What Does Trump’s Kashmir Storm Mean for US-India Relations?, The Diplomat, 26 July 2019

In this week's column for The Diplomat, I wrote on Trump's statements on Jammu and Kashmir and see if this would have any significant lasting impact on U.S.-India relations. I argue that while the controversy risked being added to the list of issues both sides are having, thus far the fallout has been managed relatively well.

While attention ahead of Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan’s visit to Washington focused on a list of expected discussion points and deliverables, ultimately the trip was dominated by the fallout from an unexpected controversy that emerged during his meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump. While responding to Khan’s request for U.S. assistance to resolve the issue of Kashmir, Trump said that India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi had also asked Trump to mediate the Kashmir dispute.
For the full post, click here.



The Pakistani government was understandably gleeful. In India, meanwhile, there was consternation, with opposition parties raising the issue in the Parliament and demanding that Modi clarify whether he had indeed asked Trump to mediate. Nonetheless, overall, India has thus far managed the issue quite well and prevented another challenge from being added to the list New Delhi and Washington both face.

India’s long-standing position has been that Kashmir is a bilateral issue that needs to be negotiated directly between India and Pakistan. India had always refused overt third-party involvement in the Kashmir dispute especially in terms of any mediation between India and Pakistan. India’s External Affairs Minister Dr. S. Jaishankar reiterated that position and stated that India had not indeed asked for any mediation. India’s Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) also put out a statement rebutting Trump’s assertion that Modi had asked him to mediate.

This unexpected kerfuffle briefly threatened to put a dent in U.S.-India relations, which is already facing a number of other difficulties. For instance, India’s decision to buy the S-400 air defense missile from Russia puts India afoul of the U.S. Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA), even though India felt that the capabilities that it was acquiring with the missile were too important for it to give in to the U.S. objections about buying the missile.

Similarly, the worsening tensions between the United States and Iran and Washington’s demands that India comply with the U.S. sanctions on Tehran have not gone down well in New Delhi because India sees Iran as strategically important to flank Pakistan. Finally, the U.S. efforts to find a way out of Afghanistan led Washington to once again seek Pakistan’s help, much to India’s discomfort. India has been left out of the discussions on the future of Afghanistan and it feels abandoned by the United States. In addition, Trump’s withdrawal of the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) on India and the tariff war between the two countries are not helping either.

Indian unhappiness with Washington is only one part of the problem. In Washington itself, there is are still doubts about the balance of obligations and whether the American strategic bet on India is worthwhile. Though these are as yet murmurs, the fact that even some of the strongest supporters of closer U.S.-India relations are now expressing doubt about India’s commitment should be worrisome to New Delhi.

Coming on top of these growing mutual doubts, Trump’s gaffe could potentially have proved to be quite damaging. But New Delhi has reacted with surprising maturity. That suggests that this will not lead to any lasting negative fallout.

Though the Indian foreign minister was firm in rejecting Trump’s assertion that he was asked to mediate, the response was also quite measured. While India’s opposition parties raised a ruckus in the Parliament on the issue, the Indian government did not panic.

The government could have taken a much stronger stance in the Parliament in order to pacify the domestic opinion in India, but it may have felt it did not need to given political dynamics. Despite the noise, the Indian opposition is in a considerably weak state. They are yet to recover from the drubbing they received in the recent general elections. The main opposition party, the Indian National Congress, is grappling with internal problems and is currently leader-less and direction-less. Despite a lot of pre-election chatter about regional parties coming together to form a national alternative to the BJP, nothing has come of it and many regional parties suffered serious setbacks in the elections. The comfortable domestic political situation might be one reason why the government felt little need to go overboard in criticizing the Trump statement.

Another factor is the general state of U.S.-India relations itself. With a number of issues already rocking the relationship, New Delhi probably did not want to fuel any further controversy in the relationship. Though India is trying to maintain some level of stable relationships with all the major powers, including Russia and China, there is probably a recognition that India also has to maintain its closeness to the United States.

Finally, there is also probably acceptance that Trump will be Trump and that India should discount some of Trump’s antics in the interest of the relationship. It helped that within hours of Trump’s statement, the U.S. State Department discounted Trump’s statement about India seeking mediation. Other U.S. leaders such as the Congressman Brad Sherman also publicly castigated Trump for the statement. The U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs too came out with a statement supporting the Indian point of view. Not only that, Representative Eliot L Engel, chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, “reaffirmed that in order for dialogue to be meaningful, Pakistan must first take concrete and irreversible steps to dismantle the terrorist infrastructure on Pakistan’s soil.”

Since all of these statements, coming from various sources beyond just the president himself, clarified that Trump’s statement was not U.S. policy, New Delhi probably felt confident that it need not worry that Trump’s statement had presaged any change in the U.S. policy on Kashmir.

U.S.-India relations do face some challenges. But the mature handling in New Delhi of this unexpected controversy during Khan’s visit to Washington has ensured that another item was not added to the list of grievances on both sides.

How India is catching up with China with the launch of Chandrayaan-2 - Daily'O, 22 July 2019

On the day of India's Chandrayaan 2 mission, I published a short essay on the mission and what it means for India's own space aspirations as well as the larger strategic dynamics in the region and beyond.

India is launching Chandrayaan-2 on July 22. This represents a major milestone for India’s space programme. India has previously sent orbiters around the moon (Chandrayaan-1) and around mars (Mangalyaan) but this will be the first time that the country will be touching down on any non-terrestrial surface.

Landing on any such surface brings with it difficulties of a magnitude larger than the missions that India has conducted so far. This mission requires India to not only send an orbiter around the moon but also carry a separate vehicle that will touch down on the moon’s surface while the orbiter stays circling above. Adding to further complexities is the fact that India will be landing on an unmapped section of the lunar surface.

Indeed, the exact spot where the probe will land will be decided just before the landing actually takes place, which makes this an extremely difficult mission. It says something about the complexity of the mission that even China, whose space programme is somewhat more advanced than India’s, did it first lunar landing three years back and their first mission was a lot less complicated because it was on the near side of the moon. China, however, did land a second mission on the far side of the moon earlier this year. Other than China, only Soviet Union/Russia and the United States have done it.

For the full essay, click here.



This will be a major achievement for India; this is also a necessary step in the evolution of India’s space programme. After the initial space race between the United States and the Soviet Union, the pursuit of such accomplishments was considered unnecessary because outside of the bragging rights, these kinds of missions were not seen to have much scientific or any other value.

Even the bragging rights lost some of its value once the US landed Neil Armstrong on the moon, the 50th of that happy coincidence is also this weekend. But these pursuits have become important for a few reasons.

One is that the practical value of these missions has grown. There is increasing interest in space mining, with many countries now seeing that as potentially viable, and putting a lot of investments into exploring this possibility.

A tiny city state like Luxembourg has made significant investment into this. Advances in space technology as well as the growing need to explore the space has pushed these new ventures. While space mining has not commenced yet, India cannot afford to be left behind if this turns out to be something actually viable.

The other reason is the renewed space race. Though the US-Soviet space race petered out well before the end of the Cold War, there is a new space race that is accompanying China’s rise. China is keen on matching American and Russian accomplishments in space but some of its activities in space have also caused security concerns.

That is, much like, its behaviour in its neighbourhood. Its behaviour in outer space is also forcing others into greater competition. For example, when China conducted an anti-satellite (ASAT) test in 2007, that was the first such test in more than two decades. Thus, other states feel that they need to match or keep pace with China’s space activities.

China’s undeniable accomplishments in space also add to its status. This represents another incentive for the Indian space programme because India as a rising power also needs to keep pace with China. Indeed, the competition between China and others in Asia, particularly India, has been growing for the last decade. China is, of course, well ahead but India has scored some achievements including being the first Asian power to carry out a successful mars mission.

China had earlier partnered with Russia to send a mars-orbiting satellite called Yinghuo-1 but the Russian mission, Fobos-Grunt, in 2011 became a failure. On the other hand, China has a much better, well-rounded space programme. So, India will have to play catch-up for a while. Chandrayaan-2, if it is successfully accomplished, would represent a significant step in this regard. But the race will continue.

Here's some exclusive, behind-the-scenes footage of the mission's various components coming together - https://t.co/baOMowvWHaTell us what you think about it in the comments below. #Chandrayaan2 #GSLVMkIII #ISRO pic.twitter.com/Kguy33p2C1

— ISRO (@isro) July 14, 2019

Neither India nor China are presently thinking of replicating the American achievement in sending humans to the moon but that would appear to be the logical next step and the race will go on.

Imran Khan Goes to Washington: What’s on the Agenda for US-Pakistan Security Relations? - The Diplomat, 19 July 2019

In this week's column for The Diplomat, I wrote on Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan's visit to the United States by looking closely at some of the security-related agenda items for the upcoming development and how they could impact bilateral security relations.

Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan is set for his maiden visit to the United States in the next few days. The trip will include a stop at the White House as well. Reports indicate that the delegation will comprise of officials such as the foreign minister, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, the trade and investment adviser, Razzak Dawood, finance adviser Hafeez Pasha, and security officials including the army chief, General Qamar Javed Bajwa, the ISI chief, Faiz Hameed, and the head of the ISPR Major General Asif Ghafoor.

As with these sorts of the visits, the composition of the delegation gives a sense of the potential agenda, particularly on the security side. This will likely include Afghanistan as well as trying to reset the “acrimonious relationship” between Washington and Islamabad which has been playing out of late.

For the full post, click here.



Afghanistan is likely to be a key issue of discussion during Imran Khan’s meetings in the United States, including with President Donald Trump and members of the U.S. Congress. The Pakistani Foreign Office in a statement highlighted “Pakistan’s commitment to peace and stability and the importance of constructive engagement to promote a political solution in Afghanistan.” Foreign Minister Qureshi is reported to have said recently at an interaction that Pakistan “has been facilitating the U.S.-Taliban talks in good faith, underscoring that it remains a shared responsibility.”

With the election campaign picking up pace in the United States, President Trump also has a strong incentive to push for an Afghanistan solution. Ending one of America’s longest military engagements would make Trump look good. Despite being critical of Obama’s handling of Afghanistan, Trump in fact increased the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan. That, however, has had little impact on the war.

The U.S. effort to find a peaceful exit is not going to be easy. The Taliban demand for complete U.S. military withdrawal is one big stumbling block. Washington has been trying to get Islamabad to put pressure on the Taliban to show some flexibility.

Just a few days ago, Pakistan scored a major diplomatic victory, getting an invitation from the United States, Russia and China to help craft a long-term solution to the Afghanistan problem. The request to Pakistan to join the Afghan peace talks came after the third round of U.S.-China-Russia consultations on Afghanistan in Beijing on July 10-11. India, its regional nemesis, has been pushed to the sidelines.

Though India had made significant investments to the tune of more than $2 billion in Afghanistan – constructing one of the largest hospitals for women and children, schools, the Salma Dam (called the Afghan-India Friendship Dam) and the new parliament building – no one seems particularly interested in New Delhi’s views on the situation in Afghanistan.

During the recent visit of the U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, India’s National Security Adviser Ajit Doval is reported to have aired Indian concerns, but to no avail. India maintains that Afghanistan’s election schedule should be unaffected even if the peace process is on. India was also at odds with both Russia and the U.S. special envoy, Zalmay Khalilzad, on the idea of an interim government in Afghanistan.

Terrorism is another major issue on the agenda. As in the past, Pakistan has arrested a high-profile terrorist – Hafiz Saeed, the mastermind behind the 2008 Mumbai attack – before the premier’s visit to the United States. Such arrests have usually been inconsequential. But Islamabad would like to milk it as much as possible, and hope that the United States will reinstating some of the Coalition Support Funds that were suspended by the Trump Administration.

Recall that in the beginning of 2018, Trump asserted in a tweet that the United States has “foolishly given Pakistan more than 33 billion dollars in aid over the last 15 years and they have given us nothing but lies & deceit.” He went on to add that Pakistan is providing safe haven to the very terrorists that the United States is fighting against in Afghanistan. Actions have since followed. The United States held back a total of $800 million from Pakistan last year.

Imran Khan will make every effort to convince the United States of Islamabad’s sincerity in the fight against global terror. Given that the United States needs to accommodate Pakistan in order to find a face-saving exit from Afghanistan, he might get lucky.

Pakistan would also like to turn a page on the bad relations with the United States. Imran Khan has been in office for almost a full year, but this is his first visit to the United States, a reflection of this bad relationship. The current difficulties in U.S.-India relations may also encourage Islamabad to think it can gain some sympathy in Washington.

Pakistani security analysts claim that there is also another concern for Islamabad – “a growing disenchantment with the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.” Reports indicate a deep skepticism within Pakistan about the CPEC, which is seen as “on the verge of dying.” This is not to suggest that Pakistan will give up on its all-weather friendship with China but Pakistan would like other options than just Beijing.

It is too early to say how successful Khan’s visit will be, and we will have to assess things once the trip has concluded. But there are clearly incentives on both sides to improve the relationship, and broader strategic shifts could provide the room for them to do so at least to some degree.

The ISRO isn’t enough. India needs its own Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos - The Quartz, 19 July 2019

In a first, I write for The Quartz on the Indian space programme and its future plans. India's civil space organisation, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has come a long way in the last five decades and is one of the public sector institutions working well but to stay competitive into the future, ISRO has to become innovative and find ways to bring on board India's private sector.

After five decades, India’s space program has evolved considerably, and has finally earned its right to be considered an established space player. But the future looks complicated.

For the full essay, click here.



The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO)—India’s NASA, if we must—was established a few decades after the country gained independence. At the time, the government had to justify spending precious resources on a space program when millions of its people were mired in poverty. For this reason, India’s space program has focused on developmental missions right from the beginning; mainly establishing communication satellites, weather forecasting, and remote sensing technology. It has since become one of the most cost-effective space industries in the world.

India’s Mars Orbiter Mission, or Mangalyaan (“Mars craft” in Hindi), cost around $73 million—less than what it cost to make Hollywood space films like Gravity and The Martian, as some like to point out. The recently rescheduled Chandrayaan-2 mission to land an Indian lunar module on the moon was similarly cost efficient.

Of course, we have to acknowledge that India’s space missions have been far less ambitious and complicated, and have carried much smaller payloads compared to those of global space giants like NASA.

Growing private sector pains
The program now faces a serious capacity crunch in meeting its mission requirements, which has compelled the ISRO to begin reaching out to the private sector, specifically to engage small Indian commercial space enterprises. The Bangalore-based Alpha Design Technologies Private Limited was commissioned to manufacture a series of satellites. Bellatrix Aerospace Private Limited has been contracted to work on advanced in-space propulsion systems.

But collaborating with the private sector has not been an easy move for the government-funded (and managed) ISRO.

Take, for example, when the program decided to privatize one of its smaller rockets, the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, or PSLV, about a decade back. The PSLV is a tried and tested rocket. Passing it on to the private sector should have permitted the ISRO to focus on other more vital areas such as developing new, larger rockets, or focusing on human space flight and space exploration.

But bureaucratic resistance to helping India’s private space enterprises, even from within the ISRO, means the organization still has not succeeded in transferring the PSLV to the private sector.

This is not to suggest that the ISRO is entirely against private sector participation in the country’s space sector. Earlier this year the Indian Cabinet approved a new commercial enterprise called NewSpace India Limited, or NSIL, under India’s Department of Space.


It has been yet another effort to build ISRO’s relationship with the private sector and to expand the commercialization of the Indian space program as a whole. The NSIL is supposed to help with technology transfer from the ISRO to private players, including India’s small satellite launch vehicle program and the older PSLV.

The NSIL is also meant to help promote space-based products and other spin-off technologies.

The cost factor, as it turns out, remains an exceptional aspect of India’s space program.
It’s difficult to predict where this new private-sector experiment will take the ISRO, but if we look back to one previous attempt with a similar initiative, the Antrix corporation, we should be somewhat concerned. The Antrix Corporation was set up in 1992 and became the first commercial initiative within the ISRO. Its primary objective was to facilitate ISRO’s commercial launch of foreign satellites, but it’s yielded underwhelming results.

Is cost-effectiveness enough?
The cost factor, as it turns out, remains an exceptional aspect of India’s space program. ISRO’s PSLV remains the workhorse of the agency, and it still offers one of the cheapest and most reliable ways to launch small satellites into space.

There are plenty of other private and state players in the small satellite launch market, such as Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, Elon Musk’s SpaceX, and others, including competitive start-ups in China. But the PSLV has been remarkably durable, consistent, and is still one of the most attractive options from an industry standpoint.

The launch list
The ISRO has a long way to go if it wants to fully exploit its advantages. For one, it has to be much more proactive in seeking deals with foreign markets. If India used space as an effective tool for diplomacy, it would bring in some much-needed revenue to the Department of Space, and it would also help expand India’s strategic reach into other countries.

India has to increase its number of missions per year if the ISRO wants to remain competitive.

The country has taken on the impressive challenge of doubling its average to 12 missions per year in a five-year period, but the true challenge is sustaining this rate into the foreseeable future.

This is a crucial step if India plans to capture a sizeable chunk of the global commercial space market, especially with keen competitors like China, which has committed to launching 30 satellite in 2019.

Other urgent action points for the ISRO include increasing its launch infrastructure starting with the number of launch pads. The same goes for its satellite manufacturing capabilities.

Not only is partnering with emerging private space enterprises a viable and ready solution to the ISRO’s capacity problems, but it will not diminish ISRO’s importance—look at the US’s successful and heavily privatized national space sector as an example.

Getting the private sector to shoulder some of the burden will not diminish the importance in India’s space story. If anything, it will bolster India’s economic reputation.

By passing on routine commercial launch activities to the private sector, the ISRO could position itself to focus on even bigger missions. It can turn its attention to major plans like Gaganyaan, India’s mission to human space mission planned for 2022, set to coincide with India’s 75th year of independence.

We find ourselves at an interesting and complex juncture with India’s national space program. The ISRO’s profile has grown in recent years, with major initiatives like the Mars mission ranking India in with the top five global players in outer space.

But India’s ability to stay competitive at a time when there are a growing number of space actors—including commercial ones—depends on the country’s willingness to embrace its own private sector to stay on a level playing field.

Sri Lanka: A Center for Sino-Indian Strategic Competition - The Diplomat, July 11, 2019

In last week's column for The Diplomat, I wrote on the Sino-Indian strategic competition in the Indian neighbourhood, specifically focusing on Sri Lanka. The delivery of a Chinese frigate to the South Asian nation reinforces its role within competition between the two Asian giants.

Last week, China donated a frigate to the Sri Lankan Navy. While the development itself was hardly surprising, it nonetheless highlighted the continuing contest between India and China in India’s neighborhood in spite of ongoing efforts by both sides to manage their wider relationship.

For the full essay, click here.



The frigate arrived in Colombo Port earlier this week. The Commander of the Sri Lankan Navy, Vice Admiral Piyal De Silva, thanked China for the gift and said that this reflected the “good friendship between the two countries.” Commander De Silva went on to add that Sri Lanka faces many maritime challenges and that the frigate, now designated ‘P 625’, will be mainly used for offshore patrol, environment monitoring and anti-piracy efforts.

The vessel reportedly comes with a main turret holding dual Type 79 100 mm cannons and two Type 76A dual-37 mm Anti-Aircraft Guns at the aft. It also has a helipad and hangar to store and operate a medium-size helicopter. A statement from the Chinese Embassy in Sri Lanka said that in addition to the donation, the PLA Navy had also conducted a two-month professional training for more than 110 Sri Lankan naval officers and sailors in Shanghai, China.

The donation of the frigate comes against the backdrop of a major Chinese aid to Sri Lanka to fight terrorism. In May, China decided to provide Sri Lanka with aid to the tune of $14 million for Colombo to procure China-made counterinsurgency equipment. The decision was taken during President Maithripala Sirisena’s visit to Beijing in mid-May, and the president’s office stated that this will be important in enhancing the wherewithal of the Sri Lankan security forces. Reports suggest that China will also be providing the Sri Lankan police with 150 vehicles.

Much like Beijing’s interest in other Indian neighbors, including the Maldives, China’s interests in Sri Lanka are more strategic than economic. Developments such as the visit of a Chinese nuclear submarine to Colombo during the Rajapaksa tenure were a wake up call as well as a reminder to India of the extent of China’s strategic in roads in Sri Lanka. The China-Sri Lanka relationship reached a peak during the final phase of the Sri Lankan war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The political and defense support extended by China to Colombo, in the face of international condemnation on account of the extensive human rights abuses, was significant.

New Delhi has not been sitting still, however. Indeed, the fact that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi began his second tenure in office with a stop in Sri Lanka on his way back from a visit to the Maldives was no coincidence. New Delhi has no doubt been aware that domestic political shifts in Sri Lanka have continued to put it in the balance, with Colombo perceived to have moved toward China under former President Mahinda Rajapaksa, and, after the election of Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe, shifting back toward India. New Delhi has also been aware of the risks of Sri Lanka getting entangled in the risks of Chinese engagement, including the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) with the example of the Hambantota port.

This continues to play out even today. Even though the Sirisena-Wickremasinghe political dispensation has been quite favorable to India, the internal squabble between the two leaders has cast a shadow in its dealings with India. This has affected the manner in which even terrorism issues were dealt with by the two leaders. Despite the fact that India had provided intelligence on the Easter terror attacks in Sri Lanka, it was not given adequate credit due to the continuing row between Sirisena and Wickremasinghe.

The India-China competition in Sri Lanka is quite evident more broadly. India had earlier given Sri Lanka advanced off-shore patrol vessels (AOPVs) – SLNS Sayurala (P623) and SLNS Sindurala (P624) in 2017 and 2018 respectively. But India’s overall capacity to deliver what Sri Lanka needs is questionable. This has been the case even during the war against the LTTE (though that was at least partly because New Delhi was hobbled by the needs of domestic politics) to the extent where China emerged as one of the key trading partners, even setting up a NORINCO small arms factory in Kandy.

The delivery of a Chinese frigate to Sri Lanka is nonetheless evidence that strategic competition in India’s neighborhood will only continue to intensify. Unless India does more for its neighbors and enlists other partners as well, China will continue to present a significant strategic challenge for New Delhi in this regard in the coming years.

Russia-India-China Trilateral Grouping: More Than Hype? - The Diplomat, 5 July 2019

In my column for The Diplomat last week, I wrote on the Russia-India-China grouping, looking at the rhetoric and reality of it.

During the G-20 Summit in Osaka, Russia, India, and China (RIC) held the latest iteration of a trilateral meeting between them. While the grouping itself is nothing new – the notion of meeting on the sidelines of the G-20 meeting began last year and many other meetings were held during the G-20 meeting this year as well – the RIC nonetheless stole the headlines this year.

For the full post, click here.



RIC as a strategic grouping first took shape in the late 1990s under the leadership of Yevgeny Primakov as “a counterbalance to the Western alliance.” Primakov, a Russian politician and diplomat who was also the prime minister of Russia from 1998 to 1999, is credited with the idea for RIC. The group was founded on the basis of “end[ing] its subservient foreign policy guided by the U.S.,” and “renewing old ties with India and fostering the newly discovered friendship with China.”

But the idea of meeting at the leader’s level on a more sustained basis has only surfaced over the past couple of years. The three sides had done so last year at the G-20 meeting in Argentina, where there was also a focus on the trilateral summit between the United States, India and Japan, called JAI (Japan, America, India). And on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) meeting in Kyrgyzstan, the leaders agreed to meet again in Osaka during the G-20 Summit.

The RIC meeting this year is only the third heads of state meeting of the group in 12 years, which speaks to the state of the play among the three countries in nurturing this strategic grouping. Nonetheless, in the current period of geopolitical transition, there is an effort to renew and rebuild some of these old initiatives as a way to counter the U.S.-led world order.

These efforts started in Bishkek, when Russian President Vladimir Putin, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and Chinese President Xi Jinping held separate bilateral meetings on the sidelines of the SCO Summit. Reports speak of great “personal chemistry between Putin, Xi and Modi” that has “worked wonders.” While the Russia-China leg of the triangle has been fairly strong in the last few years, Modi has also had reasons in recent times to cozy up to Russia and China in the wake of U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff war with India, especially since the Trump administration has withdrawn India’s Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) and imposed tariffs on Indian goods.

To be sure, India has remained a key partner in the United States’ Free and Open Indo-Pacific Strategy, and Modi too has sought a close strategic partnership with the United States in an effort to address China’s rising power. But the recent trade and tariff war may cast a negative shadow on the broader U.S.-India strategic ties, which stands to advantage China and Russia. It is no coincidence that the RIC meeting and the strengthened bonhomie among the three leaders has come amid these difficulties between the United States and India. While U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was in India in late June to assuage some of the growing difficulties in the India-U.S. bilateral ties, the trip, as well as Pompeo’s statement “Modi hai toh Mumkin Hai” (“Modi makes it possible”), did very little to change the broader strategic dynamics with New Delhi.

In this respect, how the RIC meeting was perceived and portrayed at G-20 in Osaka came as no surprise. Unlike the second edition of the JAI Summit, which did not get much attention, the RIC meeting was trumpeted as a major success for developing economies, emphasizing the need for free and open markets, and opposing any efforts at protectionism, all clearly targeting Trump’s America. Clearly, Xi and Putin pitched this at the ideal moment, when New Delhi is the latest of many who have come under Trump’s tariff war.

Modi, in his opening remarks to the RIC meeting in Osaka, underlined the importance of the RIC grouping and the exchange among the three on the global economic, political, and security situation. He highlighted the usefulness of the exchange of views at the earlier meeting of the RIC foreign ministers in China in February. Modi said that the foreign ministers had discussed all important issues including “promotion of counterterrorism, international hot-spot issues, reformed multilateralism, climate change and cooperation under RIC.”

Xi, for his part, is reported to have emphasized the importance of the three countries in the context of upholding multilateralism. He urged the leaders of Russia and India to assume “global responsibility” to defend their national interests while pushing for a multilateral world order. Xi went on to add that “the rise of protectionism and unilateralism has severely affected global stability and economic growth, as well as the existing international order which emerging economies and developing countries have relied on.” Clearly, Xi was trying to muster greater support amidst the ongoing U.S.-China trade war.

It is not clear how Modi will weather the tariffs issue, and New Delhi may not find much relief by going with the RIC to address this issue. While Modi has to be mindful of the charm offensive by Xi and Putin, which obviously works to their own self-interest because of their own difficulties with the United States, Washington must also play its cards carefully and not let New Delhi fall into Beijing’s lap. The United States and India must ensure their current trade and tariff issues do not lead to serious strategic disagreement. The two cannot afford to miss the emerging geopolitical realities driven by China’s growing power. So far, the United States and India have been able to more or less maintain the momentum in the relationship and it has been mutually beneficial. It is too early to say if the calculations are changing.

Managing New Actors in the Space Domain - The Diplomat, June 29, 2019

In this week's column for The Diplomat, I looked at the new actors in outer space and what it means for the global governance and space sustainability issues. I argue new entrants in the Indo-Pacific offer both opportunities and challenges for the outer space realm.

New actors in space is a tricky idea to define. Is it determined by the number of years a player has been in the space business, or something more nuanced? If one is talking about industry and the commercial sector, it is relatively easy to categorize and identify who is a new actor in space. But when it comes to states, what determines who is a new space actor is slightly more problematic.

Surely, those emerging states that are pursuing space programs can be called new actors in space. Nevertheless, one must push the envelope further to look at who the traditional players are, and these are the United States, Russia, and Europe. Therefore, even countries like India and China and others who have pursued space programs for a few decades now can be called new actors in space. This is the case because one is beginning to see new facets of their space programs which are affecting space security and sustainability dynamics.

For the full post, click here.



But the space domain is changing. It is not just the presence of new start-up companies that are altering the space landscape, but there are any number of new state actors that are pursuing space programs for a number of different functions and utilities. This has been possible because there has been certain amount of democratization of space with access to space becoming a lot more affordable. Costs are coming down, technological hurdles are lower, and new space collaboration and partnerships driven by geopolitical goals are introducing new players in space. These make it possible for a growing number of actors to pursue space programs. Many states in Africa, Latin America, and particularly Asia are pursuing space programs for a variety of different utilities including for national security applications.

Entry of new actors in space bring both opportunities and challenges. On the opportunity side, space has become more accessible to a large number of states due to innovation in technology and dilution of certain global export control regulations. The development benefits alone of this are huge. There is a great opportunity here, for both private sector and for others, to collaborate with these new actors because they are looking for efficient, cheap, flexible solutions (such as in communications, or in weather forecasting or in remote-sensing applications for land use etc) rather than simply prestige projects.

New private actors bring new energy, new ideas, possibly a more efficient way of doing things. Of course, when private corporations get involved, some part of the social needs that governments focus on can be lost, obviously, since private actors are less likely to focus on development issues or on non-profit ventures. Even here, though, we need to acknowledge the general contribution made by these new entities in terms of the technologies they develop, which will have a broader impact, and make space more accessible.

Also, it is important to see what kind of partnerships can be fostered to make space accessible to all. Partnerships between private sector and national programs will be a good burden-sharing arrangement. This kind of public-private sector partnership has worked in the Western context with a lot more ease, but in the Asian context, it has not been easy. We see a bit of it, but established government space agencies tend to be suspicious of new private actors, such as in India. Another problem might be the kind of areas that private sector is involved, whether there are only areas servicing expensive, well-heeled customers (such as space tourism) or whether they are also looking at things that benefit smaller, poorer countries.

The entry of new actors in space has brought certain risks as well. One major risk is related to the impact on norms of behavior. With more actors in space, there has been a dilution of some of the existing norms and the new players appear to be less willing to play by rules developed by others. For instance, the norm of not testing anti-satellite (ASAT) missiles that prevailed for decades appear to be weakening. More importantly, the norm of not interfering in each other’s space assets appear to be getting diluted even further with the growth in cyber and electronic warfare in outer space.

The established players who have shaped these norms appear less likely to break those norms as compared to new players who are less bound by them. Newer players possibly assume that these norms are a way of restricting their growth and therefore they are less likely to play by them. Additionally, the spread of technology and geopolitical competition have aided this dilution of norms.

Therefore, as new players emerge in space, one of the critical areas to focus on is to strengthen the rules of the road, in a number of different ways. These could include establishing or reinforcing norms of responsible behavior, developing TCBMs and codes of conduct. These are the required first steps before establishing legal mechanisms because of the political difficulties that have come in the way of making new legal frameworks for outer space.

Rule-making was an easier exercise when there were fewer actors, obviously. Today, with close to 80 actors including non-state and new actors in space, finding an agreement and developing consensus has become a significant challenge. Finding an avenue to bring in the commercial voice is also important but traditional venues such as the Conference on Disarmament (CD), where space security and arms control issues are debated, are opposed to the introduction of commercial players as a stakeholder in their debates. This is not to suggest that commercial perspectives cannot be brought in through governments. But involving commercial players as independent actors in CD-like venues is not likely to happen in the near future.

Clearly, politics in outer space is getting complicated. It needs far more concerted attention than it has received. It may not be too late yet, but time is running out.