The Quad (US, Japan, India, Australia Security Dialogue) : Updates and Discussions

[Gautam]

Can India and Indonesia team up to counter China in the Indo-Pacific ?

By Natalie Sambhi
Published: 6:00pm, 17 Jan, 2020

Indonesian President Joko Widodo, left, inspects troops during a visit to the Natuna Islands on January 8, 2020. Photo: Handout via AP

Highlights :

• India and Indonesia can work together to strengthen norms of maritime behaviour that would cover the disputed South China Sea
• China is likely to resist the move, but, with careful diplomacy, Beijing could be encouraged to accept this emerging order

No Indonesian president wants to wake up and find Chinese illegal fishing vessels flanked by the Chinese coastguard around the Natuna Islands at the edges of the South China Sea.

But last month, about 63 Chinese vessels made incursions into Indonesia’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) in the north of the country, claiming “traditional fishing rights” as the basis for their presence.

In a scene that harked back to 2016, when President Joko Widodo held a cabinet meeting aboard a warship off the Natuna Islands during his first term, the leader travelled to the area on January 8 and stridently declared his country would not cede sovereignty to any actor.China’s ambassador to Indonesia attempted to ease tensions on Thursday by saying he was confident both sides could “properly manage the situation” but with no consequences for China, the conclusion one would draw is that even Southeast Asia’s largest state can be pushed around.

A China coastguard ship patrols Indonesia’s exclusive economic zone in Natuna Islands on January 11, 2020. Photo: Antara Foto via Reuters

This perception puts Widodo, better known as Jokowi, at risk of looking weak in his second, and final, term. And while plans are underway to mobilise 500 fishing vessels around the Natuna Islands to demonstrate the country’s sovereignty over the area, it is doubtful that this kind of deterrence will be successful or that it can be a viable long-term strategy.

The Jokowi administration must look to enduring, non-militarised solutions. In other words, Indonesia must try something new. One option is for Jakarta to lead on strengthening norms of behaviour in the Indo-Pacific. The term is more of a strategic construct rather than referring to a specific geographic area, but it describes a region linked by predominantly seaborne trade and marked by the rise of increasingly maritime China and India

Codes of conduct are needed to govern the seas of the Indo-Pacific, which at the moment does not have agreements on norms or an institution that brings together member states such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean).

In his first term, Widodo promoted Indonesia as a key node of global maritime trade and created expectations that it would also champion territorial integrity in the seas. This has not substantially materialised, but it is not too late for the president to spearhead a regime of maritime security norms in the Indo-Pacific. However, it is a tall order for Indonesia to do this on its own, and this is where India can come in.

A partnership between India and Indonesia would result in a strong, united front. By virtue of their locations, economic and population sizes, both are natural, emerging leaders in the Indo-Pacific. Their status as non-US allies and traditionally non-aligned states gives them greater legitimacy at the helm than other contenders such as the US, China or Japan. Indonesia and India have grown closer in recent years, enabled by personal affinity between Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Widodo.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo and Indian PM Narendra Modi at the opening ceremony of the India-Indonesia Kite Exhibition in Jakarta in May 2018. Photo: EPA-EFE

This week at the Raisina Dialogue, India’s premier conference on geopolitics and security, External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said India had become a “shaper and decider rather than an abstainer” in international affairs. In the Indian Ocean alone, he said his country had 16 white shipping agreements, conducted seven major HADR operations, extended lines of credit to 11 countries, trained over 1,000 troops, has military training teams in 11 countries, and conducted hydrographic training with five neighbours.

India’s focus on the Indian Ocean is also driven by its quest to balance China’s increasing maritime influence, as it grows more active in the area with a military base in Djibouti and infrastructure investment in Sri Lanka. In response, New Delhi has constructed a deep-sea port in Indonesia’s far west, close to its Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

Another benefit of partnering with India, which is expanding its naval and coastguard fleet, is that it will boost Indonesia’s constrained maritime capability.

NEXT STEPS

So how to start ? A high priority is strengthening areas of shared concern, such as illegal fishing and piracy, through coastguard cooperation. Nilanthi Samaranayake, an Indian Ocean security analyst, also suggests promoting navy-to-navy activities.

India and Indonesia had a “shared opinion on EEZ activity, including on Chinese scientific vessels, freedom of navigation, and a shared interpretation of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which would help to bolster cooperation”, said Samaranayake, director of the Strategy and Policy Analysis Program at US-based think tank CNA.

The challenge will be maintaining that level of engagement which has been “very volatile” in the past, according to analyst Tanvi Madan of the Brookings Institute’s Project. Success would come if “they just are consistent”, and India must also be careful not to look domineering to other Southeast Asian countries, she said.

In practical terms, naval personnel would need to improve their English skills, said an Indonesian naval officer who wished to remain anonymous. The officer, who has a background in international engagement, also suggested further education and training exchanges for both navies to learn not just “about the other navy’s procedures, but the culture as well”.

Another Indonesian naval officer with extensive international experience highlighted the importance of information sharing between coastguards and navies.

To push some of these practical initiatives along, each country must also sort out its domestic bureaucracy. India’s is known to be notoriously slow. Indonesia’s 13 or so agencies and bodies with overlapping maritime responsibilities remain a hindrance. That said, China’s bullying so early in Jokowi’s second term might just be the push his administration needs to sort out internal conflicts and secure his legacy on maritime issues.

Regional order building is no easy feat. But now is the time for Indonesia and India to invest in their shared Indo-Pacific future. China is likely to resist their joint leadership, but careful diplomacy can be used to encourage Beijing’s acceptance of this emerging order and, over time, help carve out a constructive role for all in the Indo-Pacific. ■

Natalie Sambhi is executive director of Verve Research, an independent research collective focused on the relationship between militaries and societies in Southeast Asia, and a research fellow at the Perth USAsia Centre

Can India and Indonesia team up to counter China in the Indo-Pacific?

 

[sid4587]

Basing Brahmos on aircraft is simply another means of attacking the targets that land based Brahmos do. Except that IAF can decide the targets they want to hit, so this is about equipping the IAF to perform their tasks more effectively.

Basing Brahmos on aircraft is simply another means of attacking the targets that land based Brahmos do. Except that IAF can decide the targets they want to hit, so this is about equipping the IAF to perform their tasks more effectively.

land based brahmos, if i am right are all near borders so there is no point of using sukhoi for same purpose unless we are thinking to fly over enemy territory for almost 500-800km and then fire brahmos......there are many reasons where i do not see air to ground usability of brahmos as of now due to the characteristics of missile and its impact.

 

[randomradio]

land based brahmos, if i am right are all near borders so there is no point of using sukhoi for same purpose unless we are thinking to fly over enemy territory for almost 500-800km and then fire brahmos......there are many reasons where i do not see air to ground usability of brahmos as of now due to the characteristics of missile and its impact.

If the Brahmos had more range, then we wouldn't need air launched Brahmos.

But the Chinese have targets deep within that are important enough to be attacked, and a land based Brahmos with its short range cannot meet that goal.

Also, we need air launched Brahmos against navies.

But if you are talking about nuclear strike, then our country has clearly demarcated weapons used for nukes and weapons used for conventional purpose. And Brahmos, being a JV with a foreign country, is specifically used for conventional use only. There are other types of missiles being developed with Indian tech, and those may be used for nuclear strike. So even Brahmos-M, Brahmos II etc are for conventional role only.

 

[sid4587]

If the Brahmos had more range, then we wouldn't need air launched Brahmos.

But the Chinese have targets deep within that are important enough to be attacked, and a land based Brahmos with its short range cannot meet that goal.

Also, we need air launched Brahmos against navies.

But if you are talking about nuclear strike, then our country has clearly demarcated weapons used for nukes and weapons used for conventional purpose. And Brahmos, being a JV with a foreign country, is specifically used for conventional use only. There are other types of missiles being developed with Indian tech, and those may be used for nuclear strike. So even Brahmos-M, Brahmos II etc are for conventional role only.

instead of risking sukhoi armed with brahmos inside 100km of an enemy territory, we can use nirbhaya missile by making it more undetectable

 

[randomradio]

instead of risking sukhoi armed with brahmos inside 100km of an enemy territory, we can use nirbhaya missile by making it more undetectable

It lacks the penetration capability of the Brahmos because it's 3 times slower. Some C&C facilities are located deep under the surface.

 

[sid4587]

It lacks the penetration capability of the Brahmos because it's 3 times slower. Some C&C facilities are located deep under the surface.

like i said very rare usuability

 

[randomradio]

like i said very rare usuability

We may not have enough Brahmos for just this alone.

 

[Gautam]

Australia targets Indian investment to develop remote north amid China tensions

January 20, 2020 / 10:50 AM
By Colin Packham

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australia’s government aims to boost investment from India to develop its remote north, seen as a front door to lucrative Asian markets, amid concerns that tighter regulatory oversight and diplomatic tensions with Beijing will curb Chinese spending.

Matt Canavan, Australian Minister for Resources and Northern Australia, speaks during an interview with Reuters in Tokyo, Japan, October 23, 2018. Picture taken October 23, 2018. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon/Files

While much of the foreign spending in the region has come from China in recent years, Australia’s Minister for Northern Australia, Matt Canavan, acknowledged in a newspaper interview on Monday that Canberra’s relationship with Beijing has changed, intensifying the pressure to diversify infrastructure ties.

“It is a more volatile environment and a totally different playing field than what we had five years ago,” Canavan told The Australian newspaper, in comments confirmed by government officials contacted by Reuters.

“India and Southeast Asia will account for more of the growth in demand for Australian resource commodities than any other region, including China.”

Australia’s relationship with China has been strained in recent years amid Canberra’s allegations that Beijing is meddling in its domestic affairs.

In September, Reuters reported Australian intelligence had found China was responsible for a cyber-attack on the national parliament and three largest political parties earlier this year.

China’s foreign ministry denied involvement in any hacking attacks and said the internet was full of theories that were hard to trace.

India is Canberra’s fourth-largest trading partner, worth A$29.1 billion ($20.02 billion) in 2018, though New Delhi is a relatively small investor into Australia, government data shows.

Some Indian investment has been controversial, most notably Adani Enterprises’ planned coal mine in outback Australia.

First acquired by Adani in 2010, the project is slated to produce 8-10 million tonnes of thermal coal a year and cost up to $1.5 billion, but has been mired in court battles and opposition from green groups.

Australia targets Indian investment to develop remote north amid China tensions

 

[Parthu]

 

[Gautam]

India Gets Serious About the Indo-Pacific

Can India walk the talk on the Indo-Pacific ?

By Saurabh Todi
December 18, 2019

Credit: PMO India via Wikimedia Commons

Competition in the Indo-Pacific is heating up and China is challenging India’s historical dominance in the Indian Ocean region. Chinese submarines have been spotted in the Indian Ocean and recently, a Chinese research vessel had to be expelled from India’s exclusive economic zone.

It is therefore crucial for India to finally walk the talk on its self-declared role as a net security provider in the Indian ocean region or see its influence steadily wane. Nonetheless, it does seem like India is finally gearing up for this challenge. Enhanced defense cooperation and partnerships between India and other Indo-Pacific nations suggest that New Delhi is seeking to strengthen its foothold and expand its operational reach in the region.

India has emphasized that its idea of Indo-Pacific stands for a free, open, and inclusive region — one that includes all nations within this geography as well as others beyond with a stake in it. India’s External Affairs Minister recently laid out his case for why India should stitch new partnerships based on common interests rather than ideological constructs. He further outlined the geographic expanse of the Indo-Pacific – from the east coast of Africa to the island nations in the Pacific Ocean and everything else in between, including the Middle East, Arabian Sea, Southeast Asia, and Oceania.

Indian partnerships in the Indo-Pacific region can be broadly classified into three groups: the Quad, ASEAN, and Western Indian Ocean.

The Quad refers to an ad hoc group including Australia, India, Japan, and the United States that facilitates informal discussions on areas of mutual cooperation in the region. India has historically resisted calls to upgrade the level of Quad consultations to allay Chinese fears. China perceives Quad as an anti-China group that seeks to contain its rise. It is therefore interesting that Quad countries met at the ministerial level for the first time in September 2019, signaling a shift in India’s accommodative stance towards China. In another significant departure from the past, India may also invite Australia to participate in the annual Malabar Exercises in 2020, which are trilateral naval exercises involving the United States, Japan, and India. China had protested strongly when Australia participated in Malabar Exercises in 2007.

Bilateral strategic and defense relationships between India and the Quad countries have witnessed increased action. India and the United States conducted their first-ever tri-service military exercises in November 2019, improving defense cooperation between them. India also operationalized a mutual support logistics agreement with the United States that provides both countries reciprocal access to each other’s military bases in the region. Similar agreements with Japan and Australia are expected to be signed within the next year. Furthermore, India has institutionalized a bilateral “2+2” mechanism with the United States, and Japan that involves discussions between their respective defense and foreign ministers. India has a similar “2+2” mechanism with Australia at the secretary level.

Along with the Quad, India has also renewed its focus on enhancing its relationship with ASEAN countries. India has emphasized the centrality of ASEAN in its Indo-Pacific framework and India’s ‘Act East’ policy provides strategic direction to several initiatives aimed at increasing its cooperation with ASEAN members :

1. India upgraded its bilateral relationship to the level of Comprehensive Strategic Partnership with Vietnam in 2016 and with Indonesia in 2018.
2. India conducted joint military exercises with ASEAN Plus nations in the field of humanitarian mine action and peacekeeping operations in 2018.
3. India and Indonesia recently agreed on a plan of action to develop and manage the Sabang Port located close to the strategic Malacca Strait.
4. India has concluded a logistics support agreement with Singapore and provided the city-state access to its missile testing facility in Odisha.

India has been trying to enhance its defense partnerships with its ASEAN partners as well. India sold Myanmar its first ever submarine and is in active negotiations to sell its BrahMos cruise missiles to the Philippines by next year. Several other ASEAN countries have also expressed interest in acquiring Brahmos cruise missiles, Aakash surface-to-air missiles and Indian light combat aircraft Tejas from India.

In addition to working with ASEAN, India has also begun to focus on its strategic partners in the Western Indian ocean. India has a growing defense relationship with France and has decided to conduct joint patrols in the Indian ocean. India has also operationalized a mutual support logistics agreement with France that would allow it to access French military bases in Djibouti, UAE, and French Réunion. Furthermore, India has been interested in building a naval facility in Seychelles’ Assumption Island and entered into a bilateral agreement for the same in 2018, but the plan has faced some local resistance due to militarization fears. It is noteworthy that an ex-army chief, General Dalbir Singh Suhag (Retd.), was appointed as Indian High Commissioner to Seychelles in 2019.

India also upgraded its relationship with the United Arab Emirates to the level of Comprehensive Strategic Partnership and both nations held their first ever joint naval exercises in 2018. In addition, India conducted its maiden military drills focusing on demining and peacekeeping operations with 17 African countries in March 2019. India is also expected to conduct its first joint naval drills with Saudi Arabia in 2020.

In addition to building bilateral relationships in the region, India is also enhancing its own capabilities to extend its operational reach in the Indian Ocean. India is upgrading its Coastal Surveillance Network which is a chain of radars that provide comprehensive live monitoring of ship movements in the Indian ocean region and connect Indian radars to similar systems in Sri Lanka, Maldives, Mauritius and Seychelles. In addition, the Indian Navy recently launched its Information Fusion Centre (IFC) that allows sharing of information on vessels of interest with other friendly nations. India is also slated to host its biggest ever multilateral naval exercise near the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Exercise Milan, in March next year. About 41 Indo-Pacific nations have been invited, with a notable exception of China.

India’s vision of a free, open, and inclusive Indo-Pacific is praiseworthy, but it can only be taken seriously if India shows initiative and resolve to walk the talk. After years of being lethargic in action and being unsure about its vision for the Indo-Pacific, India seems to be finally getting ready to be the net security provider in the Indian ocean – in real terms.

Saurabh Todi is a graduate student at Middlebury Institute of International Studies and Graduate Research Assistant at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Monterey, California.

India Gets Serious About the Indo-Pacific

 

[Gautam]

India Sees Opportunity as U.S. Remakes Its Alliances

Modi’s team prepares for a Trump visit while preserving Russia ties and trying to not anger China. India has gravitated closer to the U.S. under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

By Yaroslav Trofimov
Jan. 22, 2020 1:17 pm ET

NEW DELHI—India sees the Trump administration’s reassessment of America’s traditional alliances as a strategic opportunity—a shift that allows New Delhi to deepen ties with Washington without provoking retribution from China or destroying a longstanding partnership with Russia.

That is a vision outlined by India’s foreign minister as officials plan a visit to New Delhi by President Trump that could take place in the coming weeks and introduce a limited trade agreement between the U.S. and the world’s fifth-largest economy.

The U.S. and India ‘have similar values and aspirations,’ said External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar. Photo: Jose Luis Magana/Associated Press

“This repositioning, recalibration, realignment of the United States would allow the U.S. to look at countries like India very differently from the way it did in the past,” External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said in an interview. “In the past, the U.S. said—listen, we are the world’s No. 1, we run an alliance, it’s global, there is one way of doing business and it’s our way, so if you want to do business with us, sign here.”

Now, he said, the U.S. is “much more open-minded beyond alliances.”

Under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India has gravitated closer to the U.S., a relationship fueled by mutual suspicion of China and by burgeoning trade and military links. That process accelerated under Mr. Trump—just as America’s relationships with fellow North Atlantic Treaty Organization members such as Germany and France and with allies such as South Korea have become more contentious.

Mr. Jaishankar sees these shifts as the result of historic changes in the international order, where power is increasingly dispersed and where formal alliances such as NATO are losing their salience.

As an example, he held up Mr. Trump’s complaints that NATO members don’t pay their fair share and demands that they reimburse Washington for spending on their security. That issue doesn’t arise in the U.S.-India relationship, even as the two nations make their militaries increasingly interoperable.

“We agree on a lot of things, we have similar values and aspirations and organizational principles,” Mr. Jaishankar said. “But at the end of the day there is looseness and flexibility.”

India, a nuclear-armed power of 1.37 billion people, has always sought to preserve an independent foreign policy—starting from it championing the Non-Aligned Movement during the Cold War. After losing the 1962 border war with China, however, India moved closer to Moscow, relying on the Soviet Union for much of its weaponry.

It was well after the Soviet Union’s collapse, at the end of the 20th century, that New Delhi’s relationship with Washington began to improve. Though Russia still accounts for the majority of India’s defense procurement, India is ramping up its purchases of sophisticated American weapons, as well as equipment from Israel and France.

U.S. and Indian forces held joint exercises in India in November, as military cooperation grows. Photo: U.S. Marines/ZUMA Press

India and the U.S. signed in 2016 a logistics agreement on access to each other’s military bases; a deal in 2018 that allows Indian and U.S. forces to share encrypted communications; and an agreement last year that permits each other’s private companies to transfer classified defense technologies. In November, the U.S. military held its first joint exercises with all three of India’s military branches—the army, the navy and the air force.

“To ensure peace, security and economic progress, it is critical for India to cooperate closely with the U.S.A.,” India’s Defense Secretary Ajay Kumar told the Journal. “As the two largest democracies, India and the U.S.A. are natural partners.”

Despite this growing alignment, India has been reluctant to fully embrace Washington’s push to contain Chinese influence in Asia, a priority for the Trump administration.

While Indian officials aren’t shy about discussing their fears of China and their desire to limit China’s expansion in the Indian Ocean, they have toned down public criticism of Beijing since Mr. Modi’s summit with President Xi Jinping in Wuhan in 2018. “We seek good relations with China,” Mr. Kumar said. “It is important that we must not allow our differences to become disputes.”

This outward softness on China stems in part from an understanding that India must first garner strength at home—where economic growth, lagging behind China’s in recent decades, has begun to slow.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi held an informal summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping at in Mamallapuram, India, in October. Photo: Indian Press Information Bureau

“Every generation of Indian policy makers has been pretty conscious that China is far closer to us physically than America, that we have the world’s longest unresolved frontier dispute, and that China was once an economy the same size as ours, in 1978, but is now five times our size. Therefore, one doesn’t footle around making an enemy out of China because we could end up with a very bloody nose, as we did in 1962,” said opposition lawmaker Shashi Tharoor, a writer and former minister of state for foreign affairs.

That desire to accommodate China can only go so far, Mr. Tharoor added. “The Chinese have made a very clear strategic choice, pro-Pakistan and anti-India, which surely should send a signal to Indian decision makers: You may not want to antagonize the Chinese, but the Chinese are already pretty antagonistic.”

One of these top policy makers, Mr. Jaishankar, painted a complex picture of India’s interactions with its giant neighbor.

“Indian-Chinese relations are still very much a relationship in the making. Both are very dynamic, both of us are growing…. The challenge for me is to create and sustain a stable equilibrium,” he said. “As two rising powers in the same time frame, there are elements of competition in our relationship.”

While many Indians are upset with the unbalanced nature of their nation’s trade with China—China’s exports to India are more than four times its imports—Mr. Jaishankar urged to view the glass as half-full. “The good news is I am trading with China, and I haven’t traded with China for many many years. The fundamental civilized activity between two nation-states in the modern world is going on, and that is very important.”

Mr. Modi and President Trump attended a rally in Houston in September. Mr. Trump could visit India in the coming weeks. Photo: Sergio Flores/Getty Images

India and Russia concluded a deal to buy a Russian air-defense system in 2018, when Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, visited New Delhi. Photo: Pib/Zuma Press

India has allowed Chinese technology companies ZTE Corp. and Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. to participate in trials of its 5G system, while the U.S. has lobbied allies to forestall Chinese dominance of the mobile technology. Mr. Jaishankar said the Chinese role in the trials was only a preliminary step without prejudice to a broader policy on how to manage India’s sensitive communications infrastructure.

India has also steadily raised its level of participation in the Quad, a grouping of four democracies with the U.S., Australia and Japan—though New Delhi, cautious not to provoke Beijing, insists the grouping isn’t military in nature or aimed at China.

In parallel, New Delhi has embraced the concept of an open “Indo-Pacific”—a geopolitical construct that is shared by the U.S. but is viewed by China as directed against it.

These moves by India have begun to affect New Delhi’s historically warm ties with Moscow, as Russia and China rapidly increase cooperation, including in defense.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov implicitly chided India for adopting the Indo-Pacific concept, describing it at a conference in New Delhi this month as a “terminology that looks very benign but may mean something else.”

India’s connections with Russia, meanwhile, limit how closely New Delhi could cooperate on defense with the U.S.

Despite these tensions, India is determined to preserve ties with Moscow, including by signing a deal to buy the Russian-made S-400 air defense system. “We have a long history of multiple sourcing, of multiple relationships, of getting value from this multiplicity. Russia has been a remarkably steady strategic partner for India,” Mr. Jaishankar said. “I will evaluate my Russia relationship on my terms, not on how some other country thinks about it.”

Though many officials in New Delhi worry about Russia’s drift closer to China, they believe it can be reversed, or at least slowed down.

“We don’t want to abandon an old friend,” said Indian foreign-policy expert Raja Mohan, director of the Institute of South Asian Studies at the National University of Singapore. “And we hope that at some point the U.S. and Russia will make up because as long as they fight, the Chinese have a pass.”

India Sees Opportunity as U.S. Remakes Its Alliances

 

[Gautam]

 

[Gautam]

India's Role In The Great-Power Struggle Over the Indo-Pacific Region

Saturday, January 25, 2020

New Delhi’s foreign policy, at the kernel level, is very deeply ingrained in strategic autonomy, which stems from its nonalignment days

by Akshobh Giridharadas

India’s foreign policy is being shaped into a new contour, right from Act East to Neighbourhood First, there is a new outlook for the traditionally globally reticent aspiring superpower India.

But traditional international relations theorists have lamented that India with its burgeoning economy and global diaspora will be a great presence more than a great power.

In order to understand how India sees the world, I gleaned insights from various conversations with several diplomats across New Delhi and Washington over the last few months on various issues from great-power competition to multilateral alliances.

Great-Power Competition

Is India a great power or a great presence?

The United States, China and Russia (even in its erstwhile Soviet Union form) have all had one thing in common: a sense of assertiveness. Moscow, Beijing and Washington have been able to spread their geopolitical and economic clout to far-flung lands promoting either economic partnerships such as Chinese investments in Djibouti, Australia or Latin America or the United States and the USSR in defending their respective political ideologies.

India’s foreign policy, at the kernel level, is very deeply ingrained in strategic autonomy, which stems from its nonalignment days. The outlook is one where India’s Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) rejects making a choice between China, Russia or the United States.

Senior diplomats have implied that a similar choice is never posed to any of the other three powers. There has always been a concern in Beijing that New Delhi is tilting towards the United States—especially with regards to the dialogue mechanisms, the trade margins, mutual investments in each other’s country and joint military exercises.

One of the core foreign policy tenets under India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi is the simultaneous engagement with all powers. MEA diplomats at headquarters have conducted two rounds of surveys in the Indian think community of the assessment of Modi’s foreign policy.

The vision is “equi-proximity,” one where even Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, who previously as Foreign Secretary, stated that India will maintain relationships with everybody in a mutual capacity but not without a sense of pride.

The relationships are drawn in terms of objectives, in terms of convergence, which are deeper than one individual, one leader or one diplomat.

On China

India is determined to foster closer economic ties with countries in its neighbourhood, and China is central to that vision. There is a geographically larger entity, one where India is confronted with a trade deficit and a border problem. However, there are several convergences between the two countries, particularly on trade, even though India has recently pulled out from the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership RCEP.

India demurs at a popular notion in U.S. foreign policy circles that she can be a credible economic counterweight to China. The Indian foreign policy think tank firmly believes that only the United States can act as a legitimate counterweight to China. Apart from having an economy that is five times smaller to China, India eschews from being a key pawn in the United States’ grand strategy of Geo-Economic rivalries.

The MEA wants to craft an independent sense of Sino-India ties that are not beholden to the current expectation mismatch of roles that Washington expects Delhi to execute since they share similar democratic ideals and a strong strategic partnership.

On Russia

There is the hangover of the Cold War ties between Moscow and New Delhi. India still firmly relies on Russia as a military supplier even though its pool of military equipment is diversified with stock from France, Israel and the United States.

In 1989, the trade turnover with Russia was ten billion dollars. In the mid-1990s, it had dropped to 2.5 billion dollars, which was partly due to the collapse of the Soviet Union and partly due to the Chinese intrusions.

The Russians have invited Indian investments as an alternative to the Chinese inroads in their own economy. Now, India is interested in more than the military-supplier relationship. In fact, it is eyeing the oil and gas sector in Russia. India made the first investment in this space in Sakhalin in the 1990s.

Russia is grappling with NATO, the European Union and Washington, its allies and various sanctions on its western borders. The MEA knows only too well that Moscow is looking to maintain convivial strong ties with India and leverage of Indian investments amidst western sanctions.

United States

The recently concluded 2+2 meeting in December will once again bring to light convergence on issues of national security, foreign policy and trade issues. New Delhi understands that it doesn’t have the same economic clout as Brussels, Tokyo and Beijing, however, the cross-hairs on trade with Washington are no less.

Cooperation on counter terrorism has become a higher priority in the wake of the US plans of troop withdrawal from the region. While several U.S. lawmakers have publicly spoken out on Kashmir post Article 370, there has been no firm shift in U.S. policy towards the region. New Delhi continues to keep Washington abreast of cross-border terrorism challenges.

As for trade, many outstanding issues remain after both sides have taken the other to the World Trade Organisation. India has concerns about its trade relationship with the United States when it comes to steel and aluminium tariffs. India wants to reinstate the preferential market access to American markets under the Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) program. That program was suspended in June, which has stalled progress.

The United States feels that India is too strict on tariffs. Also, there is some concern about medical stents and Harley Davidson motorbikes gaining access to the Indian market.

Indo-Pacific Region

India’s vision of the Indo-Pacific region can be traced to the Modi’s speech at Shangri-La Dialogue in 2018. He coined the acronym of SAGAR, which stands for Security and Growth for All in the Region.

On the Indo-Pacific strategy, there is a very high degree of convergence between New Delhi and Washington. The latter sees India’s geographical proximity as a positive attribute and the former sees the U.S. involvement in the region as economically and strategically beneficial in the wake of China’s presence in the South China Sea.

There is a sense of affirmation from both the United States and India, that the security of ASEAN region is of paramount importance. Statements made during the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad)—an informal, strategic dialogue between the United States, India, Japan, and Australia—show that there is a sense of inclusiveness, openness and ASEAN centrality at the core messaging.

India and the United States converge on six principles relevant to the Indo-Pacific context :

• Free open and inclusive region
• ASEAN centrality
• A common rules-based order which applies equally
• Equal Access to freedom of sea and air.
• Open and stable international trade regime which is rules-based and balanced
• Promoting connectivity

Neighbourhood Engagement

India is presently investing close to $10 billion in four countries—Nepal, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, with the possibility of a fifth in Myanmar. However, Myanmar is wary of new projects and investments following the influx of Chinese investments in 2015. In the Indian Ocean, India has the largest projects in Mauritius and Seychelles and significant projects in Indonesia and Malaysia. These projects focus mainly on railways and roadways. The Mauritians, too, have been wary of loans. That said, India was able to assuage their concerns and develop a creative mechanism for affording that to the island nation.

In the past five years, India has helped with building forty-five thousand homes in Sri Lanka. In Nepal and Bhutan, there are school projects underway. There is an efficiency measure to improve processes for projects taking into account viability, feasibility, modality and financial stability and thus help improve India’s image in the region.

On Multilateralism

The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) is primarily centred on its member nations' Central Asian security-related concerns. The SCO includes China, India, Russia, and other Central Asian neighbours.

India’s decision to be part of the SCO is strategic with historic links to the region dating back to the era of the erstwhile Soviet Union and a modern-day focus on energy interests in Central Asia. An upside of the SCO is that it serves as a common ground for Indian and Pakistani leaders to meet, given that the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation engagement has drastically reduced.

An interesting fact about the SCO is that India and Pakistan have an extradition treaty through it even though no bilateral treaty on extradition exists between the two nuclear-armed nations.

India sees itself as a crucial balancing force with various alliances such as BRICS, an emerging economy bloc that includes Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, and the Quad. The MEA believes that within the BRICS bloc, with the Russian and Chinese influence, India’s presence is a mitigating factor to prevent it looking as an anti-American and anti-western alliance.

Similarly, India brings a sobering and balancing effect to the Quad. Many diplomats believe that India’s presence precludes it from coming across an anti-China platform.

Indian diplomats do not see the Quad as a smaller, naval NATO that will execute operations in various parts of the world. Instead, they view it as cooperation for military exercises—one that will be characterised by slow movers, since it is comprised of four democratic countries that are not quite politically cohesive.

India's Role in the Great-Power Struggle Over the Indo-Pacific Region

 

[RISING SUN]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1220937977209057280

 

[RISING SUN]

“Triangle of sea power” in Gulf of Oman poses a challenge to US-led Indo-Pacific Order
The Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN), Russian Navy and the Islamic Republic of Iran Navy (NEDAJA) held the Marine Security Belt, a trilateral maritime exercise covering 17,000 square kilometres across the Gulf of Oman and the northern Indian Ocean Region (IOR) on 27-30 December. The naval exercise, involving in-port exchange and on-shore maritime exercise had 14 vessels. It included the PLAN’s guided-missile destroyer Xining (Hull 117), the Russian Baltic Fleet’s Neustrashimyy-class frigate “Yaroslav Mudry” (Hull 727), and NEDAJA’s frigate Alborz (Hull 72). According to Iran Navy’s deputy commander Rear Admiral Gholamreza Tahani, the trilateral exercise – the first-ever such large-scale naval exercise in the region involving major powers since the 1979 Islamic Revolution victory in Iran – primarily centered on anti-piracy and counter-terrorism tactics.

The trilateral exercise – which is now upgraded to be an annual feature – not just signalled growing maritime cooperation and coherence in naval strategies among China-Russia-Iran, but also served as a clear geopolitical message to the United States and its allies of an emerging new regional maritime alliance in the region. Although China and Russia downplayed the geopolitical significance amid regional maritime tensions in official transcripts, Tehran projected the trilateral exercise as a counter to the US presence in the region. The exercise demonstrates the three countries’ convergence in the perception of maritime threats and geopolitical interests, which if sustains over the long-term, may result in the rise of an Iran-centered Russia and China-backed collective security framework in the region. In the past, Iran, Russia and China have individually pronounced on multiple international platforms their intention to establish such a framework.

At the 74th United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in September, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani announced Hormuz Peace Endeavour (HOPE) to promote peace and enhance maritime security in the Strait of Hormuz. Over 21-million barrels of oil a day or one-third of global sea-traded oil pass through the 167 kilometre-long Strait of Hormuz that separates the Gulf of Oman and the Persian Gulf. HOPE strives to realise a Hormuz Strait Community (HSC) summit to engage on a comprehensive set of regional security and cooperation issues and eventually actualise the withdrawal of US troops and its allies from the region that are considered to be threating the existence of Iran.

Earlier, in July, Russian president’s special envoy for the Middle East and African countries and Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov too had affirmed Moscow’s Collective Security Concept for the Persian Gulf Region. The Russian framework emphasises, “inclusive regional security” by involving all the regional countries “on the basis of equality” to ensure maritime security and maintain peace, “for all nations” in the region, which exemplifies an attempt to fortify international and regional players diplomatic resolve against exclusive US-led coalition’s maritime operations in the region. Nevertheless, Moscow’s proposed inclusive plan to involve extra-regional partners including the US along with the EU, China, India and others in addition to Gulf regional states is a mere diplomatic ploy to demonstrate its intent to uphold multilateral frameworks against alleged US’ unilateral actions in the region. The mention of basic equality in the Russian framework further invokes basic tenets of multilateral consultations that Tehran alleges to be missing in the US-led operations across the region.

Subsequently, Beijing too welcomed Moscow’s proposal and emphasised its universal security vision for Gulf region through “common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security” by developing “friendly relations on the basis of mutual respect and non-interference” in internal affairs. Beijing’s chorus with Moscow on collective security in the Persian Gulf epitomises the gradually emerging convergence between the Cold War communist rivals, especially following President Trump’s 2017 National Security Strategy that marks Beijing and Moscow as twin revisionist powers challenging the US-led international order and eroding US interests.

A Brewing Zero-Sum Game
The trilateral exercise in the Gulf of Oman and northern IOR gain greater significance as the waters along Iranian border are poised to witness escalated maritime tensions, following President Trump’s withdrawal from Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in May 2018. Trump administration’s subsequent unilateral sanctions as part of its “maximum pressure” strategy against oil-centered Iran’s economy cornered Tehran. Against such a backdrop, set-aside the potential, the China-Russia-Iran joint naval drill in its current form itself served as a counterbalance to the US interests in the region. Further, the trilateral exercise demonstrated that any nation could not be isolated in a multipolar world with national interests as divergent as the US driving the west on one side and the gradually evolving Russia-China convergence on the other.

Following the US killing of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRGC) Quds Force General Qasem Soleimani early in January 2020, Tehran is liable to uptick its military cooperation, especially naval exchanges, with like-minded regional and extra-regional countries. To safeguard territorial sovereignty and political integrity, Tehran hones all its diplomatic and strategic forces to weaken the US presence in the region, especially the US-led International Maritime Security Construct (IMSC) that ensures freedom of navigation and safe passage through the Persian Gulf, the Gulf of Oman and Bab el-Mandeb. The IMSC, which is considered as “undesirable security arrangement” in the region by Tehran, highlights the divided west over the security alliance. While the United Kingdom and Australia embrace the US-led IMSC, Japan and France have chosen to remain independent with their respective “survey and research” activities and European Union alternative.

With Iran’s geographic-regional advantage, China’s subtle diplomatic-economic influence and Russia’s strategic-military superiority, the divided west acts as an impetus to expand the trilateral platform, beyond the regional states to actively promote the anti-US campaign in the region. Such inclinations were resonated in Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif’s joint statement that hyphenates Beijing-Tehran in opposing unilateralism and upholding multilateralism against “bullies”, without any reference to the US, on 31 December in Beijing.

In-line with their intention to counterbalance the US beyond the Gulf region, namely in the Indo-pacific region, the current geopolitical conditions appear to be fertile for China and Russia to gradually build sub-regional alliances and quasi-partnerships with a long-term motivation to balance US-led Indo-Pacific strategy. In addition to the China-Russia-Iran trilateral, the Chinese and Russian strategic intent and motivation are manifested in their unprecedented joint naval drill with South Africa trilateral. The trilateral “Mosi” was held in waters adjacent to Cape Town to build a multilateral task force that counters security threats in the southern tip of Africa on 24-29 November. The two first-ever trilateral with Iran in the northern IOR and South Africa in the western IOR in a span of one month demonstrate the resolve and coordinated efforts of Beijing and Moscow to challenge the US-led Indo-Pacific order by stepping up military-to-military naval cooperation.

Implications for India
Despite Indian media’s modest coverage on the four-day trilateral naval exercise, the event signifies a surge in the tempo of military exchanges between China and littoral states in the IOR. The exercises in the far seas demonstrate Beijing’s blue-water navy capabilities to protect China’s exponentially expanding energy, economic and strategic interests under President Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) around the world. In addition, the ongoing sixth China-Pakistan naval exercise, Sea Guardians-2020, in the north Arabian Sea on 6-14 January informs China’s expanding military-centric coalitions beyond its economic and foreign policy centric coalitions.

Although Beijing denies the naval exercises’ link with the regional situation, China’s aims to maximise geopolitical gains in the wake of tensions between Iran and the US. The trilateral exercise hosting PLAN from Iran’s southeastern port city of Chabahar in the Gulf of Oman and BRI’s long-term agenda of enhancing Beijing’s holistic maritime power by building naval assets and developing a broader marine economy across IOR imperils India’s regional interests.

Despite India’s access to Oman’s strategic Duqm Port for military use and logistical support, the significant disruptions to the Indian energy sector that imports two-thirds of oil through the Strait of Hormuz due to a potential US-Iran conflict in the region creates a dilemma among the policymakers on New Delhi’s Raisina Hill. The dilemma emerges primarily to traverse the complex Iran-US conflict, while it is advisable that India optimises Japan’s approach to maintain the balance of power by establishing an independent task force in the region to safeguard the free flow of oilers headed towards India. The US sanctions and China’s expanding cooperation with Iran challenges India’s energy security and its diplomatic-economic investments in the Chabahar port that ensures land-based access to Central Asia through Afghanistan.
"Triangle of sea power" in Gulf of Oman poses a challenge to US-led Indo-Pacific Order | ORF

 

[Gautam]

India may invite Australia for Malabar naval exercise with US & Japan

Rajat Pandit | TNN | Updated: Jan 29, 2020, 8:49 IST

If Australia comes on board, it will be for the first time the ‘Quad’ countries will come together for the high-voltage combat manoeuvres on the high seas after a gap of 13 years

NEW DELHI: India is considering inviting Australia to take part in its trilateral Malabar naval exercise with the US and Japan this year, which if it happens will mark the first time the “Quad” countries will come together for the high-voltage combat manoeuvres on the high seas after a gap of 13 years.

There is “a move by India to include Australia” in the 24th Malabar exercise, which will be held in the Bay of Bengal in July-August after the monsoons, but “the final decision is yet be taken”, said sources on Tuesday.

India, of course, will have to keep the “China factor” in mind. China had strongly objected to the India-US Malabar exercise in the Bay of Bengal in 2007 when it was expanded to include Japan, Australia and Singapore as well, firm in its belief that a multilateral naval construct was emerging to “counter and contain” it in the region.

This had led India to restrict Malabar to a bilateral one with the US for several years -- Japan was included only when the exercise was held in the north-western Pacific in 2009 and 2014 -- before finally agreeing to make Japan a regular participant from 2015 onwards.

India has traditionally been against any militarisation of the Quad to avoid needlessly antagonising a prickly China. Similarly, New Delhi has also made it clear the US should not “conflate” the Indo-Pacific with the Quad, stressing the centrality of ASEAN in the former.

If Australia is indeed called for the Malabar, it will be a breakaway from the self-imposed restraint. India, of course, is bilaterally expanding its military ties with Australia. India, for instance, had for the first time in mid-2018 dispatched four Sukhoi-30MKI fighters, a C-17 Globemaster-III and C-130J “Super Hercules” aircraft, along with 145 personnel, to take part in the multilateral “Pitch Black” exercise in Australia.

In April last year, India and Australia also conducted their biggest-ever naval exercise called “AusIndEx” to “build inter-operability” off the Visakhapatnam coast, which was followed by the “2-plus-2 dialogue among the defence and foreign secretaries of the two countries in December.

India may invite Australia for Malabar naval exercise with US & Japan | India News - Times of India

 

[Gautam]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1222553699576315909

An excellent Thread by Tanvi Madan :

https://twitter.com/x/status/1222503681851043840

 

[RISING SUN]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1222400326218780672

 

[RISING SUN]

India's Role in the Great-Power Struggle Over the Indo-Pacific Region
New Delhi’s foreign policy, at the kernel level, is very deeply ingrained in strategic autonomy, which stems from its nonalignment days.

India’s foreign policy is being shaped into a new contour, right from Act East to Neighbourhood First, there is a new outlook for the traditionally globally reticent aspiring superpower India.

But traditional international relations theorists have lamented that India with its burgeoning economy and global diaspora will be a great presence more than a great power.

In order to understand how India sees the world, I gleaned insights from various conversations with several diplomats across New Delhi and Washington over the last few months on various issues from great-power competition to multilateral alliances.

Great-Power Competition
Is India a great power or a great presence? The United States, China and Russia (even in its erstwhile Soviet Union form) have all had one thing in common: a sense of assertiveness. Moscow, Beijing and Washington have been able to spread their geopolitical and economic clout to far-flung lands promoting either economic partnerships such as Chinese investments in Djibouti, Australia or Latin America or the United States and the USSR in defending their respective political ideologies.

India’s foreign policy, at the kernel level, is very deeply ingrained in strategic autonomy, which stems from its nonalignment days. The outlook is one where India’s Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) rejects making a choice between China, Russia or the United States.

Senior diplomats have implied that a similar choice is never posed to any of the other three powers. There has always been a concern in Beijing that New Delhi is tilting towards the United States—especially with regards to the dialogue mechanisms, the trade margins, mutual investments in each other’s country and joint military exercises.

One of the core foreign policy tenets under India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi is the simultaneous engagement with all powers. MEA diplomats at headquarters have conducted two rounds of surveys in the Indian think community of the assessment of Modi’s foreign policy.

The vision is “equiproximity,” one where even Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, who previously as Foreign Secretary, stated that India will maintain relationships with everybody in a mutual capacity but not without a sense of pride.

The relationships are drawn in terms of objectives, in terms of convergence, which are deeper than one individual, one leader or one diplomat.

On China
India is determined to foster closer economic ties with countries in its neighborhood, and China is central to that vision. There is a geographically larger entity, one where India is confronted with a trade deficit and a border problem. However, there are several convergences between the two countries, particularly on trade, even though India has recently pulled out from the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership RCEP.

India demurs at a popular notion in U.S. foreign policy circles that she can be a credible economic counterweight to China. The Indian foreign policy think tank firmly believes that only the United States can act as a legitimate counterweight to China. Apart from having an economy that is five times smaller to China, India eschews from being a key pawn in the United States’ grand strategy of geoeconomic rivalries.

The MEA wants to craft an independent sense of Sino-India ties that are not beholden to the current expectation mismatch of roles that Washington expects Delhi to execute since they share similar democratic ideals and a strong strategic partnership.

On Russia
There is the hangover of the Cold War ties between Moscow and New Delhi. India still firmly relies on Russia as a military supplier even though its pool of military equipment is diversified with stock from France, Israel and the United States.

In 1989, the trade turnover with Russia was ten billion dollars. In the mid-1990s, it had dropped to 2.5 billion dollars, which was partly due to the collapse of the Soviet Union and partly due to the Chinese intrusions.

The Russians have invited Indian investments as an alternative to the Chinese inroads in their own economy. Now, India is interested in more than the military-supplier relationship. In fact, it is eyeing the oil and gas sector in Russia. India made the first investment in this space in Sakhalin in the 1990s.

Russia is grappling with NATO, the European Union and Washington, its allies and various sanctions on its western borders. The MEA knows only too well that Moscow is looking to maintain convivial strong ties with India and leverage of Indian investments amidst western sanctions.

United States

The recently concluded 2+2 meeting in December will once again bring to light convergence on issues of national security, foreign policy and trade issues. New Delhi understands that it doesn’t have the same economic clout as Brussels, Tokyo and Beijing, however, the crosshairs on trade with Washington are no less.

Cooperation on counterterrorism has become a higher priority in the wake of the US plans of troop withdrawal from the region. While several U.S. lawmakers have publicly spoken out on Kashmir post Article 370, there has been no firm shift in U.S. policy towards the region. New Delhi continues to keep Washington abreast of cross-border terrorism challenges.

As for trade, many outstanding issues remain after both sides have taken the other to the World Trade Organization. India has concerns about its trade relationship with the United States when it comes to steel and aluminum tariffs. India wants to reinstate the preferential market access to American markets under the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) program. That program was suspended in June, which has stalled progress.

The United States feels that India is too strict on tariffs. Also, there is some concern about medical stents and Harley Davidson motorbikes gaining access to the Indian market.

Indo-Pacific Region

India’s vision of the Indo-Pacific region can be traced to the Modi’s speech at Shangri-La Dialogue in 2018. He coined the acronym of SAGAR, which stands for Security and Growth for All in the Region.

On the Indo-Pacific strategy, there is a very high degree of convergence between New Delhi and Washington. The latter sees India’s geographical proximity as a positive attribute and the former sees the U.S. involvement in the region as economically and strategically beneficial in the wake of China’s presence in the South China Sea.

There is a sense of affirmation from both the United States and India, that the security of ASEAN region is of paramount importance. Statements made during the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad)—an informal, strategic dialogue between the United States, India, Japan, and Australia—show that there is a sense of inclusiveness, openness and ASEAN centrality at the core messaging.

India and the United States converge on six principles relevant to the Indo-Pacific context.

· Free open and inclusive region

· ASEAN centrality.

· A common rules-based order which applies equally.

· Equal Access to freedom of sea and air.

· Open and stable international trade regime which is rules-based and balanced.

· Promoting connectivity

Neighborhood Engagement

India is presently investing close to $10 billion in four countries—Nepal, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, with the possibility of a fifth in Myanmar. However, Myanmar is wary of new projects and investments following the influx of Chinese investments in 2015. In the Indian Ocean, India has the largest projects in Mauritius and Seychelles and significant projects in Indonesia and Malaysia. These projects focus mainly on railways and roadways. The Mauritians, too, have been wary of loans. That said, India was able to assuage their concerns and develop a creative mechanism for affording that to the island nation.

In the past five years, India has helped with building forty-five thousand homes in Sri Lanka. In Nepal and Bhutan, there are school projects underway. There is an efficiency measure to improve processes for projects taking into account viability, feasibility, modality and financial stability and thus help improve India’s image in the region.

On Multilateralism

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is primarily centered on its member nations' Central Asian security-related concerns. The SCO includes China, India, Russia, and other Central Asian neighbors.

India’s decision to be part of the SCO is strategic with historic links to the region dating back to the era of the erstwhile Soviet Union and a modern-day focus on energy interests in Central Asia. An upside of the SCO is that it serves as a common ground for Indian and Pakistani leaders to meet, given that the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation engagement has drastically reduced.

An interesting fact about the SCO is that India and Pakistan have an extradition treaty through it even though no bilateral treaty on extradition exists between the two nuclear-armed nations.

India sees itself as a crucial balancing force with various alliances such as BRICS, an emerging economy bloc that includes Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, and the Quad. The MEA believes that within the BRICS bloc, with the Russian and Chinese influence, India’s presence is a mitigating factor to prevent it looking as an anti-American and anti-western alliance.

Similarly, India brings a sobering and balancing effect to the Quad. Many diplomats believe that India’s presence precludes it from coming across an anti-China platform.
India's Role in the Great-Power Struggle Over the Indo-Pacific Region

 

[RISING SUN]

Ports and Partnerships: Delhi Invests in Indian Ocean Leadership
India has begun to invest heavily, albeit quietly, in expanding its naval and air power across the Indian Ocean. The effort is driven by two factors: a desire to improve maritime domain awareness and maritime security throughout the vast region, and New Delhi’s growing anxieties about Chinese inroads in its strategic backyard. As Chinese naval forces operate more frequently in the Indian Ocean, military planners in New Delhi increasingly worry about a day when China could present a security threat not only on its Himalayan frontier but also from the sea. Meanwhile piracy, illegal fishing, and other maritime crimes remain serious concerns and potential sources of instability around the entire Indian Ocean rim. India is tackling these concerns along four tracks.

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The Indian military is upgrading its naval, coast guard, and air capabilities in order to better monitor and project power farther from shore. Much of this work has been focused on the Lakshadweep archipelago off India’s west coast and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands in the east. India has also constructed a listening post in Madagascar to monitor traffic in the southwest Indian Ocean. Explore the map below for more details on these facilities along with India’s other efforts to expand its capabilities in the region.

A second line of effort is focused on boosting regional maritime domain awareness and creating a common operating picture through the work of the Indian Navy’s Information Fusion Centre for the Indian Ocean Region, or IFC-IOR. The center, which was launched in 2018, processes radar and sensor data from participating countries and offers the data to partners, including all members of the Indian Ocean Rim Association. India is helping smaller neighbors upgrade their radar arrays and feed them into the IFC-IOR. France recently became the first partner nation to post a liaison officer to the center.

New Delhi is also expanding military ties with other major players in the Indo-Pacific. This includes the Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement signed with the United States in August 2016. That agreement facilitates each side’s access to the other’s military facilities for refueling and replenishment. It is widely expected to include the U.S. naval base at Diego Garcia, though no Indian vessels have so far made use of the facility. In 2018, New Delhi signed similar agreements to gain greater access to French facilities, especially its naval base on Réunion, and to Singapore’s Changi Naval Base. India inked a fourth logistics arrangement with South Korea in September 2019 and is reportedly close to finalizing similar deals with Australia, Japan, and Russia.

Finally, New Delhi has grown concerned about Chinese investments in important ports like Hambantota in Sri Lanka and Gwadar in Pakistan which grant Beijing a degree of leverage over the host countries and could serve a dual function as future logistics hubs for the Chinese military. In order to secure future access and cement its role as a regional leader, India is investing in the development of commercial ports and airports in the region. Some of these projects could provide the kind of access and logistics support that the Indian Navy has recently negotiated at the port of Duqm, Oman.

Explore the map below for more information on New Delhi’s military and strategic investments around the Indian Ocean.
Ports and Partnerships: Delhi Invests in Indian Ocean Leadership | Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative

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