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The American Indo-Pacific Forum held an online discussion on “Should US, India discuss a bilateral security alliance” on June 5. The event was organized with an eye on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the US later this month.
The experts deliberated at length about what should Modi’s response be to the evolving scenario of India-US bilateral security and trade ties.
On being invited to speak by moderator of the session, Satish Jha – investor and philanthropist and Shekhar Tiwari, president, American Indo-Pacific Forum, set the discussion going with a query: What should Prime Minister Modi talk to President Biden?
Tiwari said, “India’s biggest need is not fighting a war. Its biggest need is fighting a war for employment and food. We have 500 million people there who have no job, and most of them are between 25 and 35 years. If the economy is taken care of, we can have the defense too. Right now, India does not even put $5 billion of its budget on defense. On the other hand, China invests $150 billion and the United States $680 billion. We don’t have money to spend on defense. So, the focus should be to strengthen the economy. And who can help us grow the economy? It is the United States of America. If the Prime Minister wants to focus on the economy, he has to do everything to grow the economic belief and bring more investment into India.”
Emphasizing the need to talk about mutual defense benefits, Tiwari explained: “Once you take care of security, you can spend time and money and energy on economic growth. But right now, India is not in a situation to focus on the economy. The population has grown to 1.4 billion, unemployment is 500 million, and 300 million people go to bed without eating anything. We cannot afford to put our energy on defense. So, you need an umbrella. And that umbrella can only be found with investors.”
The next speaker was Ramesh Kapur, president,
US-India Security Council. Kapur said that the time of mere talk is over, it is time for real impact on the ground and for the US to build up India like it had done with China.
Kapur said there’s a crisis in the US-India relationship because of India’s stance on Ukraine. “The Ukraine issue was a testing ground. The outcome of that has thrown up a question, can the US and India count on each other? Can India count on the US? US did not come through, by even 5%. The US has also made mistakes, the comfort level
wasn’t there. During the US-India Civil Nuclear Agreement, the US dropped the ball. Bureaucrats and politicians don’t want to do transformational things.”
He pointed out that American law specifies that NATO countries, plus there are five other non-NATO countries that get the latest defense technology. They don’t have to wait to get the latest technology for defense and intelligence.
“The US saying that India is a major defense partner is nothing but a lollipop. This is the opportune time to change the law and the national defense authorization bill in favor of India and to allow US laws to provide the right sort of defense and intelligence support. Hinduism, human rights, and other issues, and objections raised by the US in the past were all excuses. Now, with this crisis that is there in the Indo-Pacific region, everybody has realized that they really need India and they can’t take them for granted.”
“Till the law is changed, you will only get promises. For the US this is the opportunity to go beyond by having a security relationship and more peace through strength. And everybody mentioned how we built China, now we can build India also,” he added.
Next, the moderator invited Dr. A Adityanjee – president of the Council for Strategic Affairs to speak. The moderator spoke on what he thinks the Prime Minister should do about this issue. He focused on India’s perspective on the security issue. “The chief focus is to build India’s comprehensive national power. And that requires domestic reforms, which have been going on for the last nine or 10 years. The Prime Minister has been trying to dismantle certain regimes, trying to change certain attitudes, and reform practices to the extent that the bureaucracy has been also chastened. Till 1998 there was no defense trade between India and the US. Now, the US is the fourth largest provider of ammunition and weapons to India. We have gone through various stages. But there has to be some change in approach.”
“I can tell you that from India’s perspective, the attitude you are with us or against us, will not work, and in the past, this has been the basic barrier to furthering the bilateral relationship. And as I talked about comprehensive national power, India would very much like help from the US. And that help would be in building up India’s economy. In the international arena, this may mean the US supporting India’s entry into APEC – Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation. The US is hosting APEC in November of 2023 in San Francisco. India has been an aspirant and has openly staked its claim to participate in APEC and India was denied consistently for various reasons. The US did not support actually in 2014 and 2015 when India applied for it. The other confidence-building measure on the part of the US could be integrating India into G8,” Adityanjee added.
“India’s GDP is rising consistently and might become the world’s third-largest economy. So that is where help is needed. India will continue to exercise its strategic independence while safeguarding its interest. And my characterization of the India-US relationship is that it’s ongoing. There will be some mutual understandings and differences. We share certain common ideals, but we are in different geographies. Unfortunately, India cannot choose not to be a neighbor of China. There is a compulsion there. In that scenario, the geopolitical responses of India are not going to be in unison with the US geopolitical interventions or priorities. And the US needs to understand that.”
The moderator then turned to Ambassador Pradeep Kapur who was a former Ambassador and Secretary at the Government of India and asked him to talk about what he thinks should Prime Minister Modi do.
“The topic before us today is should the US and India also discuss a bilateral security alliance. The answer is yes, of course, there are no two ways about it. However, the contours of the alliance have to be defined very clearly. The world today is poised at a very critical juncture. We have gone through a devastating pandemic that was absolutely earth-shattering and impacted all the countries of the world. We are still going through the Ukraine-Russia war, which has impacted most of the world and the global economies,” Pradeep Kapur said.
Talking about the challenges that the world is facing, he spoke about China’s aggression and the threat to Taiwan, the threat of terrorism, of climate change. And then asked how will this alliance help. He then answered his question: “First of all, it’ll provide a free and open Indo-Pacific. It’ll provide security on the India-China border, in Egypt. It will deter China from its other regressive stances and actions including the threats in Taiwan. It’ll foster sharing of intelligence between India, the US, and the US partners, including the five countries. India is already a major driver of the global economy. It’ll boost technological cooperation between the two countries. It’ll boost trade and investment. Other sectors that will also get a massive fillip with this alliance is cyber security, space, space security, maritime security, and nuclear security.”
Kapur then shifted his focus to the learnings from the past. “Both countries need to further augment the trust factor, mostly at the official level, the bureaucratic level, and the political level. At the diaspora level, there is already a phenomenal amount of trust and this can play to the benefit of both the countries. The alliances of the past – what have been the drawbacks and why has India refused to get into any alliance with any country? Those factors are also very important to understand. The India-Soviet Treaty of Peace Friendship and Cooperation of 1971 was a landmark treaty for India, which helped India very significantly during the problems with Pakistan and the creation of Bangladesh, and the India-Pakistan War of 1971. And deterring the US naval forces which were parked outside in the sea near Bangladesh.”
“Public opinion is another very important factor that has to be molded in both countries to support this sort of alliance. The lessons which are possible to learn from the downsides and the fissures in NATO or in the Quad or in the Australia UK US alliance would also provide very important guidelines. This alliance in my opinion has to be a living document, it has to have a lot of flexibility to adapt to evolving threats and challenges. And there has to be a lot of trust and communication, non-stop communication between the two sides,” Kapur added.
The US has to go all out and ensure that India becomes a permanent member of the UN Security Council, he said. Talking about economic benefits, Kapur said: “For the US there is also the aspect of gaining access to the biggest market in the world – rural India with a population of about 900 million, which is more than the population of the Western world or US or the northern American and South America populations combined. This alliance will also help in securing the US economy from further deterioration. We find banks failing in the US, we find so many retail organizations, shops, and organizations closing down, and many more under the threat of bankruptcy. All those economic challenges which the developed world is facing and which the US in particular is facing, to some extent will be mitigated with this alliance, which is going to be a very significant factor for the US.”
“India has a very strategic location. Now, if US has to have its outreach into the Indo-Pacific, what better country than India, we have Andaman Nicobar in the Indo-Pacific. There are also strategic lanes that India dominates and can control even more with a strong alliance with the US. So, I personally think it is the opportune moment for India-US relations to become the defining partnership of the 21st century and take the world to a better place, and what better than having a very strong security alliance between the two countries,” Kapur added.
Modi’s US visit: American Indo-Pacific Forum discusses US-India bilateral security alliance possibility
