An indication of the pulls India may face came from a recent US Senate overture. The defence budget bill passed by the Senate early this month (July), asked the administration to conduct joint exercises with India in the Persian Gulf, expanding the area of partnership beyond the Indian Ocean, and western Pacific regions, where the two countries have been conducting joint and multilateral exercises as Washington’s focus on the Indo-Pacific region grew, writes Arul Louis for South Asia Monitor
By Arul Louis Jul 13, 2019
The situation in the Gulf region is beginning to look like a barrel of petroleum near a flaming torch, increasing the risk to India’s energy lifeline because of developments since US President Donald Trump ripped up the multinational agreement to keep Iran from developing nuclear weapons. As the tensions escalated, India has sent two navy ships to the region to protect its shipping – about 70% of its needs come from the area – and New Delhi will have to dance around the complexities of the region with competing interests and pulls.
After unilaterally pulling out of the agreement between Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany in May, Trump launched a campaign of maximum pressure on Iran over its nuclear programme, mainly through sanctions – till almost there was nothing left to sanction. And as the tensions rose, two oil tankers were attacked in June – the US says by Iranians, who deny it. Iran shot down an American drone and both dispute where the spycraft was at the time it was hit.
Trump’s administration’s hawks almost forced him into a direct armed conflict with Iran by bombing it. But he saw through their game and stopped the bombers almost at the last minute.The situation is now getting hotter with a standoff between British ships and Iranian navy boats and the seizure of an Iranian tanker by Britain on suspicion it was taking oil to Syria.
An indication of the pulls India may face came from a recent US Senate overture. The defence budget bill passed by the Senate early this month (July), asked the administration to conduct joint exercises with India in the Persian Gulf, expanding the area of partnership beyond the Indian Ocean, and western Pacific regions, where the two countries have been conducting joint and multilateral exercises as Washington’s focus on the Indo-Pacific region grew.
This was just before the US announced it is looking for allies in the region. Marine General Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said, “We’re engaging now with a number of countries to see if we can put together a coalition that would ensure freedom of navigation both in the Straits of Hormuz and the Bab al-Mandab”. He did not say which countries were on his list of potential partners, but the US Senate was ahead of him in trying to get India involved.
Trump was also railing against countries that depend on the Strait of Hormuz for their energy needs – he tweeted “China gets 91% of its oil from the Strait, Japan 62%, & many other countries likewise” – but don’t provide security for ships transporting oil and gas for them.
Modi reportedly told him at their meeting in Osaka about India sending a guided missile destroyer and a patrol vessel to the Gulf to protect its shipping. In deploying its navy, India has some advantages. Unlike for Japan or China, it’s practically the neighbourhood for India and it is easy to project its presence there. It has the advantage of being a neutral party there, with good relations with what may be called the three regional blocs with degrees of antagonism – Qatar, Iran and Saudi Arabia-United Arab Emirates.
India is also helping Iran developing Iran’s Chabahar port, close to the Afghan border and an alternative sea outlet for it. So far the Trump administration not applied sanctions against India on this project because its a conduit for aid to Afghanistan. India would not be able to join a formal coalition against Iran for both diplomatic and strategic reasons. It needs to preserve its ties given that Iran borders Afghanistan and Pakistan and share some challenges. India has commercial ties with Iran – although those have become collateral damage to US sanctions.
So, India at best could have some coordination with the US and its allied presence in the region. India’s naval presence could also informally act as a buffer between hostile forces there. At the same time, India has over 7 million of its citizens working in the region – though not in any big numbers in Iran – giving it another important interest in the region’s security. To understand what is at stake here, recall that in 1990 when Iraq invaded Kuwait, India had to rescue about 175,000 of its citizens stranded there. The US Senate also looks further west. The defence budget bill asked the Defense Secretary to give the relevant Congressional Committees a report within 180 days on defence cooperation between the two countries in the Western Indian Ocean.
Indian and the US navies held a joint submarine-hunting exercise in April in the Indian Ocean near Diego Garcia, aiming to lay the groundwork for coordinating maritime patrol and reconnaissance, according to the US Navy. In the region of the western Indian Ocean there is no littoral power but India, unlike in the east where the Indian Ocean virtually segues into the Pacific Ocean where China is emerging as the dominant power (which the US wants to counterbalance through a coalition of democracies).
China is trying to project its power in that region through its growing economic largesse and a base in Djibouti, only miles from a US base, in the Horn of Africa region. Primary defence cooperation between the US and India would focus on anti-piracy and showing the flag to counter China as there are no disputes there involving China.
An important reason for the Senate’s interest is that the World Court has ruled in favour of Mauritius in its dispute with Britain over the ownership Chagos Islands of which Diego Garcia, a strategic base for the US is located. Ironically, in the 1970s and 1980s India under Indira Gandhi had opposed the US base there – and more recently supported United Nations General Assembly resolutions asking Britain to abide by the World Court decision – even as it participates in a joint exercise with the US near Diego Garcia.
(The writer is a New York-based non-resident senior fellow of the Society for Policy Studies. He can be reached at arullouis@spsindia.in and followed on Twitter at @arulouis)