Det var länge sen man såg Modi – han försvann i Obamas ficka. / EinarIndia-US Military Cooperation “Robust And Deepening”
By K. Ratnayake
http://www.countercurrents.
US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter and his Indian counterpart, Manohar Parrikar, announced Tuesday that Washington and New Delhi have “agreed in principle” on a “logistics exchange agreement” under which the US military will be able to routinely use Indian bases and ports for resupply, repair, and rest
A longstanding US objective, the “logistics agreement” has far reaching military and strategic implications for India and the world. Behind the backs of the Indian people, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government and the Indian military-security establishment are transforming India into a “frontline state” in Washington’s drive to strategically encircle, subjugate, and if need be wage war on China.
A joint Indo-US statement summarizing
the outcome of Carter’s three-day visit to India lauded the “robust and
deepening bilateral” military-security ties between the two countries.
Carter began his visit at the Karavar
naval base near Goa on India’s west coast. There he joined Parrikar in a
joint inspection of the aircraft carrier INS Vikramadithya and the US
Pacific fleet’s USS Blue Ridge warship, which was making a “routine
call.” The US and Indian Defense Secretaries then flew to New Delhi for
further talks and a meeting between Carter and Prime Minister Narendra
Modi.
At his Tuesday press conference with
Carter, Parrikar said that the expansion of Indo-US military ties meant
new “practical mechanisms” were needed. The two, Parrikar said, had
agreed to finalize a Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA)
“in the coming months,” with a draft agreement to be “ready in a month,
if not weeks.”
Carter, Parrikar, and their officials
were anxious to downplay and distort the significance of the LEMOA.
This is because they recognize that there is no support among India’s
workers and toilers for harnessing India to US imperialism’s predatory
strategic agenda.
Indian officials said the LEMOA will
differ from the Logistics Support Agreements (LSA) that the Pentagon has
with other countries. They claimed it will operate on a case-by-case
basis, with India always having the right to refuse a US request for
assistance, and that if Washington were to go to war, India would be
under no obligation to allow the US military to continue using its bases
for refuelling and other logistical support.
For his part, Carter emphasized that
the agreement is not about basing US troops in India, but about making
“it more routine and automatic for us to operate together,” including in
paying for supplies. Significantly, Carter did suggest that US troops
could be deployed in India, but only for a specific mission—a mission
that he was careful to cast as humanitarian.
“Nobody,” said the US Defense
Secretary, “is talking of stationing troops on Indian soil. As and when a
situation arises, like an earthquake or natural disaster, that is when
it is directed at. It will be applicable on a case-to-case basis but
under the agreement.”
To understand the true import of
LEMOA it is necessary to situate it within the broader context of the
rapid expansion of Indian-US military-strategic ties and New Delhi’s
support for the aggressive stance the US has adopted in the South China
Sea.
The joint statement issued by Carter
and Parrikar, “reaffirmed the importance of safeguarding maritime
security and ensuring freedom of navigation and overflight throughout
the (Indo-Pacific) region, including in the South China Sea.” It went on
to say that the Defense Secretaries had “vowed their support for a
rule-based order and regional security conducive to peace and prosperity
in the Asia-Pacific and Indian Ocean.”
All of this parrots Washington’s
line. It depicts China as the aggressor, when it is the US that has
encouraged China’s neighbours to press their maritime claims against
Beijing, and portrays the US as motivated by concern for ensuring that
sea lanes remain open for trade, when its real aim is to ensure its
warships have ready access to China’s coastal waters and control over
the sea lanes upon which its economy depends.
Washington has been anxious to
implicate India its strategic competition with China in south-east Asia
and the South China Sea and to encourage India in its ambitions to
become an Indian Ocean power. The LEMOA would actually facilitate this,
as, under its reciprocal provisions, Indian war ships will be able to
make use of US bases at Diego Garcia, Bahrain, and elsewhere for
resupply.
During his India trip, Carter
reiterated Washington’s offer to assist India in developing economic and
military-strategic ties with South-East Asia and touted the “strategic
convergence” between the US’s anti-China “Pivot to Asia” and India’s
“Act East” policy.
Carter also proclaimed the US’s
support for India’s plans to expand its fleet of warships from 130 to
166, including the addition of a third aircraft carrier, saying
Washington believes that India should be a “net exporter of security” to
the region.
As a result of Carter’s visit, India
and the US have now agreed to launch a bilateral Maritime Security
Dialogue led by high-level Defense and foreign affairs officials; to
commence navy-to-navy discussions on anti-submarine warfare; and
continue talks on a joint aircraft-carrier design project and the
transfer to India of US catapult take-off aircraft-carrier technology.
India’s previous Congress Party-led
government abandoned in all but name India’s traditional posture of
non-alignment, forging a “global strategic partnership” with Washington.
During its decade in power from 2004-14, the Indian military became the
Pentagon’s most frequent partner in military exercises and the US
emerged as a major weapons supplier to New Delhi—the biggest in terms of
new weapons deals.
However, Washington became
increasingly impatient with New Delhi’s reputed “strategic dithering,”
especially after it launched the “pivot” or “rebalance” in 2011. Since
coming to power in 2014, Modi and his Hindu supremacist BJP have moved
aggressively to integrate India ever-more deeply into the US’s
military-strategic offensive against China in the hopes of bolstering
India’s own great power ambitions and boosting investment from the US
and Japan.
This has included: signing on to a “US-India Joint
Strategic Vision Agreement for Asia Pacific Region and Indian Ocean”
that includes US-scripted language on the South China Sea; assisting the
US in its “regime change” operation in the 2015 Sri Lankan presidential
election; making Japan a partner of the annual US-Indian Malabar naval
exercise; and otherwise expanding bi-lateral and trilateral with the
US’s principal allies in the region, Japan and Australia.
The Modi government has also pressed
forward with the implementation of a US-Indo “Defense Technology and
Trade Initiative,” although not as fast as Washington would like.
Through deals to co-produce and co-develop advanced weapon systems, the
Pentagon and Obama administration are trying to secure huge arms
contracts for US big business. Even more importantly, they are seeking
to harness the Indian military to the US, by making it dependent on US
technology and support.
During his India trip, Carter
promoted deals to both sell and produce in India the Lockheed
Martin-made F-16 fighter jet and Boeing’s F/A 18, an aircraft designed
to be launched from an aircraft carrier using catapult technology.
At his press conference, Carter was
asked how India could trust Washington when it is selling F-16s to
India’s arch-rival Pakistan. In his response, the US Defense Secretary
insisted that while Islamabad is an important ally of Washington in
fighting “terrorism,” i.e. waging war in Afghanistan, the US views its
relations with India radically differently. India is a global US
partner, claimed Carter.
Pakistan has repeatedly warned that
the US’s strategic partnership with India has overturned the balance of
power between two nuclear-armed South Asian states. On Tuesday, as
Carter was wrapping up his India trip, the head of Pakistan’s military,
General Raheel Sharif, accused India of covertly aiding the separatist
insurgency in Baluchistan so as to prevent the realization of the
China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.
China’s initial response to the
impending India-US logistics support agreement and Carter’s visit has
been cautious. A Foreign Ministry official merely noted that “India has
been upholding (an) independent diplomatic policy” and added that
Parrikar will soon be visiting China. Some press reports suggested this
was a veiled way of saying Beijing intends to use Parrikar’s visit to
make its apprehensions known.
India’s big business media has been
very supportive of the Modi government’s pronounced pro-US shift in
India’s foreign policy. “India bases to open door to US warships,
planes” trumpeted the headline of a laudatory report in the Times of
India. In an editorial published on the eve of Carter’s visit the
Business Standard declared, “Though it is true that the US sees India as
one bulwark against China’s rising power, reciprocity here can only be
mutually beneficial in the light of China’s overt tilt towards Pakistan
and aggressive infrastructure expansion into India’s neighbourhood.”
This has included: signing on to a “US-India Joint Strategic Vision Agreement for Asia Pacific Region and Indian Ocean” that includes US-scripted language on the South China Sea; assisting the US in its “regime change” operation in the 2015 Sri Lankan presidential election; making Japan a partner of the annual US-Indian Malabar naval exercise; and otherwise expanding bi-lateral and trilateral with the US’s principal allies in the region, Japan and Australia.
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