A New India-France Alliance? - The Diplomat, 03 September 2019

Earlier this week, I wrote for the Diplomat on the increasing convergence of interests between the two strategic partners, France and India.

Late last month, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi traveled to France for the annual bilateral summit which lasted from August 22-23. He was also invited by the French President Emmanuel Macron to the G-7 summit, which occurred from August 25- 26 at Biarritz, a reflection of the growing depth of the partnership between India and France.

The consolidation of this strategic partnership could not have come at a better time for New Delhi. India has just taken a major political gamble by removing the special status of the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, a state that is the focus of a long dispute between India and Pakistan. But India and France are also coming closer because of other common interests, and because India is looking for more options when it comes to its international partners.

For the full essay, click here.



India’s decision on Kashmir created some diplomatic difficulties, with Pakistan demanding UN Security Council debate and China supporting that demand, putting in question the slowly warming ties between India and China. Russia’s position also raised some concerns in Delhi: Its support for India was lukewarm, with Russia clearly feeling squeezed between China (with which Russia has increasingly become closer) and India (its traditional friend). After Russia climbed on the fence and adopted a somewhat ambiguous stand, India needed to nurture its relationship with other important strategic partners such as France and the United States.

Despite India’s traditional discomfort with being an ally, Modi during his speech at UNESCO in Paris said, “Today in the 21st century, we talk of INFRA. I would like to say that for me it is IN+FRA, which means the alliance between India and France.”

Whether this play of words was important or not, India’s strategic engagements with France has grown by leaps and bounds. Backing India within the UN Security Council was the ultimate demonstration of France’s firm resolve to stand with India. Among the UN Security Council members, France has remained one of the steadiest partners of India in recent decades, a place that used to be reserved for the Soviet Union/ Russia in the past.

By contrast, UK-India ties have always been dodgy, given the old political baggage as well as the influence of the Pakistani diaspora in the UK. The UK’s inability or unwillingness to curb anti-India activities in the UK has always been a sore point in the relations. India’s other partners do not have any clout in forums like the UNSC. For example, though Germany has remained an important trading and even political partner to India, there is very little Berlin can do in platforms like the UNSC. And the less said about groups like the BRICS, the better.

All of this makes France’s strong support for India particularly welcome in New Delhi. France and India already have a fairly multifaceted relationship spanning multiple domains from defense, civil nuclear, and space, to climate change, clean energy, and urbanization. During Macron’s visit to India last year, the two countries signed 14 agreements covering these areas.

Their vision and plan of action for maritime security and outer space stand out as particularly important. With regard to maritime security (with a focus on the Indian Ocean), India and France have reiterated the importance of respecting international law by all states, in maintaining freedom of navigation and overflight, piracy, weapons and human trafficking, illegal fishing and smuggling. There can be little doubt who they are referring to.

The two countries also have a vision to use outer space assets in a proactive manner in developing maritime domain awareness in addition to focusing on areas of cooperation including high resolution earth observation, space domain and situational awareness, satellite navigation, space transportation, and human exploration of space. Strengthened space situational awareness and high-resolution earth observation imagery will have a significant impact in their ability to monitor the Indian Ocean maritime space.

In addition, the two countries also have a Joint Action Plan on Indian Ocean. Their joint plan envisages greater use of space assets to gain a more useful appreciation of the maritime environment that the two countries operate in and the two have pledged to strengthen information sharing on the emerging maritime dynamics in the Indian Ocean.

Indian Ocean dynamics have undergone major shifts since the Modi Government came into office in 2014. Making a significant departure from the erstwhile policy of opposing for extra-regional powers in the Indian Ocean, Modi asserted that “Indian Ocean Region is at the top of our policy priorities” and New Delhi has also made it clear that it will be working with all the friends in the region, especially those of the maritime neighbors and island states. Modi added that “collective action and cooperation will best advance peace and security in our maritime region,” a space that India extends to partners like France and the United States in ensuring a stable maritime order while strengthening their ability to respond to natural disasters.

France, of course, also remains a vital source of arms supply to India. The French Rafale fighter won India’s Medium Multi-role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) competition. Though India bought only about three dozen Rafale’s instead of the 126 originally envisaged, there are continuing rumors that India will buy additional ones. India is also a customer for the Scorpene submarines and a host of other items.

Clearly, the roiling of India’s strategic partnerships has increased France’s importance to New Delhi. France is likely to remain important to New Delhi for some time to come, irrespective of the chatter about the actual label that best applies to the growing ties between the two countries.

India Is Still Losing to China in the Border Infrastructure War - The Diplomat, 21 September 2018

In this week's column for The Diplomat, I write on the state of the Sino-Indian border infrastructure. In "India Is Still Losing to China in the Border Infrastructure War," I argue that a year after the Doklam crisis, New Delhi faces the same old challenges in this realm.

It has been a year since India and China ended the 73-day border crisis in Doklam. And for all the focus on the crisis itself and its implications for Sino-Indian relations, it is worth recalling that along their border, Doklam is arguably an exception where the Indian military may be perceived to have a slight advantage over the Chinese military because of its slightly better infrastructure there.

Relatively speaking, however, the infrastructure on the rest of the border is quite appalling. Indeed, unless India accelerates the pace of the physical border infrastructure build-up, New Delhi will face serious difficulties in any future confrontation with China.

For the full article, click here.


The Indian vice chief of army staff, in his statement to the Indian parliament’s Standing Committee on Defense, voiced serious concerns on the lack of adequate allocation of funds for the Army for 2018-19. He pointed to the “large number of Chinese strategic roads and infrastructural development along the northern borders” and made a case for bigger resource allocation, given that the sanctioned budget for infrastructure development was running massively short.

The current state of affairs with regard to the border infrastructure is the result of a flawed policy that was in place for several decades. The political, civil bureaucracy, and military leadership in India believed that building infrastructure in the Sino-Indian border area would actually compromise India’s security because it would facilitate any Chinese invasion.

In a testament to this line of thinking, the former defense minister, A.K. Antony, while addressing a function of the Border Roads Organization (BRO) in 2010, stated that “Earlier, the thinking was that inaccessibility in far-flung areas would be a deterrent to the enemies.” Acknowledging that this was an “incorrect approach,” he added that the government is now taking a number of measures to upgrade roads, tunnels, and airfields in the border areas.

Similarly, the BRO director general, Lt. Gen. A.K. Nanda, too went on record to say that the poor infrastructure in the border areas is by design but that “our approach has changed and we are building it on our capacity, modern equipment, and workforce.”

This policy underwent a change in 2006 with the Cabinet Committee on Security, a key policymaking body on national security issues within the government, taking a decision to develop 73 strategic roads along the LAC.

But more than a decade later, there is very little evidence to show on the ground. This is surprising considering that the BJP government has stressed infrastructure building, especially along the Sino-Indian border.

Minister of State for Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju stated in the Parliament earlier this year that infrastructure development along the border is “taken up based on threat perception, availability of resources and various other factors like terrain, altitude etc.” Speaking about the state of the Sino-Indian border areas, the director general of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), Krishna Chaudhary, said that 172 of the 176 new Border Out-Posts (BoPs) are now raised and that the work has picked up pace. He too acknowledged that India has been late in waking up to the border infrastructure requirement, but now “work has been ‘fast paced’ to build border roads in the states of Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh, that share their borders with China.”

Still, in the middle of the Doklam crisis, the minister of state for defense, Dr. Subhash Bhamre, while responding to a question in the Parliament, said that “73 Indo-China Border Roads along Northern Borders are approved for construction [back in 2006]. Out of this 27 roads have been completed and balance roads are planned for completion by December 2022.” The BRO, which is responsible for building strategic infrastructure in border areas, has missed several deadlines, raising questions about the BRO’s assurance about the 2022 deadline.

The minister went on to say that the delay in the construction of these projects is “due to delay in forest / wildlife / environment clearance, hard rock stretches, limited working season, delay in land acquisitions, difficulties in availability of construction material, and damage due to natural disasters such as flash flood.” Despite changes in governments, the excuses remain the same.

Reports suggest that incursions on the Sino-Indian may be coming down – there were reportedly about 500 transgressions in 2015, 350 in 2017, and around 200 up to July this year. Still, in addition to infrastructure problems, India also faces other difficulties For example, a multiplicity of agencies — the Army, the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), the Border Security Force (BSF) and the Assam Rifles– managing the border on the Indian side is an issue. This means that both the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) and the Ministry of Defense have jurisdiction and India is not particularly known for good coordination between different departments and ministries.

On China’s side of the border, on the other hand, a single unified commander for the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR) forces is responsible for the border areas. It must also be noted that China has further strengthened the military command on the border by elevating the rank of the Military Command responsible for the border “by putting it under the jurisdiction of PLA ground forces.”

Though India’s infrastructure development is slow, this has not stopped Chinese media outlets such as Global Times from arguing that New Delhi is being provocative in building border posts and other infrastructure. But New Delhi has little choice but to continue pushing its border infrastructure, though there is little hope that it will very much faster.

What Does the Trump-Putin Summit Mean for India’s US-Russia Worry? - 19 July 2018

In this week's column for The Diplomat, I wrote on the Trump-Putin summit in Helsinki and what it means for New Delhi.

While some of America’s allies and partners were aghast at U.S. President Donald Trump’s performance during the recent Helsinki summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, reaction in India was somewhat different. There was actually greater hope than dread leading up to the summit, and in its aftermath somewhat greater disappointment at the reaction in the United States to the summit than in Trump’s performance.



The reasons are not that difficult to understand. India’s traditional and continuing security relationship with Russia and its growing partnership with the United States meant that there was a desire in India that Russia and the United States would patch up their deteriorating ties. This troubled relationship was clearly putting Russia on the defensive and pushing Moscow to seek closer ties with China and even Pakistan, leading to consternation in New Delhi.

Much of this was obviously the result of Russia’s tensions in its relations with the West in general and the United States in particular. But that tension also meant that India had to balance its relationships with two of its closest security partners. This is not a place that India wants to be in, especially as it faces growing pressure from China.

Ideally, India would like to have both Russia and the United States in its corner to deal with China. After all, both of these countries are worried about China. China’s rise is threatening to push the United States out of the Indo-Pacific, while creating a powerful potential adversary on Russia’s eastern front. They should be natural partners with each other and with India, except that they appear unwilling to recognize their clear common interest sufficiently to bury their differences. The hope was that Trump and Putin might begin to reverse course.

For the full essay, click here.



This consideration shaped much of the response of Indian commentators, although there has been no official comment from the government. Prior to the meeting, the expectation was that “any thaw in U.S.-Russia relations would come as a relief.” Analysts were also concerned about the impact CAATSA (Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act) would have if the U.S.-Russia relations did not improve.

Some also believe that the Trump-Putin meeting provides a window of opportunity “to establish clear lines of understanding” and seek an exemption for the Indian government to procure the S-400 air defense system from Russia. Others fear a much larger dynamic could be at play and that this could set in motion the dismantling of the Eurasian geopolitical order that the United States had built and nurtured for decades. Arguments were also made highlighting the stabilizing effects of improved U.S.-Russia ties for not just the two countries but for the broader global order as well.

Indian commentators were thus both excited and nervous about the Trump-Putin meeting. An overall improvement in relations between Washington and Moscow could possibly ease the strain in Indian diplomacy. On the other hand, worsening of the U.S.-Russia ties post-Helsinki meeting could have multiple adverse reactions. For one, it will make India’s choices in the defense and security realm quite challenging. Indian interest in buying the S-400s is just one instance. Even as India has diversified its defense procurement, its defense inventory is still Russia-dominated. Additionally, there are technologies and platforms that no other country is willing to part with to India as yet, at least in the immediate time frame and therefore India will continue to be dependent on Russia for a number of important technologies, as well as spare parts and the upkeep of its existing defense infrastructure.

But more importantly, further deterioration of Russia’s ties with the West and isolationism will drive Moscow further into the China’s arms, which will exacerbate the strategic challenges for India and restrict the choices for India. A close Russia-China strategic partnership also creates real worries in the security sector. For instance, the Russian sale of advanced weapon platforms to China such as the Su-35 and the Kilo-class submarines only serve to widen the disparity in the military balance between India and China.

Furthermore, while Russia continues its diplomatic support for India in various forums for now, this could also potentially change in the future. The Russian keenness to build political and military relations with Pakistan has also raised concern in New Delhi not as much for the scale of the relations (at least for the time being) as an indicator of how far away Russia has moved away from India. The fact that the emerging Moscow-Islamabad ties could be an afterthought of the strategic ties between Russia and China offers little comfort.

Tensions between Russia and the United States might make Moscow uncomfortable with the growing ties between India and the United States, even if this is not directed at Russia. But New Delhi also sees little choice, considering the challenge it faces from China. The harsh bipartisan domestic reaction in the United States to President Trump’s performance, and his back-peddling on some of his comments with President Putin, means that there is little hope that there will be much improvement in U.S.-Russia ties in the immediate future. So, New Delhi will likely have to continue to worry about any fallout that might affect India.