Modi’s forthcoming US visit: significance and implications

Waliur Rahman: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be on his first state visit to the United States on June 21-24 following an official visit on September 22-25, 2014 and a working visit on June 7-8, 2016. Preceding the G20 Summit in September, this visit has captured the attention of global observers who remark that the significance of the visit may not be overstated, as it holds the potential to shape the course of Indo-US relations, enhance economic ties, and address pressing global challenges. White House spends time and money on the Indian Prime Minister as the US has made its strategic decision on India and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The visit is taking place under certain new circumstances which characterize India as ‘nouvelle payée’! New country: India has just overtaken the United Kingdom as the 5th largest world economy and giving new directives not only economically, but also in strategic areas. The recent G20 Finance Ministers and Foreign Ministers meetings in Bangalore and New Delhi bore special significance for India. India will also hold the G20 summit in New Delhi. It is a significant recognition of India and its leader Narendra Modi.

PM Modi’s first state visit to the US brings attention to the thing that for the past two decades, Washington has made an enormous bet in the Indo-Pacific—that treating India as a key partner will help the United States in its geopolitical rivalry with China. From George W. Bush onward, successive US presidents have bolstered India’s capabilities on the assumption that doing so automatically strengthens the forces that favour freedom in Asia.
US-Indian security cooperation now is breathtaking in its intensity and scope. The first and most visible aspect is defence consultations. The two countries’ civilian leaders, as well as their bureaucracies, maintain regular dialogue on a variety of topics, including China policy, India’s procurement of advanced US military technologies, maritime surveillance, and undersea warfare. These conversations vary in quality and depth but are critical for reviewing strategic assessments, defining the parameters of desired cooperation, and devising tools for policy implementation. A second area of success has been military-to-military collaboration, much of which takes place outside public view. The programs for senior officer visits, bilateral or multilateral military exercises, and reciprocal military training have all expanded dramatically during the past two decades. Finally, US firms have enjoyed notable success in penetrating the Indian defence market. India’s military has gone from having virtually no US weapons in its inventory some two decades ago to now featuring American transport and maritime aircraft, utility and combat helicopters, and antiship missiles and artillery guns. US-Indian defence trade, which was negligible around the turn of the century, reached over $20 billion in 2020.

The fundamental problem is that the United States and India have divergent ambitions for their security partnership. As it has done with allies across the globe, Washington has sought to strengthen India’s standing within the liberal international order and, when necessary, solicit its contributions towards coalition defence. Yet New Delhi sees things differently. It does not harbour any innate allegiance towards preserving the liberal international order and retains an enduring aversion towards participating in mutual defence. It seeks to acquire advanced technologies from the United States to bolster its own economic and military capabilities and, thus, facilitates its rise as a great power capable of balancing China independently, but it does not presume that American assistance imposes any further obligations on itself.

While US-Indian security cooperation has enjoyed marked success, the larger defence partnership still faces important challenges. Both nations seek to leverage their deepening ties to limit China’s assertiveness, but there is still a significant divide in how they aim to accomplish that purpose.

The US goal in military-to-military cooperation is interoperability: the Pentagon wants to be able to integrate a foreign military in combined operations as part of coalition warfare. India, however, rejects the idea that its armed forces will participate in any combined military operation outside of a UN umbrella. Consequently, it has resisted investing in meaningful operational integration, especially with the US armed forces, because it fears jeopardizing its political autonomy or signalling a shift towards a tight political alignment with Washington.
India’s priority has been to receive American assistance in building up its own national capabilities so it can deal with threats independently. The two sides have come a long way on this by, for example, bolstering India’s intelligence capabilities about Chinese military activities along the Himalayan border and in the Indian Ocean region. The existing arrangements for intelligence sharing are formally structured for reciprocity, and New Delhi does share whatever it believes to be useful. But because US collection capabilities are so superior, the flow of usable information often ends up being one way.

New Delhi’s deepening defence ties with Washington, therefore, must not be interpreted as driven by either strong support for the liberal international order or the desire to participate in the collective defence against Chinese aggression. Rather, the intensifying security relationship is conceived by Indian policymakers as a means of bolstering India’s own national defence capabilities but does not include any obligation to support the United States in other global crises. Even as this partnership has grown by leaps and bounds, there remains an unbridgeable gap between the two countries, given India’s consistent desire to avoid becoming the junior partner – or even a confederate – of any great power.

Under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India has increasingly focused on defence industrial cooperation as the key driver of its security partnership with the United States. Its underlying objective is to secure technological autonomy; ever since its founding as a modern state, India has sought to achieve mastery over all critical defence, dual-use and civilian technologies and, towards that end, built up large public sector enterprises that were intended to become global leaders. Because this dream still remains unrealized, New Delhi has now prioritized Washington’s support for its defence industrial ambitions in tandem with similar partnerships forged with France, Israel, Russia and other friendly states.

Many critics attempt to put Prime Minister Modi side by side with the 1st Indian Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. A Kashmir Brahmin, Nehru put India in the front row of the world leadership ranking. In the Afro-Asian Summit in Bandung, Jog-Jakarta, Nehru along with Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser, Yugoslavia’s Joseph Tito and Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah put post-colonial Afro-Asian countries in a new setting. Jawaharlal Nehru met both Mao Tse Tung and Chou En Lai at Bandung. Following the United Nations came into being on October 24, 1945, Bandung was the second step where Jawaharlal Nehru set his permanent footmark. In 1954, Jawaharlal Nehru was the guest of Eisenhower – first in Washington DC, then at Eisenhower’s Farmhouse near Gettysburg. Indira Gandhi followed Nehru. Eisenhower pursued his goal to persuade Nehru to join the nascent US Security arrangements. Nehru was Eisenhower’s guest second time – to no avail. Nehru would have been happy if the US president would have agreed to cooperate on the nonalignment front! Nehru requested the US President to persuade Portugal to quit its West Indian colony, Goa! While Nehru sought to establish India’s position in the world, Modi’s visit takes place at a time when India is asserting itself as a major global player, driven by its own aspirations and strategic objectives.

Modi’s visit is also significant for some other reasons. Just one year before the upcoming general election, PM Modi’s visit comes in the aftermath of a 10-day-long trip by opposition leader Rahul Gandhi during which he engaged with various stakeholders including civil society, think tanks, and others. At that time, Rahul Gandhi questioned the state of Indian democracy. Observers view that Rahul Gandhi’s visit holds significant implications for both Indian and American communities, as it provides a platform for promoting shared values of real democracy, engaging with the Indian diaspora, and fostering stronger India-US relations. Rahul Gandhi’s presence and compelling ideas resonated deeply with both the American and Indian populace captivating their hearts and minds. To sustain the spell that the BJP government have cast over the Indian diaspora in the United States and beyond over the last years, Prime Minister Modi is likely to address a gathering of Indian Americans from across the US in Washington DC.

In this regard, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s state visit to the United States serves not only as a critical juncture in the Indo-US partnership in the context of the Russia-Ukraine war and security cooperation under the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) and Indo-Pacific Strategy, it also assumes significance in preserving and strengthening Modi’s domestic political image, particularly in anticipation of the forthcoming election, by substantiating his stature and garnering support through showcasing robust international relations. India as the world’s largest democracy and a rising economic power possesses immense potential to actively participate in global initiatives, foster strategic partnerships, and play a pivotal role in shaping a more prosperous and secure world order; the White House is fully aware of that.

(The writer is a researcher and columnist)