Taken to the cleaners

Taken to the cleaners is a popular American idiom used when someone deprives another of their possessions or takes advantage of them. This is exactly what is happening to the Americans by the Indians. Despite benefiting immensely from its strategic partnership with the US, India has refused to join the US-led alliance against Russia over the Ukraine war while maintaining close political, economic and defence relations with Moscow. In response, the Americans have been reduced to accommodating India so as not to jeopardise the Indo-US partnership against China. In effect, New Delhi is using leverage with both Washington and Moscow to achieve its strategic interests.

This Indian policy is not new. It has been continuously adjusted to changing geo-political realities over the years. But the ultimate Indian objective remains constant: to manipulate the international order for the achievement of regional domination and great power status.

During the years of Cold War bi-polarity, India professed non-alignment as a cover to benefit from both the US and the Soviet Union. Despite its non-aligned rhetoric, India pleaded for American support in its 1962 war with China. In 1971, India signed a Treaty of Friendship with the Soviets for military and political assistance to dismember Pakistan. When India conducted its first nuclear test in 1974, both superpowers acquiesced in Indian violation of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, underscoring New Delhi’s importance for both of them.

Once the Soviet Union disintegrated in 1991, India was quick to align with the sole superpower, the US, as a “natural partner”. But behind their façade of “shared democratic values” has been the hard reality of containing a rising China. For the US, India’s size, location and economic potential are assets that can be used to build up India as a counter-weight to China. For India, the alliance with America has enhanced its economic and military capabilities to compete with China with which it also has lingering territorial disputes. The outcome has been the 2006 Indo-US nuclear cooperation agreement, the 2008 Indian-specific Nuclear Supplier’s Group waiver and four “Foundational Agreements” for defence, logistic and intelligence cooperation. Since the 2011 American “Pivot to Asia”, India has also joined the Quadrilateral Alliance between the US, Japan Australia and India, to ensure a “rules-based order” in the so-called Indo-Pacific which is doublespeak for containing China. Consequently, India has become a “Net Security Provider” for the US.

Meanwhile, to counter American uni-polar hegemony, China and Russia have evolved a strategic partnership to push for a multi-polar global order. This emerging strategic transformation has forced India to recalibrate its policy direction, especially to reenergise relations with Russia. The result has been its policy of “strategic autonomy” while implies “pursuit of relations with different powers and on different issues in an autonomous manner”. In reality, this means deriving maximum advantages from all sides, especially the US and Russia, by leveraging India’s geo-political significance to play off one side against the other.

Russia is also keen to preserve its historically close relations with India, especially to offset the growing proximity between New Delhi and Washington, even as Moscow tries to maintain a delicate balance with New Delhi’s rivals — China and Pakistan. Apart from strong political and commercial relations, Russia has provided nuclear assistance as well as latest generation military hardware to India, such as nuclear powered submarines, SU-35 aircraft, T-90 tanks, BrahMos Cruise Missile technology and the S-400 Ballistic Missile Defence Systems.

Such Indo-Russian cooperation has been a constant source of friction between India and the US. Under the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) of 2017, Washington is required to impose sanctions on New Delhi for its defence relations with Russia. But the US Congress has adopted a waiver for India from these sanctions which President Biden will certainly approve. Following the Russian intervention in Ukraine, the US had sought Indian support for sanctions on Russia. However, India has not only rejected such demands but has in fact defied the sanctions by importing Russian oil and wheat at discounted prices. It is reportedly also moving ahead with the construction of the North-South oil pipeline from Russia to India via Iran. At the diplomatic level, India has rebuffed American moves to censure Russia in the UN Security Council and the Human Rights Council apart from other international fora.

The American response has been one of obsequious restraint. Biden described India’s position on Ukraine as “somewhat shaky” while Secretary of State Blinken conceded that “India has to make its own choices”. At the recent Tokyo Summit of the Quadrilateral Alliance, Biden went further to declare that “I am committed to make the US-India partnership among the closest we have on earth”. Such craven appeasement also involves offers to supply latest American weapons to India instead of its acquisitions from Russia. The underlying reason for such American indulgence is the priority that they attach to India’s role for the containment of China. This is the critical leverage that India knows it has in its relations with the US. By retaining the Russian option, India’s policy of strategic autonomy enhances this leverage.

The overarching Indian objective remains attainment of global power status especially at a time when a new multipolar world order is emerging. However, four factors would constrain India from this goal: competition and territorial disputes with China which India cannot overcome; tensions with Pakistan over the Kashmir dispute; rise of Hindu fascism dividing India; and rising poverty due to inequitable wealth distribution.

Whether India will achieve its ambitions remains uncertain, but it is obvious that the Indians will not sacrifice their national objectives for the sake of American interests. While they will derive the maximum benefits from the US as a partner against China, they will stay away from American conflicts, for instance, over Taiwan or, as is the case with Russia, over Ukraine. In this sense, India is truly taking the Americans to the cleaners.

 

Published in The Express Tribune, August 22^nd, 2022.

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