General Bipin Rawat's comment on S-400 deal may ruffle feathers in Washington when all we need is quiet diplomacy

Chief of Army Staff General Bipin Rawat has lent his backing to India’s purchase of five Russian S-400 surface-to-air (SAM) missile systems as a move indicative of India’s “independent policy”. The army chief, who returned on Saturday from a six-day visit to Russia where he reportedly met top dogs of the Russian military, was delivering his keynote address at the General KV Krishna Rao inaugural memorial lecture in New Delhi on Sunday. Referring to a conversation with a Russian naval officer who apparently wanted to know from him why India is tilting to the West when the Americans have slapped sanctions on Russia and is threatening to punish India for dealing with Moscow, General Rawat stated: “When Russians asked about the American sanctions, my reply was, ‘yes, we do appreciate that there could be sanctions on us, but we follow an independent policy. You can rest assured. While we may be associating with America in getting some technology, but we follow an independent policy’.”[caption id=“attachment_5196581” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  File photo of army chief General Bipin Rawat. PTI[/caption] He went on to say: “I further told them, ‘while we are talking sanctions and you are questioning on sanctions, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Narendra Modi are signing the treaty on the purchase of the S-400 weapon system in spite of the fact that we may face challenges from America in the future and a $5.3 billion deal has been signed between the two countries’.” Prima facie, the army chief’s comments are unremarkable. General Rawat is well within his rights to speak on arms purchases. Beyond the obvious operational details, specific technical capabilities, secrecy clauses etc., the Indian state places no restriction on high-ranking military officers from discussing arms deals in the public domain. The comments were not random but made during a seminar on India’s Security and Foreign Policy Challenges. It was also not the first time the COAS has spoken on sensitive issues. That said, COAS General Rawat perhaps would have been better off avoiding a public discussion on the S-400 Triumf missiles (NATO nomenclature: SA-21 Growler). The reasons are several. One, the purchase of five state-of-the-art Russian air defence systems at a cost of over $5 billion places India directly in the American line of fire. The Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) was legislated by the US Congress precisely to restrict Russians from carrying out such high-value defence transactions and tie the hands of US president Donald Trump — whom many among the Congress suspect to be a Russian mole — from ‘cutting a deal’ with Vladimir Putin. Now that India — America’s ‘major defence partner’ — has been caught in the crossfire of US sanctions, the issue has assumed greater delicacy and importance. The Americans have recently slapped sanctions on China under CAATSA for obtaining Russian S-400 SAM systems and Sukhoi Su-35S fourth generation, twin-engine, multirole fighter aircraft. Though China had inked the deals in 2015 — way before CAATSA came into being — the purchases came under the purview as soon as the equipment were delivered to Beijing. A Trump administration official was quoted, as saying in The Diplomat: “We took these actions because China took delivery of 10 Sukhoi fighter aircraft, specifically Su-25s [sic], in December of 2017 – of course, after the CAATSA statute came into force… And it also took delivery of a batch of S-400 – sometimes known as SA-21 – surface-to-air missile systems or related equipment in January of this year.” However, while the US has been quick to impose sanctions on China — prompting an angry reaction — it has appeared undecided on taking similar measures against India. It reckons that penalising a key strategic partner in South Asia while trying to target Russian defence and energy businesses would be strategically unsound. On the other hand, at just under $6 billion, the deal is a setback to US CAATSA legislation. It cripples Washington’s efforts to starve the Russian defence industry of big-ticket sales, derails the US objective in using regulation to force a change in Russian behaviour and challenges US military superiority. The CAATSA apparently is a unique air defence system, superior to anything the US has to offer.

The Trump administration has sought to solve this predicament by buying time, and therefore it has so far refrained from making any commitment on sanctions or a waiver, which will require presidential assent under a set of strict conditions. The US has so far neither endorsed nor denounced the deal, preferring instead to release sanctified statements.

For instance, shortly after India announced the closure of S-400 deal in a joint statement with Russia during Putin’s visit, the US through its embassy in New Delhi said: “The intent of our implementation of CAATSA is to impose costs on Russia for its malign behaviour, including by stopping the flow of money to Russia’s defence sector. CAATSA is not intended to impose damage to the military capabilities of our allies or partners”, in its very first reaction. If that leans towards leniency, several analysts have cautioned against taking a waiver for granted. Some, including this columnist, has posited that Trump may seek to use the presidential waiver as a “leverage” to get his way on trade deficit that India enjoys vis-à-vis the US . Some analysts have pointed out that carving an exception for India will result in a proliferation of such deals among America’s treaty allies such as Saudi Arabia and Turkey who are also potential buyers of the S-400 SAM system. At least one news agency report from Washington quotes a “Congressional source” in saying that “whether India actually gets the waiver will largely be up to National Security Advisor (John) Bolton, who has long been against giving India any preferential treatment”. The source speculates that “it will come down to who has more influence in this debate — (James) Mattis or Bolton”, and posits that Bolton is now the most influential voice in Trump administration. Incidentally, Bolton, considered a bit of a hawk and a hardliner on military power and preemptive action as NSA, had in the past “worked actively with his Chinese counterpart to thwart New Delhi’s bid for a permanent membership of the UN Security Council,” according to a Times of India report. Logic indicates that the US would work closely with India and arrange for the waiver. That is not just strategic altruism on Washington’s part but also a shrewd tactical move because penalising India weakens its role as a security provider and a key balancing power against China in Indo-Pacific and runs counter to US security policy for the region. This White House, however, is different. Trump has so far shown great impatience with strategic altruism that underwrites America’s global dominance and leadership. Trump’s attempt to ride the backlash against globalism has led the US into an isolationist corner. From that corner where shadows loom large, he may little logic in investing in relationships with ‘swing states’ such as India when a sanction achieves a more immediate political purpose. India knows this. It didn’t create the problem but must deal with it. What New Delhi needs at this juncture on S-400 and CAATSA is dexterous diplomacy, not public statements that proclaim dogmatic beliefs. In this context, General Rawat’s words are counter-productive. He has added nothing to the discourse. The civilian administration wasn’t waiting for his nod to go ahead with the deal. What he has done is heighten global attention on a sensitive topic and inadvertently squeezed the space for quiet negotiation by expressing publicly the desire for more Russian military equipment that may ruffle even more feathers in White House. The India-US relationship could do without such distractions at this juncture.