India-US relations (Part 5)

Expert's/Scholar's views

• Shyam Saran —The present government has invested heavily in building a stronger strategic partnership with the US. This was based on the assumption that even with its geopolitical pre-dominance diminished, the US remained a formidable military power and an unmatched source of technological innovation and excellence. It shared India’s interest in preventing a China-dominated Asia and the world. It would, therefore, be an indispensable partner in India’s trajectory towards great power status. Trump’s preoccupations at home mean that the US will be less engaged with regional and global issues and this adds another layer of complexity in dealing with the China challenge and in navigating an even more treacherous international landscape. However, the strengths of the US are likely to be enduring and India should not dilute the relationship because of immediate concerns such as the issue of visas to our IT professionals.
• FS S Jaishankar — "The United States is, generally speaking, reframing its terms of engagement with the world. Let us be clear what is not happening: the US is not withdrawing from the world. On the contrary, it is seeking to get what it hopes to be a better deal from the rest of the world. It is important not to jump to conclusions. The continued presence of the United States in the Asia- Pacific is an important factor in the calculations of all nations. Developing a nuanced understanding of the unfolding situation is a must for policy makers, as well as analysts." "Don't demonize Trump, Analyse Trump."
• Pratap Mehta — An authoritarian, assertive China is a challenge for India. But it is premature to conclude that US will be its saviour.
• C Raja Mohan — India should resist the temptation for an endless debate on whether America can move away from China and Pakistan and be India’s reliable partner. Delhi should focus, instead, on strengthening practical cooperation wherever possible with Trump’s Washington. Delhi must seek to:
• stiffen America’s resolve to confront the Pakistan Army’s sponsorship of terror,
• encourage him to discard the residual bureaucratic hesitations in Washington about supporting India’s rise, and
• delineate the pathways for constructing a stable balance of power system in the Indo-Pacific.
• C Raja Mohan — The new complexities driving Asian politics. These include America’s demands for “fair” rather than “free trade” with Asia and the problem of accommodating China’s rise without abandoning its long-standing allies and friends in the region. Xi insisted that Beijing and Washington need to “jointly” promote peace and stability in Asia. This is one of Xi’s core demands on Trump — to share the leadership of Asia on Beijing’s terms. Trump, or any other US president, will have a hard time ceding America’s long-standing primacy in Asia. Three things stand out:
1. America and China will continue to jockey for political primacy in Asia;
2. the tension between Washington’s traditional commitment to economic globalisation and Trump’s “America First” policies is unlikely to be resolved any time soon; and
3. most countries in the region are beginning to diversify their security partnerships.

The rise of China and the turbulence * * * * * * * * * * * * * in American domestic politics have created great disorder under the heavens. But they have also opened up much room for creative Indian diplomacy in Asia.

• Alyssa Ayres: US policies toward India and Asia need strategic coherence. US should call explicitly for APEC to offer membership to India. Asia’s third largest economy deserves to have a seat at the table, and it will help India to be more embedded in the premier regime focused on free and open trade in Asia. To address the urgent need for infrastructure funding in the Asian region—to offer a real alternative to the Belt and Road loans. In economic dialogues with India, the administration needs to keep its gaze on the strategic and not get buried in the transactional. A narrow focus on the $24 billion trade deficit with India (compared to more than $300 billion with China), should not distract from this larger goal. Of course, we and India need to sort out market access problems and our difficulties with Indian IPR polices, but these questions are not strategic in nature. A strong, stable, democratic India committed to a rules-based order will indeed be a “bookend” for the region. Washington will have to alter its economic focus to get there.
• Nisha Biswal —The geo-economics of the Indo-Pacific are as important as the region’s geopolitics. A fully realised US-India economic partnership is necessary to accomplish the shared goals and shape the destiny of the Indo-Pacific region.
• C Raja Mohan — If President George W. Bush affirmed that Washington will support India’s rise, Trump is welcoming India’s “emergence as a leading global power”. If presidents Bush and Obama stopped seeing India through the constricting prism of South Asia, Trump is betting on a larger role for Delhi in stabilising the Indo-Pacific.

Delhi has to look at one of the key propositions in Trump’s NSS: “Economic security is national security”. Aligning India’s economic strategy with the changes unfolding in Trump’s America is the key to an enduring and productive bilateral partnership. Central to that approach is the revitalization of India’s high-technology partnership with America. India’s real opportunity with Trump’s America, therefore, lies in building on the expansive linkages between Bengaluru and Silicon Valley and demonstrating that the two nations could simultaneously prosper.

• Harsh Pant —The challenge for India is to use its convergence with Russia and China on global issues to bring a semblance of balance to American capriciousness on the global stage.
• C Raja Mohan — As Trump demands reciprocity in commercial relationships to redress America’s massive trade imbalance with the rest of the world, most of America’s partners are eager to make bilateral deals with Washington. As Trump questions the costs and benefits of alliances, America’s traditional partners in Europe and Asia have been compelled to consider the logic of strategic autonomy from the U S. Neither Trump’s allies nor his adversaries can now afford to take Washington for granted.India’s positive political relations with the US have been complemented by the new challenges of managing the problems on the trade and immigration fronts. If Sino-US tensions have opened up space for India, those between Washington and Moscow shrink Delhi’s room for manoeuvre. Modi’s informal summits in Wuhan with Xi and Sochi with Putin are part of the new nimble footed Indian diplomacy towards major powers.

Delhi’s weak defence industrial base and tentative military diplomacy have prevented it from measuring up to its own claim on being a “regional security provider”.

• Suhasini Haider — U.S. new law called Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) - 
• India’s plans to acquire the Russian S-400 missile system.
• July 2018 - US Congress exempts India, Vietnam, & Indonesia from sanctions under CAATSA on Russian weaponry purchases.

In the past year, more than 30 key administration officials have quit or have been sacked — they have had to deal with three National Security Advisers, two Chiefs of Staff, as well as two Secretaries of State as interlocutors. “2+2” dialogue (Foreign and Commerce ministers) - was Postponed.

• Pratap Bhanu Mehta — Trump’s disruptions signify three mutually reinforcing trends. 
• Signalled “end of the west” as a coherent ideological and geo-political entity by disrupting the G-7. Making it clear that America does not want to sustain Pax Americana. 
• It is not willing to pay the price for it in terms of troops or financial commitments. 
• Putting America first, and in rhetoric, rolling back on post-Cold War globalisation.

There is surprise that it is Trump not China that is disrupting the global trading order. Growing inequality, wage stagnation and deindustrialisation is being blamed on globalisation.

• Alyssa Ayres on Tariff retaliation, CAATSA sanctions Russian S-400, JCPOA Iran sanctions impact on India's Oil trade and Chabahar, postponement of 2+2 dialogue for third time) — Put simply, the Trump foreign policy can zero in on an arbitrarily-chosen economic metric, fixate on it, and no strategic concern or history of alliance strength can compensate.
• Ashley Tellis — In U.S.' zeal to mount frontal * * * * * * * * assault on Iran, India has become an inadvertent casualty. On PM Modi's informal summits with China and Russia:
• A tactical adjustment, partly in the context of India’s own electoral calendar (cannot afford new crises on his frontiers). Furthermore, India has a traditional relationship with Russia that it cannot jettison in a hurry. Nor can it afford to have a deeply confrontational relationship with China either.
• No fundamental strategic shift against the United States by India been made. Polygamous strategic partnerships have been the norm since the Cold War and will be the norm going forward.
• Samir Saran — It is time to enquire if the US can continue to unilaterally set the priorities for this relationship — and strong-arm India into accommodating its preferred posture on key issues such as Pakistan and Iran. The fact is that India’s economic growth will see its GDP surpass the US before the middle of this century on real terms and well before in PPP terms. This reality implies that New Delhi will increasingly set its own priorities and will retain independent beneficial relationships with countries like Iran and chart its own course with its neighbours.How will the US establishment come to terms with the fact that for the better part of the 21st century, India will be the larger economic partner? More importantly, has Delhi realised the potential and consequences of this shift?
• C Raja Mohan — on Trump's outburst against EU, NATO, G7, accusing Germany of being “totally controlled by Russia”, undermining the so-called special relationship between America and Britain, determined to enhance the engagement with Putin’s Russia. India will need a more transactional — a pejorative word in India’s diplomatic lexicon — approach to deal with the Trump effect. Claiming that it is “WTO compliant” is a poor strategy when the big boys are changing the trading rules. Delhi needs a flexible negotiating strategy founded in a more ambitious internal reform agenda. In Trump’s world, the contradictions within the West are becoming sharper than ever before. Obsession with “strategic autonomy” makes little sense when the post-War geopolitical categories are breaking down. As in the economic domain, so in the political, India’s diplomatic emphasis must be transactional.
• Delhi must avoid conflict with the powers with which it has serious disputes. It also needs to lift self-imposed limits on security cooperation with the powers that are ready to boost India’s material power. In these troubled times, transactional diplomacy, and not political posturing, holds the key to achieving India’s ambitious national goals.

• Richard Verma and N Menon Rao report on US-India relations summarised by - Joshua White —
• “Strategic Advantage Initiative” focused on bolstering India’s defense capabilities in the Indo-Pacific.
• Creating a U.S-India Indo-Pacific HADR cell to “plan and jointly train for coordinated response to natural disasters in the Indian Ocean region.”
• Encourages India to improve its defense procurement process, and its sometimes myopic rubric for evaluating overall cost
  Finally, the report recommends a “joint defense implementation agreement.” An umbrella arrangement that bundles a number of specific and often technical cooperative agreements.
• Russia question in India-US relations (India’s negotiation for Russian S-400 missile system and US CAATSA) The Russia question continues to vex the foreign policy establishment in both countries. While India’s dependence on Russia for defence products reduces, the fact is that it will remain a key security partner for many years to come. At the same time, Moscow will increasingly become an important actor for India’s political, connectivity and energy projects in Eurasia. To sustain a long-term India-US partnership, it is now time for both countries to adopt a mutually accommodative position on Russia.
• The US, for its part, must be flexible and account for the important role Russia plays in India’s security objectives. * * * * * * * * * * New Delhi, on the other hand, must invest diplomatic energy in convincing Washington to shed its cold war mentality towards Moscow and embrace an ‘entente cordiale’ with this superpower, especially as both countries begin to recalibrate their approach to China. Neither India nor the US would benefit from Russia being in the Chinese corner.
• Jeff Smith — India should be encouraged to continue weaning itself off Russian hardware. But no credible expert thinks it’s reasonable to demand that India halt defense trade with Russia immediately and indefinitely. None believes India could do so without seriously undermining its national security. At a time Delhi and Moscow have grown increasingly estranged, Russia would like nothing more than to drive a wedge between the two democracies.