The China threat continues to resonate in the strategic partnership between India and the USA, points out Rup Narayan Das.
The ripple effects of President Trump's second term at the Oval Office has already been felt in the barometer of India-US relations.
Notwithstanding the cliches of shared values, niceties and the much hyped chemistry between President Trump and Prime Minister Modi, the transactional intent of his engagement with India was unambiguously articulated by Trump.
He emphasised the importance of American-made security equipment and achieving a fair bilateral trade agreement and also threatened higher tariff on BRICS countries and cautioned against de-dollarisation.
The deportation of illegal Indians to America has also reverberated in the dynamic India-US relations.
This renewed emphasis on the imperatives of defence trade is a hallmark of the military-industrial complex of the USA and its economy, polity and foreign policy and it has played out in India-US relations and elsewhere over the years.
There is nothing called a free meal in America's engagement with countries far and near including India.
Prime Minister Modi will visit Washington on Thursday, February 13, and the India-US defence cooperation will dominate his conversation with President Trump, besides other issues of bilateral and multilateral interest.
Remember in the late 1960s when the US extended food aid to India, it predicated on India supporting America's foreign policy goals including in Vietnam.
It was the USA which propped up India's adversary Pakistan in the neighbourhood and armed it with fighter aircraft much to India's chagrin and floated CENTO and SEATO with the support of Pakistan and Turkey to contain spread of Communism in Asia.
Spurred by idealism, nay sentimentalism, Jawaharlal Nehru saw the Cold War in Asia not through the prism of a battle between democracy and Communism, but through rising nationalism.
In this juggernaut, he was, however, taken for a ride by the Chinese duo Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai and laid into the trap of Panchsheel, the hallowed five principles of peaceful co-existence.
China's strategic deception prompted Acharya J B Kripalani to tell Parliament that Panchsheel was born out of the rape of Tibet.
Echoing Acharya Kripalani's sentiment, Professor N G Ranga, regarded as the 'Father of the House', said that Mao was 'clever enough to get these things incorporated into the India-China treaty over Tibet and leave Nehru under the impression that it was being presented to the world as a contribution of India's statesmanship.'
Be that as it may, it was China's invasion of Tibet in the 1950s and subsequent war with India in October 1962 that impelled India to seek arms and ammunitions from the USA and other Western countries to face Chinese challenges.
On November 19, 1962, in the wake of the debacle when Chinese troops were almost poised to reach the foothills of Assam, Nehru wrote two letters in quick succession on the same day to then US President John F Kennedy requesting immediate dispatch of a minimum of 12 squadrons of supersonic all-weather aircraft and setting up of radar communications to defend Indian territories against anticipated attack by the Chinese air force.
On November 21, 1962, the Chinese declared a unilateral cease-fire and announced withdrawal of troops from December 1.
Acceding to Nehru's request, the USA provided ammunition of Second World War vintage like 4.2 mortars and 3.7 howitzers.
The USA also supplied 0.30 Browning machine guns, which were subsequently replaced.
Considerable quantities of wireless equipment (models which were obsolete in the US forces), spares for Dakota and Fairchild Packet aircraft, snow clearing equipment and winter clothes were also received from the USA.
Ever since the China threat continues to resonate in the strategic partnership between India and the USA which was temporarily interrupted during the Bangladesh War in 1971, when the USA despatched the 7th Fleet to the Bay of Bengal.
While the USA tries to leverage the trust deficit between India and China to sell American tactical aircraft and equipment to India, the persistent security dilemma with China impels India to co-opt with the USA and beef up its defence capability as a deterrence to Chinese intent.
Over the years, the two countries have through hard work created and built brick by brick the edifice of strategic architecture to add to defence cooperation between the two countries.
Then US secretary of defence Ashton Carter will be remembered for creating the Defence Trade Technology Initiative (DTTI) in 2012 which was followed by the signing of Logistic Exchange Memorandum of Exchange Agreement (LEMOA) in August 2016; the US then renamed its Pacific Command to the Indo-Pacific Command in 2018 recognising the salience of the Indian Ocean.
The 2+2 Dialogue mechanism provides a regular platform to engage in strategic conversation between India and the US which has helped in shaping the 'Foundational' Communications Compatibility and Security Agreement (COMCASA) and the Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement (BECA).
The two countries have recently institutionalised the Critical and Emerging Technologies (ICET) and the India-US defence acceleration ecosystem (INDUS-X) to bring defence start-ups in both countries.
After the India-US relationship picked up momentum after the path breaking civilian nuclear agreement declared in July 2005, India purchased the first batch of six C-130J tactical airlift aircraft ordered for $962 million in 2007.
In June 2011, India signed an agreement to buy 10 C-17 Globmaster 111 aircraft, making India the largest C-17 customer outside the US.
India and USA signed a second contract worth $1.01 billion for purchase of six additional C-130J Super Hercules aircraft in December 2013.
India and the US signed a contract in December 2016 for 145 US made M77 ultra-light howitzers. It was agreed that the first 25 Howitzers would be sold off the shelf while the remaining 120 would be assembled in India.
Defence cooperation between India and the USA received further impetus during then President Trump's visit to India in February 2020.
During the visit, the India-US relationship was elevated to a Global Comprehensive Strategic Partnership and Modi hailed it as the defining partnership of the 21st century.
The reference to the elephant in the room was evident when Trump in his address contrasted India's democracy with 'a nation that seeks to power through coercion, intimidation and aggression.'
During the visit Trump announced a defence deal of more than $3 billion under which India would buy US military equipment including MH-60R naval and AH64E Apache helicopters.
As China's presence in the Indian Ocean is on the rise, these helicopters will help strengthen the Indian Navy, which lacks helicopters of similar capability.
It is significant that after the outbreak of COVID-19, the United States Congress confirmed its determination to sell Harpoon air launched missiles and lightweight torpedoes worth $155 million to India.
Defence cooperation continued during the Biden presidency. In May 2021 the USN approved the sale of P-81 patrol aircraft and related equipment.
Earlier, in November 2019, India's Defence Acquisition Council approved the procurement of long range maritime surveillance aircraft.
In February 2020, India acquired nine of the 24 MH-60R multi role helicopters contracted under a $2.2 billion deal with Lockheed Martin.
On India's list of defence purchases from the US are sonobuoys meant to detect submarines underwater.
The final assembly of sonobuoys will be done in India. The US company Ultra Maritime is the vendor. The system will be co-produced in India in partnership with the defence public sector undertaking Bharat Dynamics Ltd.
This project is a work in progress and it is likely that during Modi's visit to Washington fresh momentum will be injected into the project.
Yet another ongoing project which the prime minister is likely to pursue with Trump 2.0 is the Tejas Mark1A jets because of the slow progress of supply of GE-F04 engines by the US major General Electric.
India is badly in need of strengthening its air assets in view of growing asymmetry with China which recently displayed its air power in new generation stealth fighter jets.
The strategic significance of the meeting between Prime Minister Modi and President Trump cannot overemphasised in the context of bilateral relations and also against the backdrop of the Indo-Pacific as India hosts the QUAD summit this year, which Trump is likely to attend.
Dr Rup Narayan Das is a former senior fellow at the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses and the Indian Council of Social Science Research at the Indian Institute of Public Administration. Views are personal.
Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff.com
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