YesGlobal engagement with the Indo-Pacific has grown despite and, as some have argued, because of the war in Ukraine.
As security and economic initiatives come to the fore, nothing causes more anxiety and discomfort in New Delhi than NATO’s pivot to the Indo-Pacific. After engaging with India through several dialogues since 2019 and to be finalized The question of what NATO wants from India, a liaison office in Japan, has recently made a comeback.
Just before PM Modi state visit For the US later this month, two important developments command our attention.
Read also: The BRICS currency could weaken the US grip on emerging economies. India needs to decide its role
deepening relationship
First, after a difficult decade spent working out the fine details, India and the US have agreed on a cardinal defense deal Hindustan Aeronautics Limited’s (HAL) partnership with US firm General Electric (GE) to jointly manufacture indigenous jet engines for fighter aircraft, with the latter to be extended to the naval domain. Not only has it arrived after much toil, but its significance can also be gauged from US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s visit to India next week, where the contours of the deal will be worked out, especially around transfer of technology (ToT) issues. Whether or not the US delivers on the tempting TOT promise, there is no doubt that the deal will tie India’s defense engines with US technology and give interoperability a significant bump for decades to come.
Second, the US Committee on China, for the first time, recommended India will be made a member of NATO-Plus to counter China in the Indo-Pacific region. NATO Plus is a security arrangement that unites NATO and five countries—Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Israel, and South Korea—to promote global defense cooperation. The logic seems well-founded: India’s involvement will facilitate seamless intelligence sharing as well as enable faster access to the West’s latest military technology. From the perspective of the West, it complements the growing defense cooperation between the US and India.
But for India, it applies to the disdain of being seen as a formal US ally in exchange for all the qualitative convergence otherwise. In fact, Ashley Tellis recently argued The limits of the US-India relationship were seen in the backdrop of India’s non-response to a potential crisis in Taiwan. However, the only plausible rebuttal from New Delhi’s point of view is that Indo-US convergence in the Indo-Pacific region is about more than India sending military aid to Taiwan.
Trend In India, it is problematic to separate rather than engage inconvenient foreign policy demands with reasonable pragmatism. And this is where the self-destructive limits of India’s pursuit of its own interests lie.
Read also: Military cross postings vital to the theater command system. It should start with the logistics core
can do NATO got Indo-Pacific sink?
The region does not have a permanent security structure, but is largely filled with four types of different formal and informal geometries – US-steered; EU-run, Japan-run and individual country tripartite mechanisms. Special mention is also required of regional groupings such as IORA and India’s Indo-Pacific Ocean Initiative (IPOI).
What is common to them is that in varying degrees they work to prevent unilateral changes to the status quo by finding common ground, involving ASEAN relevant countries, and improving the capabilities of the members. When and if NATO pivots to this location, the emerging cooperation matrix is likely to remain flexible and informal.
The “plus” cooperation framework is Pareto optimal compared to increased cooperation in the Indo-Pacific. The security geometry of the region is informal and fluid in nature where elements of competition, cooperation and resistance shine through with equal continuity. Therefore, whether it is a “plus” framework or informal collaboration without any label, the idea is that collaboration can and should be achieved without compromising the strategic autonomy of stakeholders.
The binding glue of those growing geometries is based on finding common (not identical) interests. Differences with regard to approach and engagement with China, among other things, are acknowledged among other players. For example, the Quad has the advantage of informally maintaining a rules-based order among India, Japan, the US and Australia in the Indian Ocean region of the larger Indo-Pacific. if there is a quadrilateral 2 Including the US, Japan, Australia and the Philippines, which have a more aggressive inclination towards China, so be it. As long as these geometries complement each other and connect the dots to prevent unilateral changes to the status quo, there should be no conflict.
Read also: China building new city to undercut Beijing, 6 years later Xiong’an is still a construction site
What should be India’s strategy?
India’s strategic pragmatism, to include NATO’s axis in the Indo-Pacific, should not be denied.
It is notable that despite the luminosity of India’s truly global interactive diplomatic footprint, its disdain for NATO seems to be set in the Cold War paradigm.
Officially, India on its part has been engaging NATO through political dialogues and meetings since 2019. But these encounters are conducted with extreme caution as public opinion strongly rejects NATO in the Indo-Pacific region and the strategic community quickly rebuts any proposal. in this regard. The denouement will come soon, regardless of what NATO’s pivot in the region will be for India.
Certainly the discomfort is not without genuine misunderstanding. The last time NATO went global, it resulted in blunders in Iraq and Afghanistan. Geographically far away from the security order in Europe and NATO’s role in ensuring and stabilizing it, the region has been concerned about joining the security alliance during the Cold War. largely defensive character unlike NATO Confirmed In the European security order, in Asia, it has been regarded as the instrument with which the US exerts its brute unipolar power.
But that was decades ago. There are at least two valid reasons why India should include 21scheduled tribe Century Global NATO Proposals.
Read also: India, Nepal will not talk on borders. Prachanda has a different message for Modi
what changed
The collective consciousness of the world has evolved since the US ceased exclusive control over the levers of global power challenged by China. There has also been the rise of middle order powers whose consequential hedging has driven the world into perpetual flux. Three decades ago there was hardly any ‘Indo-Pacific’ in India’s strategic imagination.
The problem is that India’s strategic community’s criticism of NATO’s pivot to Asia lacks rigor of analysis.
There is no serious review of NATO strategic concept 2022 which marks the inflection point of the alliance’s vision for development and broadening security concerns. This has inevitable relevance for India. Many of its salient points resonate with India’s objectives and national interest with uncanny similarity. For example, 13th The point in the strategic concept is of direct relevance to New Delhi as it speaks of vulnerabilities around critical infrastructure and rare earth dependence on China in light of the Ukraine war. The next few points talk about freedom of navigation (14th point) and NATO’s commitment (23) to co-development and co-design norms and principles around maritime space architecture.third point) and emerging technological challenges (15th and 17th Issue) in the new information age. 19th Point out NATO’s plans to fight climate change.
Countering NATO’s Pivot to China and Pakistan
From India’s point of view, it is important that a more global avatar of NATO is engaging with its arch-rivals China and Pakistan. As of December 2019, NATO had held nine rounds of talks with Beijing. The political dialogue and military cooperation of the global alliance with Pakistan has also been a reality. After starting selective training for Pakistani officers, its military delegation Held 9th edition of Military Staff Talks in November 2019, a process that Ongoing well into later years. It shows NATO’s continued engagement with Pakistan that India should take note of, especially now that the alliance is pivotal to the Indo-Pacific.
power of example
while the NATO axis ‘meets’cold eyes’ In New Delhi, a parallel can be drawn from the ‘Five Eyes’ (FVEY), the World War I intelligence-sharing alliance that has recently become operational in the Indo-Pacific. Like NATO, China was never the reason for the formation of the ‘Five Eyes’ (FVEY) grouping. But over the years, it has expanded its threat spectrum and geographic focus, particularly in operations with respect to China.
In 2019, Congressman Democrat Adam Schiff, then Chairman of the “House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence” in the US reports did for the House of Representatives argued The case for India, Japan and South Korea to be part of an alliance similar to the ‘Five Eyes’. The stated goal was to maintain peace and the rule of law in the Indo-Pacific region.
The June 2020 Five Eyes Defense Minister’s joint statement clearly underlined their focus on India and Japan, noting the importance of engaging new “regional partners and institutions.
Neither India nor Japan have joined FVEY Plus, despite increasing speculation that cooperation with the group has increased. Therefore, as long as India remains open to engaging with the NATO axis in the Indo-Pacific with pragmatism, joining it formally or informally is neither conditional nor preferable – just like FVEY .
Fusion Two security theaters are in operation. It is necessary to re-imagine the security landscape in the Indo-Pacific in a non-conformist, post-aligned space.
The author is Associate Fellow, Europe and Eurasia Centre, Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses. She tweets @swasrao. Thoughts are personal.
(Editing by Anurag Choubey)