Barring some unexpected hitch at the US end, India should be able to go ahead with its purchase of sophisticated air defence missile system, worth over $4 billion, from Russia despite Washington threatening friends and allies alike with Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) that seeks to sanction trade deals with Russia.
Well, from a long term perspective, India should be more keen on waiver on trade with Iran which is linked to national security issues. That is another issue, not germane to this analysis.
President Donald Trump has been rather unpredictable in dealing with Russia—praising the country and its leader one day and doing a U-turn the next day. His adverse comments on Russia and Vladimir Putin do seem to outweigh his brief friendly overtures. His acerbity towards Moscow does not match the vitriolic he pours on Tehran overriding objections from his long-time European allies.
In offering to soften the CAATSA in case of India, the US is not being altruistic. The US knows that it is only a matter of time before India’s purchase of Russian military hardware goes down drastically with a corresponding rise in the share of US equipment in the Indian military inventory.
In the last few years, the Russian share in India’s military hardware has been steadily coming down and the number one position that Moscow held is slowly but surely coming down. The US is said to have sold arms worth $15 billion to India starting from almost zero during the height of Cold War era. In the last five years, the US share in the Indian defence market has more than doubled while Russia’s share has come down from about 80 per cent to about 60 per cent.
India and the US have a ‘strategic’ relationship which the US would not like to fritter away, more so when it has upset most of its traditional allies and wants to see China’s inexorably growing influence curbed to the extent possible. Despite an army struggling to be modernized, India can stand in the way of China’s continuous rise—something that has irked the Chinese no end. The Indian potential for placing order for US military equipment is more than the likely orders that the ‘Indo-Pacific’ region, Japan, South Korea and some Middle Eastern countries like Qatar and the UAE can place on the US.
A point to be noted is that reports of a likely US waiver on Russian purchase came soon after a major setback in Indo-US relations in the form of second consecutive postponement of a joint dialogue between the defence and foreign ministers of the two countries. It had not gone down well in New Delhi. After days of deliberations during which the possibility of a negative fallout must have been considered, Washington has announced that the ‘2+2’ dialogue will eventually be held in Delhi on September 6.
The US apparently believes that a mere announcement of resuming the ‘2+2’ dialogue will not be sufficient to assuage feelings in New Delhi if India was asked to abort its missile defence deal with Russia, which is in the final stages. After all, the US is sure to win many lucrative deals with India which is expected to spend a hefty sum on arms purchase in the next ten years or so.
For India a big win will, of course, be if it is able to get US waiver on trade with Iran in which Iranian export of crude oil is the pivot. It is not because India direly needs Iranian oil—it doesn’t; it is because friendship with Iran is vital for India’s security interests. Curtailing Iranian import of oil will earn its wrath which may well extend to restrictions on India’s use of the Chabahar port.
The Iranian port is gate way to Afghanistan and Central Asia, and is vital for India since Pakistan has shut out India from using its land route for any trade and transit facility. Pakistan refuses permission to India for sending even humanitarian aid to Kabul through the Khyber Pass.
But access to Afghanistan is crucial for India which provides massive aid to that landlocked country being ravaged for decades by Pakistan-backed and sponsored terror groups. India has already invested heavily in Chabahar though the port is still far from being completed.
The US refusal to consider India’s plea for a waiver for trade with Iran will see not only Iran becoming less friendly towards India but India failing to fulfill all the promises made to the Afghans because of difficulties in physically reaching them. China with its almost unlimited financial resources working post-haste to be the major benefactor of Afghanistan will do its best to lower Indian influence in Afghanistan, if only to please its all-weather friend Pakistan, which has vowed eternal enmity with India.
While the US has often said that Pakistan has a vital role to play in bringing peace and order to Afghanistan, Washington has acknowledged that New Delhi cannot be kept out of the equation if a lasting solution to the Afghan problem is to be found. What role can India play if its access to Afghanistan is severely restricted as a result of US sanctions?
–by Tushar Charan