Defence diplomacy redefined

For decades India has been marginal to the security politics of Asia and the Indian Ocean. During the Cold War, when non-alignment defined its external relations, India consciously chose not to have military ties with major powers. While India bought a huge amount of arms from the Soviet Union in those days, military to military ties and cooperative security ventures were conspicuous by their absence. Delhi used to urge all extra-regional powers, including the US and Soviet Union, to get out of Asia and the Indian Ocean region. While no one except the Delhi seminar circuit took the slogan, ‘Indian Ocean as a Zone of Peace’, seriously, India’s defence profile in the region steadily diminished. India also had little to offer in terms of security assistance to countries beyond the subcontinent. Lee Kuan Yew, minister mentor of Singapore, once famously said: India might be a big tree; but it gave no shade of protection to smaller states.

All that is now history, with India embarking on high profile military engagement with all the great powers, offering security cooperation to smaller states of the Indian Ocean, and joining multilateral initiatives to promote collective security in the region. Although India began to engage the great powers and regional actors in the military field after the end of the Cold War, it is only in the last two years that the familiarisation exercises with other military establishments have translated into a broader political thrust to expand India’s military influence far from its borders.

Military cooperation has now emerged as a critical component of India’s regional diplomacy throughout the Indian Ocean region. While traditional defence links with Vietnam are being expanded, India is also initiating new military cooperation with Indonesia and the Philippines. The defence agreements signed in 2004 with Singapore and Sri Lanka have come to define willingness to assist other countries in the Indian Ocean region. India is also competing with China to provide arms and equipment to Myanmar, and, much like Beijing, might also work out cooperative naval arrangements with Yangon. More recently, Mukherjee was in Maldives gifting a naval ship to the strategically located nation as an effort to consolidate a “privileged relationship”. To the west, India has accelerated its defence ties with the Gulf countries and consolidated its security cooperation with Seychelles.

The most dramatic demonstration of India’s capacity to make a difference was its quick response to the 2004 tsunami. Shedding its past reluctance to work with others outside the UN framework the Indian Navy joined forces with those of the US, Japan and Australia to provide relief. A few months later, the Indian aircraft carrier made its first voyage to South East Asia and was received warmly in Singapore, Jakarta and Kelang (in Malaysia).

In terms of big ideas, there was the defence framework signed with the US. Besides opening up possibilities for expansive bilateral defence cooperation, the framework outlined a broad regional security agenda indicating that India was ready to work with the US. This agenda ranged from protecting the sea lanes of security in the Indian Ocean to countering the proliferation of WMD. The joint statement issued at the end of Mukherjee’s visit to Tokyo reaffirmed a similar agenda for defence cooperation with Japan.

As India and Japan unveil a security partnership for the first time in six decades, there are bound to be concerns in China. Beijing is warily watching the new developments on the Indo-US defence deal. Mukherjee’s task now is to make it clear to the Chinese that its security cooperation with US and Japan is not directed against third parties, let alone Beijing.

raja.mohan@expressindia.com