acceptable to Delhi: “This is not merely logistics support, it includes the provision of supplies, spares and comprehensive maintenance support.”

Apparently all US agreements with other countries have been “merely” logistics support agreements and have not included spares and “comprehensive maintenance support”. Wherever logistics support was made available, the US flew it in or kept spares and maintenance support on standby.

Implied here is that Indian technicians will acquire detailed knowledge of high-tech equipment.

Logistics bases overseas are useful to countries that need to export military power. Obviously, such nations must not only be seafaring, but maritime powers as well – ones that can transport land forces overseas to exert military power. They must also possess the air capability to defend their naval forces at sea and support their land forces in foreign territories.

By any reckoning India is far from reaching that status. However, given sufficient energy resources, technological know-how and the robust economy it has, there is little that can prevent it from soon reaching regional power status.

Consequently, the logistics memorandum might be more useful to Washington than to Delhi, but the long-term benefits it offers are enormous.

But it is the defence agreement that really sweetens the pot. It emphasises military hardware being made in India and exported to the US.

So far the country that has most benefited from US assistance is Israel. It has received help in almost every sphere of development, but America has never promised to buy back Israeli-produced hardware for its own use. Not even when, as with the Uzi, Israel produced a weapon that was of high quality. So far, India’s record in defence production has been abysmal. None of its ventures have borne fruit, despite Soviet and Russian assistance. Surprisingly, even their attempt at producing small arms has been only modestly successful. Their attempt at building an aircraft carrier with Russian assistance has also become bogged down. Their tanks are not up to standard and their aircraft couldn’t fly.

And now, out of the blue, access to state-of-the-art technology is on offer?

Whether India can, given time, act as a counterbalance to an emerging China, as Washington seems to desire, might be a moot point, but it will certainly emerge as the region’s key player that it aspires to be, and will do so very soon.

Brig Shaukat Qadir is a retired Pakistani infantry officer