Trading our sovereignty?

Reports indicate that the United States may operationalise the Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA), by building a military base in India, a “major defence partner” of the US, for use as a staging area for beyond-the-horizon surveillance and “launching attacks on terrorists in and around Afghanistan.”

The US administration is embarrassed by its capitulation to Taliban (signing a peace treaty with Taliban at Doha in February 2020 to allow withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan), the sudden collapse of the US-trained and equipped Afghan Army, the US’ $1-trillion-plus investment in Afghanistan having vanished, and its precipitous withdrawal following Taliban’s rapid capture of Kabul. The US appears to be reduced to retrieving its domestic and international “face” by striking at terrorists in Afghanistan.

However, drone surveillance/attacks on targets in Afghanistan launched from US military bases in Doha, Qatar or Kuwait are not possible because of being out of range, as brought out by Republican Congressman Mark Green at a US Congressional hearing. Furthermore, those countries are politically Islamic.

During Congressional hearings, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken was questioned as to whether the use of a staging area (aka military base) in “northwest India” had been considered. Although Blinken deftly side-stepped that question, the matter-of-fact nature of the question indicates that US Congressmen are sanguine that India, as the US’ subordinate strategic partner and signatory to LEMOA and CISMOA, will not be in a position to refuse to locate a US military base.

Notwithstanding, one can be hopeful that India will refuse a US military base on Indian territory because, while signing LEMOA in 2016, the then Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar and his US counterpart Ashton Carter had both stressed that the agreement does not allow for US bases to be set up on Indian soil, nor for troops to be stationed there.

However, that the US has got it right is evidenced by the US strategic mindset expressed by Benjamin Schwartz, former India country director at the Pentagon: “What the signing of this [LEMOA] shows is that the Modi government is willing to take and suffer the short-term political criticism of signing these things for the longer-term benefit of building the defence relationship with the United States.”

The US getting a military base in northwest India will simultaneously save face, maintain its regional hegemony, and declare its strategic superiority. What better place is there in “northwest India” other than Jammu/ Kashmir/ Ladakh for US military operations in Afghanistan?

Going a bit beyond Benjamin Schwartz, it may in some manner even suit the politics of the Indian establishment to divert attention from domestic matters.

Strategic consequences

Troops and military hardware located in a US military base are an attractive target for politically insane Islamists. If Pakistan, Taliban, or a non-State entity like IS or Al Qaeda, or even China, deliberately or mistakenly attacks a US base on Indian territory, it would constitute an attack on the US, and lead to an all-out war centred in India.

With LEMOA and CISMOA signed, and BECA all but signed, the US will expect US-India joint military operations launched from Indian soil against the aggressor. The world is witness to US President George Bush’s unsubstantiated accusation of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, which was used to initiate military action. After using such an excuse, an attack on a US military base can easily justify retaliatory operations against the attacker.

If the US base is attacked, the India-US strategic partnership will demand India’s response by a military thrust into Pakistan. Pakistan, relatively weaker than India in conventional warfare, may well use a “tactical” nuke in retaliation, triggering wider conflagration.

However, even without escalation to the nuclear level, conventional war, however brief, would be irreversibly destructive socially, economically and politically, for India and the region, perhaps even the world.

Some may opine that the foregoing is an unlikely scenario, but strategic good sense dictates that the consequences of such an attack must be thought through.

Sovereignty

India is a sovereign democratic Republic, with complete power and authority over its territorial and material assets, independence and integrity of political and economic policy, and ownership, control and jurisdiction over all its national assets and properties.

Starting 1950, Indian foreign policy has sought to leverage India’s strategic autonomy in order to safeguard sovereign rights and promote national interests. However, India’s New Economic Policy 1991 was the start of the weakening of India’s strategic autonomy.

In 2005, then PM Manmohan Singh went ahead with signing a strategic partnership agreement with the US, without discussion in Parliament. Thus, subordination to US foreign policy took shape under the stewardship of Manmohan Singh, with the drafting of the Logistics Support Agreement (LSA), signed in 2016 as LEMOA by the Narendra Modi government.

In June 2018, the US told the Modi government to cut India’s oil imports from Iran “to zero” by November 4 that year or face sanctions without waivers. This had obvious adverse economic effects on India. In 2019, in continuing subjugation to US diktat, India also stopped oil imports from Venezuela for the same reason, and suffered further economic loss.

India’s subordinate status in its strategic partnership with the US is a sad reality. However, from being the US’ subordinate strategic partner, allowing a US military base will lower India’s status to that of a vassal state. Allowing a US military base on Indian territory could well be the final nail in the coffin of India’s political sovereignty.

To paraphrase Benjamin Franklin on freedom and security, a nation that trades sovereignty for security does not deserve, nor will ever have, either.

A US base established in India may send a message of India’s strategic subordination to the US, and its political-military helplessness to the world. It will certainly compromise India’s aspiration to a permanent seat in the UNSC, and India’s ambition to be recognised as a leading regional power.

The sovereign democratic Republic of India should quote the Parrikar-Carter meeting of 2016, and diplomatically yet unequivocally, reject the US call for a military base for itself on Indian territory.

(The writer focuses on development and strategic issues)