Moving Cautiously

Strategic Vision vol. 6, no. 33 (June, 2017)

India must continue to strengthen security cooperation in the Indo-Pacific

Pushan Das

Leaders from the Indian Air Force and the US Air Force discuss operational concepts and chart the way ahead for future training exchanges and exercises.

photo: George Maddon

While India’s Look East Policy was officially launched in 1991, the Modi government’s Act East Policy (AEP) has, over the past two years, gone well beyond the economic ties that were the focus of previous administrations in New Delhi. Set in motion by Modi at the East Asia Summit in Myanmar in November 2014, the AEP has focused on expanding strategic, economic, technological, and defense partnerships in response to the assertive rise of the People’s Republic of China (PRC).

New Delhi has increased naval deployments in Southeast Asia and boosted defense co-operation as it seeks to provide a strategic balance against China’s growing presence in the Indian Ocean region and its alarming recent assertiveness on the Sino-Indian border dispute. India’s strategic engagement with its Asia-Pacific partners also reflects its ambitions for a greater global role and as a net security provider in the region.

New Delhi’s defense engagements and cooperation with Southeast Asia has so far been incremental as it manages Beijing’s sensitivities. However a gradual policy change is evident under the Modi administration, as New Delhi approaches the issue with pragmatism, increasingly uninhibited by concerns of antagonizing China. India’s Joint Strategic Vision with the United States, supporting freedom of navigation in the South China Sea, is one indicator of such a policy shift and a reflection of an advancing relationship that is likely to influence its engagements in Asia. India is especially concerned because more than 40 percent of its trade traverses through the South China Sea, and it also has interests in harnessing the fossil-fuel resources in this region.

F/A-18 Super Hornets fly over Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson (CVN 70) and its escorts as it crosses the Pacific.

photo: Sean Castellano

India is endeavoring to use defense diplomacy as a tool to further its foreign policy goals and advance its strategic interests, though this is not a new approach. In the past, despite its nonaligned position, India has engaged in security challenges, trained foreign military personnel, made goodwill calls, and conducted joint military exercises and training exchanges. The government is keen to improve the existing template of India’s defense cooperation in the region.

Furthermore, New Delhi is slowly showing a willingness to start exporting indigenously made defense equipment to friendly countries in Southeast Asia. This comes at a time when it is trying to overcome critical capability deficits of its own in the form of anti-submarine warfare helicopters and a dwindling submarine fleet. The Ministry of Defence recently promulgated a document titled Strategy for Defense Exports to standardize operating procedures for such exports. According to the document, the commercial and diplomatic potential for defense exports would be harnessed by the government under the Defense Export Steering Committee and an Export Promotion Body. The initiative will use and expand lines of credit to foreign countries to facilitate military sales.

Vietnam ties

Central to India’s AEP has been New Delhi’s relationship with Vietnam. India recently opened a US$500 million line of credit to facilitate defense cooperation beyond the previous US$100 million credit line of 2014 and elevated Indo-Vietnamese ties to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. Additionally, advancing talks on the possible sale of the supersonic BrahMos cruise missile, Varunastra anti-submarine torpedoes, and the Akash mobile surface-to-air missile defense system are indicative of India’s growing diplomatic initiative in the region. India has also agreed to train Vietnamese pilots on Russian-built Sukhoi-30 fighter jets, building upon the training it already provides to Vietnamese submarine operators on Russian Kilo-class submarines.

New Delhi has also expanded and extended its military co-operation with Singapore and Indonesia. With the former, India recently renewed the Bilateral Agreement for the Conduct of Joint Military Training and Exercises in India between the Republic of Singapore Air Force (RSAF) and the Indian Air Force (IAF), while India and Indonesia are expanding cooperation in the maritime domain to hold air force exercises. Also on offer in a deal similar to that with Vietnam on the training of Indonesian Navy operators in submarine warfare. Moreover, in May, the 29th in a series of India-Indonesia coordinated naval patrols was conducted from the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

Regional military contracts have also been pursued by India in the recent past, with India’s state-run Garden Reach Shipbuilders & Engineers Ltd. (GRSE) having initially emerged as the winning bidder to supply two light frigates to bridge the capability gap in the Philippine Navy’s big-ticket modernization program. In this context, New Delhi supplying warships to Manila would have made eminent sense from a strategic perspective. The frigate project could have been the first contract for India to sell weaponry to a country in this strategically important region, but GRSE suffered a setback due to the financial requirements on the contract. Nevertheless, the bid can be viewed as a positive step and further evidence of India’s desire to forge defense ties in the region.

India is has been seeking defense cooperation with other Asian countries including Japan and South Korea.

Parallel to this, India is has been seeking defense cooperation with other Asian countries including Japan and South Korea as it modernizes its armed forces and attempts to bridge capability shortfalls. The imminent contracting of twelve Mine Counter Measures Vessel from South Korea is being touted as India’s first major defense hardware import from East Asia. An order was placed recently for 100 K9 VAJRA-T 155-mm/52-caliber self-propelled howitzers—an artillery gun co-developed by India’s Larsen & Toubro and South Korea’s Samsung Techwin to meet the Indian Army’s self-propelled artillery requirement—with an option for 50 more.

A US Air Force weapons load team from the 44th Aircraft Maintenance Unit carries an AIM-9 sidewinder missile toward an F-15 Eagle fighter aircraft.

photo: John Linzmeier

With the liberalization of Japan’s self-imposed rules on defensive exports, Tokyo has been keen to sell its ShinMaywa US-2 amphibious seaplane. India also expressed strong but unreciprocated interest in 2015 in the Japanese Soryu class diesel-electric attack submarine under the Make in India program. Additionally, a memorandum of cooperation and exchanges in the field of defense signed between Indian and Japan in 2015 emphasized the Importance of regular bilateral maritime exercises, as well as Japan's participation along with India and the United States in the annual Malabar military exercises.

Does India's avoidance of the Chinese behavior, despite increasing its military engagements in the Indo-Pacific, highlight a contradiction in New Delhi's relations with Southeast Asian countries and the U.S.? India's military exercises with different countries over the years show clear pattern: an aversion to certain types of multilateral exercises near its coast or on its territory. This policy is driven by a desire to avoid being drawn into military alliances. More recently, however, the tendency has been to avoid being drawn into alliances or networks that might threaten the PRC. Exercise Malabar 2016 saw Indian warships sail alongside their US and Japanese counterparts close to the South China Sea, drawing the ire of Beijing. The 2017 Malabar Exercise will continue to exclude Australia despite expression of strong interest from Canberra. Policy makers in New Delhi are keen to avoid the so called quadrilateral grouping, which Beijing has announced it considers a red line. Balancing the Indo-Sino border dispute and the increasing frequency of Chinese naval deployment in the Indian Ocean Region remains a challenge. While New Delhi maintains strong institutional links with its maritime partners in Southeast Asia, questions on credibility, capacity, and capability arise, casting doubt on India's position as an emerging maritime power in Asia or a net security provider in the Indian Ocean.

India's maritime strategy in the region has so far been cautious. New Delhi's position in the Indo-Asia Pacific currently hinges on its stable military and diplomatic relations with the United States given its current capacity constrains. Washington view's New Delhi as a key partner in balancing the Rise of China. It is time for India to leverage existing and emerging defense cooperation mechanisms to engage deeply with partner countries in Southeast Asia as a continuum to its security interests in Indian Ocean to its national security, New Delhi must begin to e proactive, rather than reactive, as it seeks to present itself as a net security provider and a benign military power in the region.

A ShinMaywa US-2 amphibious seaplane operated by the Japanese Self Defence force.

photo: Mamo

Dr. Pushan Das is is a program coordinator for ORF Global Governance where he works on issues related to India’s foreign and security policies, and military modernization.