India-US Relationship: Long past the time for lofty debate as China races ahead

Given the emerging strategic context, India has limited choices including exploring strategic convergence with the US. (File image)

Now that the dust has settled over Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the US, it may be useful to assess the engagement in terms of tangible outcomes. The principal outcome and clear signal emanating from Washington and New Delhi is that democracies not only debate, they also deliver.

One of the key attributes of the Chinese narrative is that China may be authoritarian, but it delivers; Democracies debate and promise, but they do not necessarily deliver. The visit knocks the wind out of that story.

US-India’s “Seas to the Stars” phraseology may not only be a good pun on the “oceans-mountains-honey-steel” tale that Pakistan and China have sought to weave, but is also symbolic of a deeper commitment to critical areas of collaboration – to enhance prosperity and strengthen deterrence in the Indo-Pacific, to navigate the knotty frontiers of statecraft, without either rocking the boat of strategic autonomy or falling prey to the lure of alliance.

Game Changing Deals

From the standpoint of defence and national security, the visit is certainly a cause for celebration. A great deal of bureaucracy has been overcome to make the two big deals (F414 Jet Engines & Predator Drones) happen. The Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technologies (iCET) and the India-US Defence Innovation Bridge, could be even more game changing.

In the F414 jet engine deal, 12 advanced technologies (80 percent by value) are under transfer. Currently, the only countries that have proficiencies in this elite class of engine technology are the US, UK, France and Russia, not even China; so India will be the fifth. Set in the 98 kiloNewton thrust class, these engines will power 250-plus aircraft – Tejas Mk2, and the twin-engine deck-based fighter for the Navy.

The deal will fire up the aerospace ecosystem in Bengaluru, Hyderabad and possibly Koraput in Orissa. Approximately 600 Indian MSMEs and a few startups will be among the beneficiaries. The business profile of HAL will also get a huge boost; its shares have risen significantly due to the jet engine deal.

The MQ-9B Predator deal is equally significant – India is perhaps the first non-NATO state to acquire the sophisticated machine. The powerful engine of the Predator (fifteen times more than earlier versions) allows carriage of larger payloads, giving a strong fillip to persistent surveillance (ability to identify and preserve custody of targets for hours) and precision strike capacities.

The quality of persistent surveillance will be game-changing, in the context of the needs of strategic intelligence, our Himalayan frontiers and our maritime expanses. While operating in pairs, the Predators enable surveillance of as many as 14 million square miles of our oceanic expanse, significantly enhancing our power projection capabilities.

In the shadow of these bigger deals, the ripple effects are already visible. An Indian startup 3rdiTech has signed an MoU with General Atomics to build precision guidance kits for the MQ-9Bs. The US Space Force has signed a Cooperative Research Agreement with another Indian startup 114 AI to build an AI-based tool for space domain awareness and semiconductors.

Dependencies And Relationships

How will all of this impact our relationship with Russia? It is surely not our intention to replace a Russian dependency in defence with an American dependency. There is in fact no need to do so, because what is on offer from the Russians and the Americans is quite differentiated.

The Russians give us critical platforms; what we seek from the US on the other hand is meaningful collaboration to create an ecosystem of technological innovation and co-development of critical and emerging technologies.

Deep technologies in defence are the preserve of private companies and not that of the US government. A business-to-business relationship in defence may be the best way to lubricate Indo-American futures.

China: Converging US-India Interests

Given the emerging strategic context, in any case, what are the choices that India has? China, against every metric of prudence, has chosen to adopt a belligerent stance against India. Russia as this “constrained big power” is itself seeking geopolitical solace in China’s arms. India has no choice but to explore strategic convergence with the US.

A mutually reinforcing India-US technological ecosystem is being created at the precise moment when China is being caged technologically. A technologically enabled Indian strategic-military enterprise will be a catalyst in the strategic competition with China and is therefore in the American national interest.

We must acknowledge that China is a formidable competitor – in 44 critical and emerging technologies it is in the global lead in 37. We, therefore, do not have the luxury of lofty debate – concerted and conjoint action is the only option.

Without committing to operational collaboration of any sort, we need to keep our options open.

The writer was Army Commander, ARTRAC. He can be reached on Twitter @Gen_RajShukla or at rajshukla35@yahoo.com. Views are personal, and do not represent the stand of this publication.