A new agreement with the US is the latest in what will shape US-India relations, after the mammoth nuclear deal.
India has asked the US to send over a group of officials to negotiate an end-user monitoring (EUM) agreement for future purchases of not only defense items but also a lot of dual-use technology that falls within its ambit.
After over couple of years of argument between the Americans and Indians where both sides have been duelling in their maximalist position, both sides are realising that its in no one’s interest to stall this agreement for much longer.
The real problem with this agreement is actually over zealous bureaucrats of the MEA. It would have been a perfectly simple agreement until the bureaucracy decided to complicate it. Earlier, India used to sign an EUM for every piece of equipment that was bought. For instance, even the C-130J transport aircraft came with end-user provisions, which India apparently agreed to.
But some bright spark decided to make this an umbrella agreement, which immediately moved it to the next level of babudom. There it was ambushed by the bureaucracy and the powerful defence Russian and French defence lobbies who inspired the opposition to the agreement. Then, with the Communists sitting hard on the government against the CISMOA and LSA and the government not willing to do anything with the US again in the closing days, fearful of a popular backlash after opinion pundits said so, so everybody just pushed the can down the road.
The real importance of the agreement is it frees India to buy a whole lot defense and security equipment and technology which have a strategic intent.
First, with an unstable security situation in the neighbourhood, India is looking to ramp up defense and security preparedness in a big way. Think Pakistan and its "more terrorists per square mile than any other part of the world” (as Bruce Riedel so eloquently put it) and you know what we’re talking about. Counter-terror equipment and technology are on top of the shopping list for this government.
On a much larger scale, India wants to move up rapidly to modernize its armed forces, specially as neighbouring China is arming itself in a spectacular fashion. Here, India has a distinct advantage that China lacks, but India has been reluctant to exploit. India is able to access high tech weaponry from US and Israel and Europe a lot of which is still out of bounds for China. US defence companies like Raytheon are not rally allowed to sell to China so the Indian market is very important for them.
But for all these, including those 126 fighter aircraft, there is a demand for the EUM agreement. On the policy front too, Pentagon has traditionally been more friendly and sympathetic towards India than the US state department. Remember the CINCPAC Admiral Keating startling his audience in Delhi last week about how the Chinese had told them they wanted to divide the Indian and Pacific Oceans between the US and China? In a roundabout way, he was telling India, this is the Chinese design, don’t let them fulfil it.
Many people in the defense hierarchy heard it loud and clear.
What is this EUM?
This is an agreement that allows the seller of sensitive military equipment, US, to have the right to monitor the usage of these products by the purchaser, in this case, India. India says it will never let the US within sniffing distance of what it does with the products, how it uses them or any resale. India is no banana republic, they say, and it has a long history in protecting technologies and stuff. For its part, the US says it is mandated by the Congress to have such an agreement without which it is impossible to part with high-tech defense goodies to India. They say they have an identical agreement with many many countries and there is no reason why India should consider itself any different. Privately, they also say that a number of these provisions are never really enforced. But just as in the days of the nuclear deal, Indian negotiators prefer to take a more legalistic view of things.
Anyhow, the general perception in the security establishment is that with the Communists off their backs the government can go ahead with a whole lot of things, including a related agreement on logistics support which will make interoperability with US naval ships and other defense services much easier. Incidentally, Israeli defence purchases as well as Japanese high-end nuclear technologies too will be accessible. The US retains a veto on Israeli defense sales and only India is allowed to buy stuff that many others are not.
India, now pissed off with the Russians, is moving more and more of its defense purchases to Israel, France and the US. The latter will be tapped mainly for the really high-end stuff, where it is still decades ahead of the competition.
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Comments:
Sort by: Oldest | Newest | Recommended (9) | Most DiscussedJaya Kumar says:
May 25,2009 at 08:43 PM IST
It is really strange that India has not chosen to develop its own defence products. A country of India's size is still reliant on foreign countries for its defence requirements. Kaplan in an article in Atlantic has suggested that the U.S. should be a broker in the Indian Ocean between India and China. The Americans will not be doing us any favours, they are looking for ways to solidify their waning power(both Economic and Military). This is how imperial powers operate. Unfortunately India has not learned its lesson. Self help is always the best help.
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senthil kan says:
May 26,2009 at 03:24 AM IST
Nuclear deal is good for India develope much need Electricity pupose and get modern equipment for development....
I dont thing America and this Nuclear deal help to modernize our armed force(Suspicious with america using India and pakistan for game).....
First Definitly India want invest some money to develope own mind to modernize our forces..(After our ISRO Successes in moon everything possiple)
Never forget Russians our Long time Friendship...
They are Only True at the moment.. they help our all power plants and defence from 60 years...Never America True with India....Nowatimes America tell they solve khasmir problemm nearly everyweek after this mammoth nuclear deal when all khasmiris like to live in India..
We want to threat(its america or paki) who threat our Unity..India need to work long time basis we need to give our scientists give more money and more encouragement instead to spend Billion dollars in purchase. we can modernize Our defence without anyone and little help of russians...America never help our Defence Growth...Russians better.
Nowadays lot of people concentrates on how to overcome China.....
We will overcome not only china, Europe, America when we concentarte on our infrastructure(Must need), econmy Growth,Veto & Rich central budget, Some Industraliation Growth, Encourage small businesses and Enterbreuiners from villages, modernization in agriculture like all.
This deals are not worth and only help from outside little for our best world democratic country...
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Govendra Singh Shekhawat says:
May 26,2009 at 11:19 AM IST
It is well to say, " there is no stronger weapon than your intelligence." And India is doing the same thing. In the present scenario, it is the duty of every civilized nation to protect its interests through all possible means.
India is indubitably a peace-protector country, and therefore, there may not arise a question of misuse of technologies and weapons by this country. India's agreements with countries like US, Israel, France can be termed as a step to enhance the technological skills with mutual co-operation, and, at the same time, these agreements also serve the purpose of ensuring public safety.
Today, we cannot allow ourselves to live in isolation by having certain agreements with one particular nation. Therefore, India's venture to look forward, and to redesign its security and foreign policy is an appreciable feature.
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Prof Ramesh C Manghirmalani-Denver says:
May 27,2009 at 01:06 AM IST
Most signed because the treaty was presented as an equitable bargain: Under Article Six, the existing nuclear powers pledged to phase out their own nuclear weapons, and under Article Four, they guaranteed the right of all countries to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes under international safeguards. What is indeed undermining the NPT, as the recent Review Conference showed, is the failure of the nuclear powers that signed it to honor Article Six and the selective way the United States has treated Article Four. For example, to get Japan to sign the NPT, the United States agreed to help Tokyo develop plutonium reprocessing and uranium enrichment facilities. But in Iran and North Korea, the United States is seeking to block peaceful nuclear programs comparable to those in Japan.
North Korea is an impoverished small country with limited natural resources and might yet prove willing to give up its nuclear weapons effort in return for economic help and the security of the ruling regime. By contrast, Iran, like India, is a big, ambitious country, well endowed with natural resources and determined to achieve major-power status. Whether it becomes a nuclear weapons power will not be decided by whether India gets reactors from the United States to produce electricity but by whether Tehran remains on a collision course with the United States over political and military issues, and by whether the existing nuclear powers begin to wind down their own nuclear arsenals.
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DeEpAk says:
May 30,2009 at 10:38 AM IST
The great agreement in US and India subject of nuclear deal. The biggest two country in the world. India very good relationship to US. US things , India very powerfull country after few years. So he decided the agreement to India, India’s side country Pakistan and china very dangerous to the India national Security. So India very good decision and therefore no attack other side country on India
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Yisl says:
June 07,2009 at 09:17 PM IST
A country with more than one billion humanity bow down to a country with much less humanity but more imperial power! Please stand up!
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Hortense vaughan says:
July 23,2009 at 01:27 PM IST
THIS MARKS THE INDIAN KOW TOW TO THE NEW IMPERIALISM.
YOU HAVE FORGOTTEN THAT IN1971 THE AMERICAN PRESIDENT NIXON SENT A TASK FORCE FROM THE SEVENTH FLEET LED BY THE AIRCRAFT CARRIER ENTERPRISE FROM VIETNAM TO THE BAY OF BENGAL AND THREATENED INDIA WITH NUCLEAR DESTRUCTION ON BEHALF OF ITS ALLY PAKISTAN.
EIGHT HUNDRED YEARS OF MUGHAL/ISLAMIST DOMINATION FOLLOWED BY 200 YEARS OF BRITISH COLONIALISM AND NOW THIS NEW IMPERIALISM;ONE COULD WELL BELIEVE THAT YOU LIKE BEING UNDERFOOT OR ARE DESTINED TO BE TRODDEN ON.
CHINA HAS NUCLEAR WEAPONS AND POWER STATIONS YET IT DOES NOR HAVE AMERICAN INSPECTORS INSPECTING THE TOILETS AT ITS SECRET FACILITIES.
INCIDENTALLY CHINA IS MORE TECHNICALLY ADVANCED THAN INDIA
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hortense vaughan says:
July 23,2009 at 08:41 PM IST
Eight hundred years of Mughal/Islamic rule followed by 200 years of British colonialism and now the acceptance of the New Imperialism.It seems to be India's karma to be stepped on and humiliated. Do Indians have a inferiority marker in their DNA?
China has nuclear weapons and power stations yet it was unnecessary for them to accept the presence of American inspectors(read spies) in the offices of their defence and power facilities and yet they are more technically advanced than India.
India can be compared to a fawning spaniel laying on its back seeking a condesending scratch on the belly from their American masters.
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hortense vaughan says:
July 25,2009 at 05:51 PM IST
My posts on this subject have been blocked by the moderator who obviously things that opposition to the new imperialism of the Nuclear Treaty with the USA is not acceptable. This indicates that only selected posts favouring the moderators point of view will be allowed. This is not democracy.
The moderator is most probably some punkah wallah with a
bonsaid intellect
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