Obama is losing India

[vector7]

Companion Thread:

• Forty planes and six armoured cars: Obama visit to India the 'biggest ever by a US President'
• Obama isolating America from its Allies

Obama is losing India

Published: March. 15, 2010 at 6:27 AM

WASHINGTON, March 15 (UPI) -- The Obama administration is trying to play catch-up in its relations with the country that could become its most important long-term ally. But it may be leaving it too late, after India last week agreed a $7 billion deal in arms, nuclear reactors and space technology with Russia.

India's strategic importance can hardly be exaggerated. More than just the other Asian economic giant after China, India is a democracy where English is an official language. It shares with Washington the same love-hate attitude toward China, hopeful but deeply suspicious at the same time. And with a much healthier demographic profile than China, most extrapolations of long-term trend suggest that India's economy will outgrow China's by the second half of this century.

U.S. President Barack Obama himself seems to have understood this. The first state dinner he hosted was for India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

And then were strong foundations on which to build. His Democratic predecessor Bill Clinton had started the courtship of India in the 1990s and President George W. Bush's commitment to India was one of the few successes of his troubled foreign policy.

Bush's legacy was a nuclear cooperation agreement, which allowed India to escape the nuclear isolation into which it was plunged after testing a nuclear weapon outside the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Bush's deal also opened the way for the United States to sell nuclear power stations, fuel and other technology to India and to forge a lasting strategic partnership.

But for a host of reasons the Obama administration has let India slip down the list of its priorities. Not all of these reasons relate to Islamic terrorism, the war in Afghanistan and consequent urge to focus on Pakistan.

The economic crisis has emphasized China's importance, as the country with the biggest trade surplus with the United States and as the second leading holder of U.S. securities after Japan. China's diplomatic role, as a member of the U.N. Security Council and thus wielding a veto, has also underlined China's pivotal position in U.S. attempts to curb the nuclear ambitions of Iran and north Korea.

India understandably chafes at the sense that it plays second fiddle in Washington, lacking that network of institutional ties and official relationships that cement connections to other leading powers.

"The U.S.-Indian relationship remains constrained," notes Evan Feigenbaum, senior fellow for Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations and former U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for South Asia and Central Asia.

"Although U.S. officials hold standing dialogues about nearly every region of the world with their counterparts from Beijing, Brussels and Tokyo, no such arrangements exist with New Delhi."

Other states, notably Russia, have not led India slip to the back burner. Last week's visit to New Delhi of Russia's Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has seen the signing of a number of strategic deals. They included an aircraft carrier, MiG-29 fighters, defense and space technology and at least 12 civilian nuclear reactors. Putin also said he wanted the current $8 billion in annual trade with India to more than double to $20 billion.

The deal to buy the Soviet aircraft carrier Admiral Gorshkov has been in the works for years, delayed by the need for an almost complete overhaul of the ship and by haggling over the terms. The initial price tag was $1.5 billion, which Russia increased to $2.5 billion but has now settled for $2.3 billion, to include its complement of 45 MiG-29 warplanes.

This is still a fraction of the price of an air fleet-equipped modern U.S.-built carrier, even if one were available, or even of the smaller British and French carriers now being developed. But India's current carrier, the Viraat, is the former British vessel HMS Hermes, built in 1959. Obsolete and usually in dock, its obsolescence means India needs another carrier quickly if it is to maintain the complex skills essential to carrier deployment. India's first domestically produced carrier, the Vikrant, now under construction in Cochin, is unlikely to be operational before 2015.

What Putin did not get was any commitment that India would pick Russian warplanes for its planned $11 billion purchase of 126 state-of-the-art fighters, intended to give the country's air force the technological edge over China and Pakistan in the current Asian arms race. It is the deal that everyone wants to win, from the Eurofighter to Boeing's Super Hornet and Russia's MiG-35.

But that arms deal is just a fraction of the estimated $150 billion that India will be sending on energy technology, from nuclear reactors to oil and gas exploration and wind and solar. American hopes of winning a major slice of these contracts have been stalled over an elusive agreement on reprocessing nuclear fuel.

Robert Blake, the senior State Department official dealing with India and its region, is hopeful that a deal can be concluded by this summer. Indian officials are less optimistic and query U.S. insistence that India's parliament enact a limited liability rule on compensation for nuclear accidents, an issue that does not seem to worry Russian and French suppliers.

There is a pattern here. Two far-reaching agreement on U.S.-Indian military cooperation have stalled, as have other projects for hi-tech and space research cooperation.

The real problem is fundamental. Indians complain that the Obama administration still sees India less as a great power in its own right, than as a walk-on player in two issues that worry Washington more. The first is the Afghan-Pakistan imbroglio and the second is U.S.-China relations. Obama's suggestion, during his cap-in-hand visit to Beijing, that China help the United States "manage" the Indo-Pakistan problem "led to the mistrust of Obama that today pervades the Indian establishment," argues influential Indian commentator Professor Madhav Nalapat.

"President Obama's policy of downgrading India to the level of a South Asian power is pushing Delhi closer toward Moscow and Beijing," Nalapat adds." If such an axis takes place, the 'credit' will go to the Obama administration. India sees itself as an Asian power with a global focus.

Those unwilling to accept this cannot be defined as friends."

[vector7]

India says no to US fighter planes

Pramit Pal Chaudhuri, Hindustan Times
New Delhi, April 28, 2011



India has told the United States that it will not be buying American for its $10-billion fighter aircraft deal. This more or less leaves the Eurofighter Typhoon and the French Rafale as the only remaining contenders for the deal.

The two US contenders, Boeing and Lockheed, received formal letters from the Indian Ministry of Defence as to why their respective aircraft, the F/A-18 Superhornet and the F-16 Superviper, did not fulfil the technical requirements of Medium Multirole Combat Aircraft contract, said US and Indian sources.

Defence Minister AK Antony has been signaling privately for weeks that the Indian Air Force and his ministry would go for one of the European fighters.
The Russian contender, the MiG 30, along with the Swedish Gripen received similar notes as the US firms.

The Indian notification will come as a major shock to bilateral relations. Washington had seen such a purchase, the first time India would be buying a US warplane, as a sign of India's interest in upgrading strategic relations.

Indian officials were quick to say that Indo-US relations were greater than a single arms purchase. But given that it follows on US nuclear reactor purchases being bogged down in liability issues, the decision will strengthen Indo-skeptics in Washington.

New Delhi will hide behind technical reasons, the two European fighters are generally seen as aerodynamically superior if not necessarily better fighting platforms.

[American Patriot]

Honestly.... who cares about India when he's losing America?

[vector7]

4/28/2011

U.S. Industry Loses Big in India: Is ITAR to Blame?

Defense contractors and industry experts are trying to come to grips with India’s decision to exclude The Boeing Co. and Lockheed Martin Corp. from its $11 billion competition for a new fighter jet.

No specific rationale has yet been given by the Indian government for its determination to jettison Boeing's F/A-18, Lockheed F-16 and Saab’s Gripen fighters, and proceed with a head-to-head contest only between two European offers — the Eurofighter and the Dassault Rafale.

“Companies are very concerned about the logic for the decision,” said a U.S. industry source. “There’s a bit of puzzlement.”

India's decision was very surprising, says Tom Captain, vice chairman of global and U.S. aerospace and defense leader at Deloitte LLP. If the selection was based on technical merits, "It is difficult to explain how those two very capable aircraft were eliminated."

In the absence of factual information about how the selection was made, speculation is growing that restrictive U.S. export policies may have played a significant role in India’s evaluation of fighter jet candidates. Analysts had predicted that at least one of the two U.S. contenders would have the inside track. U.S. technology is considered more advanced, and more coveted by rising powers such as India. President Obama also raised the stakes by personally making a pitch on behalf of U.S. industry to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during his visit to India. He also sent Singh a letter reinforcing the importance of India’s fighter program to the Obama administration. India is expected to buy up to 200 new aircraft.

“We feel that our products are the best possible available,” said the industry source.”

India is projected to spend $80 billion on new weapons and space systems over the next five years. It’s only a small fraction of what the United States spends, but the industry still regards it as a promising region where, once you get a foot in the door, opportunities could blossom.

Defense industry analyst Byron Callan contends that “technology transfer was a major consideration in this competition.”

Callan presumes that the U.S. government was “unwilling to see key AESA [active electronically scanned array] radar and other avionics and electronic warfare technology made available at the level India wanted,” Callan writes in a memo to industry investors. “Technology transfer has also been a key consideration in Brazil’s FX fighter competition which has been delayed.”

One issue to watch as a result of this decision, says Callan, is “whether the U.S. further relaxes defense technology export restrictions in order to keep domestic production lines open.” This is a major concern for U.S. manufacturers as Pentagon spending begins to contract next year. In the past, Callan says, “when the U.S. restrained or reduced its defense spending, policy shifted to exporting advanced weapons to strategic partners.”

He notes that F/A-18 production “may still run through the end of this decade based on U.S. orders and from countries that had hoped for F-35s and who operate earlier-generation F/A-18s.” The longevity of the F-16, meanwhile, “hinges on its ability to win in niche markets in the Middle East, but it is less relevant to Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman (which makes the radar) with F-35 and the new bomber program ramping up.”

For Boeing, losing India’s sales is a big blow because it needs foreign sales to keep the F/A-18 line open beyond the coming decade, unlike Lockheed, which has a long-term lifeline in the multinational Joint Strike Fighter.

“It will be interesting to see what India does with combat fighter technology acquired from either Dassault or EADS and BAE Systems, and engine companies as well,” Callan writes.

Larry Christensen, an export controls attorney at Miller & Chevalier, in Washington, D.C., believes the Indian decision will have lasting implications for U.S. industry, even though he says he has not seen any proof that India’s choice was influenced by ITAR, the International Traffic in Arms Regulations that restrict exports of sensitive U.S. technology.

The fact that an emerging power such as India would snub U.S. advanced weaponry offers further evidence that the current export control system — which dates back to the Cold War — has outlived its effectiveness, Christensen says. “The U.S. government cannot repeal the laws of economics,” he says. As the United States denies access to some of its best technology, it leaves a market void that, sooner or later, another country will fill. “When that happens, the U.S. export control policy of denial, or policy of heavy restrictions, become ineffective” for the purposes of barring potential enemies access to advanced weaponry, he says.

It is conceivable that India concluded that U.S. restrictions on technology sharing are not worth the hassle, Christensen suggests. Although the United States wanted India to buy its fighter jets, it was “putting strings on those sales” that would have curtailed India’s ability to upgrade components, software or sensors, or collaborate with other countries, he says. If India had picked a U.S. aircraft, ITAR would have "restricted them in their ability to move forward with that platform.”

On a smaller scale, the same problem affects U.S. suppliers of less flashy products such as surveillance, law-enforcement and border protection technology, says Christensen. “I know small firms that feel the pain of commercial customers saying that they like the U.S. product but they can’t live with the restrictions and the overhead that goes with ITAR controls.”

The consequences for U.S. competitiveness are significant, he says. “The market is changing. Other countries are developing good technology.” The time has passed when only the U.S., U.K., France or Germany were viable supplies of advanced hardware, he adds. “Technology is now available from Russia, China and Israel, countries that are tend to place fewer restrictions” on transfers.

Christensen points out that the Obama administration is taking meaningful steps to reforming ITAR to boost U.S. industry. “I believe that there is significant movement,” he says. Hundreds of government officials currently are busy redrafting regulations,” he says. “It’s a long arduous task, and I’m glad they’re taking the time to do it right.”

Despite the Indian loss, U.S. arms are still hot sellers. The Pentagon is projecting arms sales to foreign buyers to exceed $46 billion in fiscal year 2011. Demand for U.S. weaponry is “higher than ever,” according to Richard A. Genaille Jr., deputy director of the Defense Security Cooperation Agency. DSCA currently oversees a $330 billion portfolio of foreign military sales to 220 countries and international organizations.

At an industry conference in April, Genaille discussed efforts by the administration to increase foreign military sales as a means to court allies and boost Third World countries’ internal security. The goal is to revamp how the U.S. government manages international arms sales so it can be more “anticipatory” of future needs and more responsive to foreign allies’ requests.

The Obama administration, which regards weapon exports as a vehicle for bolstering the U.S. economy, believes that current methods for managing arms sales are too reactive, rather than proactive, he said. “It’s hard to be responsive when our system is geared to wait for a ‘letter of request’ from a country and then take action.”

[American Patriot]

Ain't gonna matter much with those new nuclear tipped Paki missiles, huh?

[vector7]

Nope...and I bet China had a helping hand in development.

[American Patriot]

I bet you're right.

[vector7]

Obama dismayed as India rejects arms deal

India's recent decision not to buy $10bn worth of US warplanes has irritated some politicians and the defence industry. Shashi Tharoor Last Modified: 11 May 2011 08:48

India has invested in European jets, rather than its relationship with the US, according to one analyst [GALLO/GETTY] India's recent decision not to purchase American warplanes for its $10 billion-plus fighter aircraft programme - the largest single military tender in the country's history - has stirred debate in defence circles worldwide. India's defence ministry deemed the two American contenders, Boeing's F/A-18 Superhornet and Lockheed's F-16 Superviper, not to fulfil the requirements that it sought in a medium-size multi-role combat aircraft. With the Russian MiG-30 and the Swedish Gripen also eliminated, two European planes, the Eurofighter Typhoon and the French Rafale, are the only aircraft still in contention for an expected order of 126 planes. India had never previously purchased an American fighter plane, and the United States hoped that India would cement the emerging bilateral strategic partnership with a hefty check. Indeed, US officials, including president Barack Obama, had lobbied for the deal, which would have pumped money and jobs into the ailing American economy. The "deeply disappointed" US ambassador to India, Tim Roemer, promptly announced his resignation. But, in a typical comment, Indian-American strategist Ashley Tellis observed trenchantly that India had chosen "to invest in a plane, not a relationship". The notion that a major arms purchase should be based on broader strategic considerations - the importance of the US in India's emerging Weltpolitik - rather than on the merits of the aircraft itself, strikes Indian officials as unfair. Some deny that the decision reflects any political bias on the part of India's taciturn, left-leaning defence minister, AK Antony. The choice, they aver, is a purely professional one, made by the Indian Air Force, and only ratified by the ministry. The two European fighters are generally seen as aerodynamically superior, having outperformed both US-made aircraft in tests under the adverse climatic conditions in which they might have to be used, particularly in the high altitudes and low temperatures of northern Kashmir. Experts suggest that the American planes are technologically ten years behind the European ones, and it doesn't help that Pakistan, India's likely adversary if the aircraft were ever pressed into combat, has long been a regular US client for warplanes. Moreover, Indian decision-makers could not help but be aware that the US has not, over the years, proved to be a reliable supplier of military hardware to India or other countries. It has frequently cut off contracted supplies, imposed sanctions on friends and foes alike (including India), and reneged on delivering military goods and spare parts, in addition to being notoriously unwilling to transfer its best military technologies. The current Indian fleet of mainly Russian and French planes has suffered from no such problems, and the existing ground-support and maintenance infrastructure would have needed major changes to handle US aircraft. (It is likely that the eventual winner of the bid will be required to enter into a joint-production arrangement with India, which US companies would not have done.) As if all this were not enough to decide against America, the clincher might well have been the Indian government's desire to avoid any further procurement controversy at a time when allegations of corruption beset it from all sides. A decision made on technical grounds, many felt, would be easier to defend than one based on political considerations. Against this are the unambiguous advantages of pleasing a major new ally and developing a pattern of bilateral military cooperation in supply, training, and operations that has yet to evolve. At a time when US nuclear-reactor purchases - made possible by the historic deal negotiated by the Bush administration - have been held up by US insistence on exemptions from supplier liability in the event of an accident, some regard India's spurning of US aircraft as a gratuitous rejection of an opportunity to demonstrate that friendship with India helps America, too. Is India being its old prickly non-aligned self again? Is appeasement of India's notoriously anti-American politicians more important to a beleaguered Indian government than winning over the US? Will India's traditional obsession with preserving its strategic autonomy always limit its usefulness as a partner to the US? Such questions are unfair. Surely, India-US relations transcend any single arms purchase. Why should the financial value of one deal be the barometer of a strategic partnership? It is simply narrow-minded to reduce US foreign policy towards India to the bottom lines of American defence salesmen. Nor is there any military estrangement between the two countries. Even if this deal didn't work out for the US, it remains a leading arms supplier to India, having won bids to provide ships, reconnaissance aircraft, and advanced transport planes. The Indian army, navy, and air force still conduct more exercises with US defence forces than with those of any other power. And the strategic relationship is not one-way. The US, too, has a strong interest in Indian strategic autonomy, which would be buttressed by a wider range of external partnerships, including with the European states that will benefit from the aircraft tender. Though India is rightly allergic to being seen as a US-supported counterweight to a rising China, in practise it is avidly courted by Southeast Asian countries anxious to balance the Chinese, a development that suits American interests. Obama's visit to India last November reinforced a perception that the two countries share an increasingly convergent worldview, common democratic values, and thriving trade. None of this will cease to be relevant if India buys a European fighter plane. In fact, the potential for Indian-US collaboration in a variety of military and non-military areas could be enhanced by this decision. Turning the US down this time actually frees India's hands to pursue other aspects of the partnership, immune from the charge that it is too responsive to American pressures. India has not foreclosed its options; it has enlarged them. Shashi Tharoor, a former Indian Minister of State for External Affairs and UN Under-Secretary General, is a member of India's parliament and the author of a dozen books, including India from Midnight to the Millennium and Nehru: the Invention of India. A version of this article first appeared on Project Syndicate.