India, US boost defence ties with Russia, China in mind: 'things are changing'

From an ambitious new defence cooperation plan to the co-production of military hardware and potential big-ticket arms deals for fighter jet technology, the United States and India are stepping up their military ties.

US Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin's two-day visit to New Delhi this week saw the two governments concluding a defence "road map" that could mean faster approvals for Delhi as it tries to acquire hi-tech weaponry from Washington while opening up the possibility of the joint production of defence equipment.

The two have even finalised a new initiative, INDUS X, that Austin said "aims to jump-start" innovation between private defence firms in both countries.

Do you have questions about the biggest topics and trends from around the world? Get the answers with SCMP Knowledge, our new platform of curated content with explainers, FAQs, analyses and infographics brought to you by our award-winning team.

When Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visits Washington later this month, high-profile defence deals are expected, including possible plans to jointly produce fighter jet engines in India and officially unveil INDUS X.

This slew of agreements might be Washington's way to slowly wean India off its reliance on Russia for military hardware and spare parts, analysts said, and is part of a broader Western push to sell arms to Delhi.

Last year Boris Johnson, Britain's prime minister at the time, offered Delhi help to build its own fighter jets during a trip to India. On Wednesday, Germany's defence minister Boris Pistorius, also visiting, said German companies were in the race to bag a US$5.2 billion contract to build submarines for the South Asian nation.

Analysts point to how this could be just what Delhi needs. With Moscow - its biggest source of defence imports - overwhelmed by the war in Ukraine, many in Delhi fear India's defence needs may be jeopardised.

The US promising to step in could be a win-win defence partnership for both Washington and Delhi, analysts said.

For the US, uncomfortable with Delhi's refusal to criticise Moscow, the moment might be ripe, said Rajan Kumar, an associate professor at Delhi's Centre for Russian and Central Asian Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University, who specialises in India-Russia ties.

"The West believes that if India becomes less dependent on Russia, it will also change its priorities in terms of its foreign policy," said Kumar, referring to Delhi's refusal to openly criticise Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine.

Other analysts argue that reducing Indian dependence on Moscow is possible only if the US and other Western military powers shed their traditional reluctance to share defence equipment and technology with Delhi.

"For a long time, strategic thinkers have been arguing that for India to change its foreign policy choices, the West would have to make a conscious decision to share defence technologies with India so it doesn't rely on Russia," said Rajeswari Pillai Rajagopalan, director of the Centre for Security, Strategy and Technology at the Delhi-based think tank Observer Research Foundation.

"It feels like the US is also coming to the same realisation," she added.

According to Washington think tank The Stimson Centre, which focuses on global peace and security, 85 per cent of major Indian weapons systems come from Russia.

Data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute shows that of all the arms India imported between 2018 and 2022, 45 per cent originate in Russia, followed by 29 per cent from France. The US was a distant third, making up 11 per cent of Delhi's weapons imports.

Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, however, this dependence has been fraying.

Moscow's invasion has ended up causing delays as well disruptions in defence deals it has signed with Delhi, with two warships manufactured by Russia likely to be delayed by at least six months.

Two remaining air defence missile systems will also be delayed, according to news reports.

Such delays have been weighing on the Indian government, analysts say, with further complications to the defence trade between Russia and India being the payments crisis that has emerged as a result of Western sanctions.

A key part of these sanctions involves obstructing Moscow's access to dollars. This has led Russia and India to discuss trading in roubles or rupees, but no agreement has yet been reached.

According to Kumar - speaking from Moscow where he is attending a conference - many in Russia were "anxious" about the payments crisis as India's import bill was burgeoning with no real fix in sight.

Moscow and Beijing' growing intimacy is also weighing heavily on Delhi. The two have said theirs is a "no limits" partnership, even as Chinese and Indian troops have been locked in a stand-off at their disputed border in India's Ladakh region for three years, despite numerous attempts to resolve the crisis.

"Russia has grown very, very close to China and there are material consequences to that relationship growing stronger," said Rajagoplan. "Moscow is now providing more advanced weapons and military platforms to China today than ever before and this will have a direct consequence on India's ability [to respond to China]," she added.

Delhi realised that Beijing was now a more consequential partner to Moscow, she said. "There's a creeping acknowledgement [in Delhi] that things are changing, that it's a very different Russia today."

It is in this context that stronger defence ties with Washington become a lucrative option for Delhi, and "managing China" is now central to the India-US relationship, Rajagopalan said.

Austin, during his India visit, called the Delhi-Washington partnership the "cornerstone of [a] free and open Indo-Pacific".

Yet others believe that the road to pushing Russia away will not be smooth for India and think balancing Washington's priorities in South Asia may be a hindrance for Delhi.

"With the US, there is a different kind of dilemma on their side: they want an India that is militarily strong enough to be part of a strategy to balance and deter China, but not an India that is militarily strong enough to cause concern in Rawalpindi [where the Pakistan Army's headquarters is located]," said Prabhat Shukla, former Indian ambassador to Russia.

India's attempts to walk away from Russian arms will be a slow process, added Kumar, as "once you have so many [Russian-made] Sukhoi jets with you, you cannot suddenly switch to [American] F-16s. It takes time. While India will diversify its imports, for the next five to 10 years its reliance on Russia will remain".

This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

Copyright (c) 2023. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.