US inks Indian Defence Agreement: ‘Pakistan First’

American and Indian ties have noticeably grown warmer in recent years, a stark contrast from the Cold War era when India sided with the Soviet Union. This transformation is evident with numerous American companies now investing and offshoring their work to India; more significantly since President George W. Bush’s ‘War on Terror’ the Americans have actively wooed India. So it came as little surprise when in August 2016 the US Secretary of Defence Ashton Carter signed with his Indian counterpart Manohar Parrikar an agreement enabling both countries to call on each other’s military facilities and supply logistics. The Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA) allows both countries to make use of each other’s’ military bases as Carter said, “What it does is make possible and make easier operating together when we choose to…. It is fully mutual. In other words, we grant one another completely equal access and ease under this agreement.” Moreover both countries are working towards further agreements on sharing secure communications and intelligence.

The impact of this agreement on Pakistan is self-evident; it serves primarily to strengthen India’s offensive military capability. This proposed co-operation between the two represents only the beginning of burgeoning ties; the US has named India as a major defence partner. The US welcomed India’s entry into the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) which will allow the transfer of advanced missile technology; it is actively supporting India’s bid to join the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), something which has only been delayed because of Chinese opposition. It is also looking at shifting its entire remaining production of F-16 fighter aircraft to India thereby giving India an automatic veto over further sales and support to Pakistan. Joint ventures are also being planned to develop high tech inventory such as jet engines and aircraft carriers although this enticement is more likely just a means to sell US defence equipment to a cash paying customer.

In contrast Pakistan currently is not in a position to procure even a few fighter jets from America after funding for eight F-16 jets was terminated by the US Congress. It’s also important to note that after the events of September 11 when the US demanded logistics and bases provision from Pakistan to invade Afghanistan no such reciprocal agreement was signed giving Pakistan equal access to US bases. So the question to be asked here is, is the US in the process of re-aligning its patronage away from Pakistan in the Indian sub-continent?

If so, then it represents a humiliating and damning indictment of the failure of Pakistan’s rulers and their foreign policy. For many years now the Pakistani regime has tried its best to justify or hide the full extent of its US subservience. Under General Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan readily embraced the US in 2001 after US sanctions under the infamous ‘Pressler Amendment’ during the 1990s denied Pakistan US military and financial aid. This was despite Pakistan being an ‘indispensable ally’ in the fight against the Soviet Union which saw Pakistan’s tribal belt being turned into a ‘Jihad factory’ by the CIA for over 10 years. The US has proven in the past that it can ditch Pakistan whenever it suits its interests.

Yet opposition to a change in Pakistan’s Afghanistan policy and its ‘strategic depth’ was swept aside under Musharraf’s ‘Pakistan First’ mantra despite public opinion being against such a policy and warnings by many Pakistani analysts that America could not be trusted again. Musharraf used a mixture of coercion such as the apparent US threat to bomb Pakistan ‘back into the stone age’ and US aid money to achieve this huge abrupt change. The US in turn established its military footprint in the region as Pakistan provided crucial logistics through the provision of its bases, supply lines and intelligence. Pakistan’s military continues to carry out operations in the tribal areas in an attempt to eliminate the sanctuaries of the Pashtun fighters who resist the US occupation of Afghanistan. In the years that have passed, the US occupation of Afghanistan has directly changed the dynamic of India’s regional influence. Despite India being the traditional enemy of Pakistan, the US has completely ignored those concerns and invited India to play a direct role in Afghanistan to augment its occupation. In the process India has naturally established its own presence; those in Pakistan who so firmly advocated serving US interests in the region cannot even begin to countenance their own folly.

This glaringly counter-productive and damaging Pakistani policy continues today under the Nawaz Sharif-General Raheel Sharif regime; today India has grown in presence and influence inside Afghanistan at the cost of Pakistan. Today India has at least 5 openly declared diplomatic missions on Afghan soil despite there being no mass Afghan migration to India; Afghanistan provides India a priceless staging post for covert activity inside Pakistan with Balochistan a particular focus because of the development of the Gwadar port with China. None of this would have ever been possible had the US not encouraged India to enter Afghanistan; that in turn would never have been possible had Pakistan not provided the logistics to the US to occupy Afghanistan.

This has not been the only cost; today Pakistan is mired in military operations against its own people, both in the tribal areas of FATA and other parts of Pakistan. Terrorist attacks, which have mushroomed ever since the US landed in the AfPak region post September 2001, have seen at least 80,000 Pakistanis killed as documented in a report by Physicians for Social Responsibility; economically Pakistan has lost nearly $120 billion over the last 14 years as claimed by the Pakistani government’s own annual economic survey. So many are right to ask that where is the argument for Pakistan to continue acting as a sub-contractor for the United States foreign policy?

Pakistan’s failed US policy and America’s growing Indian ties have also been brought into sharp focus recently with the Indian ‘surgical strike’ across the ‘Line of Control’ in Kashmir (LOC). This so called ‘strike’ after the attack on an Indian base in Uri which India blamed on Pakistan was not condemned by the US effectively endorsing the Indian position. Moreover the US in adopting such a position has completely ignored the brutal occupation of Kashmir which has seen over 100,000 killed and the systematic gang rape of thousands of Muslim Kashmiri women. Tomorrow if war breaks out between Pakistan and India, the key question is will the US honour its new Indian defence pact and enable India to open up a second front through Afghanistan via its bases there?

The truth is that Pakistan’s so called alliance with the US has never been about serving Pakistani security interests; rather it has damaged those vital interests. The US-Pakistani relationship is one where Pakistan hears and obeys in return for petty US bribe money through economic and military ‘aid’ and IMF loans which only increase the country’s debt. In the process longer term damage is occurring to Pakistan’s security and weakening its position with respect to India. Moreover those who advocated such a policy in Pakistan have failed to realise that the US has a larger geo-political view of the region in which Pakistan is just one piece. The US has long sought a tie up with India in its ‘pivot’ to Asia in order to deal with the growing military strength of China and to make sure no dominant power arises in Eurasia.

For India though the China-Pakistan-Economic-Corridor (CPEC) is a red line which it has termed as ‘unacceptable’; since more Chinese goods will be able to ship to markets both faster and cheaper, it will undermine and damage Indian aspirations to compete with Chinese manufacturers’. Moreover the CPEC incorporates ‘Azad Kashmir’ into its route thereby realistically ending any chance for India to claim the territory. It also strengthens the perception of Chinese encirclement of India through its ‘String of Pearls’ strategy of developing key military installations in the region. From a US perspective China will always continue to develop its military, albeit at a slower rate even if CPEC didn’t materialise. However the advent of CPEC further pushes a traditionally reluctant non-aligned India into joining an alliance with the US because of the perceived impact of CPEC. As the competition between the US and China intensifies, India has been forced by events to finally openly become a US military partner, something which the US can only welcome. Commenting on Indian ruler Narendra Modi’s recent failure to attend the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) summit in Margarita, Venezuela, former Indian External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid said, “If PM Modi doesn’t wish to honour NAM, it will just show that the government is dumping all former foreign policy in a wholesale manner.”

The overriding US objective is to thwart any international rival or competition in its quest for both global and regional hegemony. This is why the US is not going to attempt to cage China both politically and militarily only to allow India to take its place. That is not going to happen and any Indian politician or policy maker who believes that is simply naïve. China today has a GDP five times bigger than India; its public military spending stands at over $214 billion whilst India’s is at a paltry $51 billion. China’s cities, ports, roads, and industrial setup are simply way ahead of India’s. India in reality is not on par with China whilst its self-obsessed desire for great power status is the only thing that matches Chinese ambition making it a ready vassal state for America.

This also clearly demonstrates that despite its Hollywood scripting the US is not as powerful as it likes to project itself; for the US to attempt to control key regions it needs alliances with countries like India just as it is partnering with Russia and Turkey today to control Syria and the Middle East. However the US has also shown it can readily abandon and change alliances in real time as ordinary Pakistanis have learnt bitterly. Tomorrow when change such as the emergence of a strong Caliphate takes place the US still has the option to withdraw and safely carry on the fight from its shores over 7,000 miles away while India will be left to fend for itself in the region in the aftermath of its bloody Kashmir occupation and rivalry with China.

Today the US is anxious to ensure that China remains integrated and synchronised with its global led order. China though has its own internal problems and contradictions; after adopting free market economics in the place of Communism it has no cohesive ideology apart from crude nationalism around which to bind its people which is why the regime resorts to authoritarian rule. China may export many products today but the one product it lacks is an ideology. Therefore in the long run, if China can be contained militarily, it does not represent a political and an ideological threat to the US and its values of secularism and capitalism which underpin its own domestic and international world order.

What the US fears most from Pakistan is its Islamic identity and the values that its Muslims continue to carry; an unstable Pakistan, because of its failing secular democracy, is ripe for the formation of an Islamic Caliphate. India too is well aware of this; today it is led by a right wing Hindu BJP government which is closely tied to its ideological zealots of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) who harbour their dream of ‘Akhand Bharat’(‘Greater India’) as part of their Hindutva ideology. Narendra Modi remains a lifelong member of the RSS and his vicious hatred for Muslims has already been demonstrated when he orchestrated the massacres in Gujrat when he was its Chief Minister. The US today, who itself once denied an entry visa to Modi, has chosen to partner with a man who the Indian Congress leader Sonia Gandhi once labelled as a ‘maut ka saudagar’ (merchant of death). 

The US partnership with India is more than just about dealing with China; it is also a hedge designed to deal with the Islamic revival happening not just in Pakistan but throughout the Muslim world including Central Asia. This is why although the US may deal with the sub-ordinate rulers in Islamabad on a transactional basis it prefers a deeper, strategic partnership with India – it knows the regime in Islamabad is vulnerable to being deposed. India makes for a natural partner with the US in its war against Islam both militarily and politically. This is also why the US continues to ignore the huge weapons build up by India, including both a land and sea based second strike nuclear capability.