Military ties for industrial interests

By S. G. Vombatkere
01 Oct 2010

A careful examination of deepening strategic ties between India and U.S.A. has become necessary, particularly when direct military-to-military dealings are proposed sidelining democratic functioning.

It is necessary in today's world of intimately linked national economies to strengthen and deepen economic and cultural ties between all nations in the interest of peace. This would also be a positive move to effectively combat the scourge of terrorism synergistically. But if economic ties are predicated on ‘fighting terror’ by the use of police and military force and trade in military hardware and software, it would imply that the military-industrial complex (MIC) has an increasing role in economic ties, presaging ill for the whole world and particularly for those countries that join in strengthening such ties. This is especially as USA has made the first-ever step in formally corporatizing armed conflict and confirming the legendary power of USA's MIC by converting ‘combat operations’ by regular U.S. troops in Iraq to ‘stability operations’ by US-paid contractors such as Halliburton in the guise of military disengagement.

Military-to-military relations
A day before the Ninth Anniversary of the horrendous 9/11 attack-cum-tragedy in USA, leading Indian daily The Hindu reported two events indicating deepening strategic ties between India and USA [1, 2]. The on-going defence engagement of ‘military cooperation and inter-operability’ [3] and defence equipment procurement was proposed by US Admiral Willard during his visit to New Delhi, to be expanded to a ‘much richer dialogue’ including the Logistics Support Agreement (LSA) and Communications Interoperability and Security Memorandum of Agreement (CISMOA), to go ‘beyond bilateral exercises and sale of military hardware’. It is acknowledged that the top-most US military commanders have a US foreign policy role in addition to their military role [4]; thus these two Agreements, designed ‘in order to slice away bureaucratic procedures for the armed forces to work with each other’ need to be considered seriously in the public domain.

Speaking of the Indian military, Lt Gen Vijay Oberoi notes that "Our political leadership is highly uncomfortable in dealing with the military directly and prefers to let the bureaucracy do so." [5]. Thus effectively, the military's contact with the elected Executive is through the bureaucracy, giving bureaucrats a large degree of control that the military resents even while it unhesitatingly accepts civilian control. It is easy to blame the bureaucracy for this, but the historic and on-going failure of the political leadership in maintaining contact directly with the Defence Chiefs, cannot be wished away. (Creation of a Chief of Defence Staff post would overcome the problem, but this has been successfully stalled by the bureaucracy for years notwithstanding the cost to national security).

Willard's suggestion to ‘slice away bureaucratic procedures’ in military-to-military contacts seeks to further weaken the existing weak link between India's military and its political leadership by taking the bureaucracy out of the loop. This is interference in India's internal affairs and government functioning, and dangerous for India's security. Thus, even in the present scheme of skewed civilian-military relations within India, it must be ensured that the bureaucracy is not ‘sliced away’ from direct India-US military-to-military interactions; the elected Executive must urgently get its act together in the interest of national security.

Logistic support
The LSA clearly envisages providing logistic bases for the US military. This needs careful thinking-through; it could be the thin end of a wedge commencing with providing facilities for docking or landing, victualling and re-fuelling for US military ships and aircraft, later expandable to ammunitioning that includes stockpiling US weapons protected by US military personnel stationed on Indian territory. The serious problem with this is, a US weapon stockpile is an attractive target for militants and terrorists, and a successful attack can well become reason for USA to multiply its military presence on Indian soil, even without this provision built into the LSA.