Ranjit B Rai
IDF appends what IDF POSTED after PM Modi’s visit to USA in 2015 on invitation by President Obama as thanks for signing a Strategy Partnership for Asia Pacific which is Indo-Pacific now. IDF analyzed PM Modi’s visit. Indian Navy is exercising in RIMPAC off Hawaii and have consummated over 20 Malabars. India is now USA’S Defence Partner and USA”s maritime arm , that IDF analyzed two years ago.
TRIUMPHANT MODI RENEWS ONE PAGE INDO-US DEFENCE FRAME WORK — INDIA TO GET STRONGER OR ALSO BE BEHOLDEN TO USA IN ITS CAMP ?
This is an IDF Analysis of PM Modi’s USA visit on Security and Maritime issues. Any one who forgets history will repeat the mistakes.
PM’s Navratri trip to US was a success. More military wares will be ordered from USA and FDI in Defence is looked forward to, but what about security consequences for India in the long run ? Must have been thought out, as USA will expect in its national interests for India to be USA’s strategic and economic bulwark in the East, without India saying so. Modi has gambled on USA and also stated, “India will Go East”.
Will Indian Armed Forces become beholden to USA’s military industrial complex(MIC) like India was, and is still to the USSR/Russia for its military technology or will India balance USA and Russia while still dancing the Tango with USA, Israel and Japan and Foxtrot with China ? Missteps in security decisions can prove debilitating, as security scenarios change and nations have to take sides. In Cold War India was in the Soviet camp if analyzed.
POST QUOTE ENDS
When Soviet Union had no friends and India opposed USA ‘with get out of the Indian Ocean’( and now we say please come USA ), the Soviets made India its Defence Strategy Partner and India won the 1971 war with Soviet supplied weapons. The joke was Admiral Gorshkov and Soviet Brigadier Generals in their Army and Air Force planned our three services so we are still 60 % Russian which Trump does not like.
India blindly voted with Soviet Union in UN those days and this was the price we paid as we bought arms with loans. Friends of the Government named in Tavleen Singh’s book, ‘Durbar’ they imported computers and TV sets etc from abroad with licenses and exported to Soviet Union over priced from India. FFE went down. We paid back Russia in rupees less as Rouble devalued with Soviet Union’s break up.
India went broke for FFE in 1991. India had no option but open up. Trump now wants India to open up and make USA great and feels he can make India great. Condelezza Rice said it when she came with President Bush 10 years ago. We were undecided then, and PM Modi has committed.
Today India’s Russian supplied military inventory, planes, helicopters and submarines have to go to Russia for certification or refits and to Russians for nuclear safety for nuclear submarines in India, so no way can India do without Russia for some time. INS Vikramaditya and Mig-29K need support. Phalcons too. The next Kundankulam plant is shipped from Russia.
IDF REPEATS nothing comes free in the world of politics and foreign policy, so in Non Alignment days till 1980s India got no goodies from USA and Pakistan feasted. FDI to India was low , no technology came, no defence manufacturing of its name was set up by our bureaucrats and Indian diplomats proudly said India was a poor nation and served Nimboo Pani at Receptions. It will be same now with BJP/RSS edicts !
USA sold oil rigs and refineries we needed badly and as Indians did not know prices many made the hay ! US PL-480 TITLE 1 Free grains and Vegetable oil free, with shipping to be paid to the Conference Dollars to USA’s Waterman and India’s SCI and, TITLE 2 Free grains, pulses and Vegetable oil with shipping to be paid and to be sold through Amul and money from sales in Rupees was given to USAID and US Embassy in India. TITLE 3 free help in calamities. So USA enjoyed India to dump excess agriculture and supplied all refineries as captive business. USA is now a Oil and Gas exporter and India is a buyer. India is now e buying from USA and knows it can replace Iran.
In all this despite poverty India was a respected a nation with makings of a regional power because of its fine Military. Even today the Government has strength to talk as a Nuclear Military Power, though military is degraded, some of its own making.
1991 liberalization showed India can grow and soon India was out of the woods and by 1998 Shakti Nuclear explosions India arrived on the world stage and there is no looking back no matter which Government governs India. Its military runs on JUGAD and its strong to take on an adversary. .
India has no strategy but has five year plans, and Public Sector Undertakings as it grew from the Hindu rate of growth to 5 to 6% and hands clapped, but poverty remained despite the Slogan GARIBI HATAO, it remains a slogan. Added to that DEMONET and GST without education to poor in digital technology has hit 25% of India’s poor population. It has emboldened the Hindu right to come to power on a religion called Hindutva !
Poverty will not go away unless India grows at 8%, liberalises its industry and banking, its ways of doing business and brings in manufacturing for export and defence and sets up big fruit farms and slowly attends to agriculture to privatise other agriculture. Only then can we even think of competing economically with China. .
On defence and security India today is in better shape as USA is on India’s side as its Defence Strategy Partner in the Indo-Pacific unwritten but to take on as a Pivot and Bulwark to China.
Defence Secretary Ashton Carter had said, “The US is keen to forge a ‘closer and stronger’ military relationship with India, and a whole ‘a whole bunch of things’ will be announced to boost Indo-US strategic ties. What we are looking for is a closer relationship and a stronger relationship as we can, because it is geo-politically grounded. The specific things we are doing with them is two-fold. One, we have the rebalance so to speak, westward from the United States. They have Act East, which is their strategic approach eastward. These are like two hands grasping one another and that’s a good thing”.
IDF states this matches very much up with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s initiative and India is very much aligned in terms of what the government is doing strategically and economically, but President Trump’s CAASTA to sanction Iran and Russia may spoil PM Modi’s party.
Last week a big team from USA led by M/s Ellen Lord US Under Secretary for Defence Acquisition & Sustainment met with Mr Ajay Kumar Secretary Defence Production( of only PSUs) at the Manekshaw Centre as part of the 7th DEFENCE TECHNLOGY & TRADE INITIATIVE (DTTI) meet and repeated details of offers on the table of number of weapons and technologies like EMALs, 28 Guardian
Drones both from Atomics for the Navy and added to weaponise the Guardians and IDF analysis is it could be the Helfire missile or Laser Guided bombs, and Under Water Drones and cooperation with DRDO.
It must be clear USA has $ 15 bill biz from India and ‘much wants more’ and wants to stop S 400 imports from Russia and RM and EAM are showing bravado by saying Trump’s sanctions mean nothing for India, as India only obeys UN but also rejects its report on Kashmir.
IDF FEELS India should try to get waiver for Russia as USA needs India for MARITIME CO-OPERATION, that IDF has analyzed ad nauseam. Chances are good but the back up strategy would be to buy F-16 plant and planes or F-18s that IAF nned. In fact IDF has said this before that the 2 plus 2 meeting was delayed for Secretary of State Pompeo and Defence Secretary Gen Mattis to get India’s position and see if India inks S 400 import. The 2 plus two meet is now planned for November for EAM Swaraj and RM Sithraman.
To take on USA if Trump does not relent will be Apne Pair Pe Kulari…..Axe on one’s own feet ! Shan Na Varuna.