Thanks but no thanks; Three reasons why India will never join ‘NATO-Plus’ or any other US-led mutual security alliance

A particularly bad idea refuses to go away. A high-level committee of American lawmakers at a meeting held on 24 May as recommended strengthening the ‘NATO-Plus’ framework by including India in the grouping. NATO-Plus is a five-member security arrangement that brings together NATO, the 31-member post-War military alliance between the United States and Europe, and five treaty allies of the US — Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Israel, and South Korea. The aim, say media reports, is to “boost global defence cooperation” and win the “strategic competition with the Chinese Communist Party”. Ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s state visit to the US on 22 June, the recommendation by the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition between the US and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) — led by chairman Mike Gallagher and ranking member Raja Krishnamoorthi — holds added significance. Interesting to note that the policy proposal, centred around enhancing Taiwan’s deterrence, was “overwhelmingly adopted” by its members, consisting of 13 Republican and 11 Democratic representatives. It reflects bipartisan consensus on India in a deeply polarised Washington DC. While the ‘China committee’ has no regulatory authority beyond recommendations, it is a bellwether of the mood in at least a section of Capitol Hill that believes envisaging India’s help is not only important to counterbalance China’s influence in Indo-Pacific, New Delhi’s active participation should be sought or is even expected in the event of a conflict between US and China. These presumptions are intriguing for a strategic partnership that is underwritten by no security guarantees, nor are there any expectations of mutual defence, let alone obligations of joining or contributing towards any military coalition. And yet, even though it might not be true of the White House, such an expectation seems to have taken root in Washington — if Ashley Tellis’s much-discussed lament is anything to go by. Tellis, one of the strongest backers of US-India ties in Washington, in a piece titled America’s Bad Bet on India in the May issue of Foreign Affairs magazine, wrote that “should a major conflict between Washington and Beijing erupt in East Asia or the South China Sea, India would certainly want the United States to prevail. But it is unlikely to embroil itself in the fight.” America’s desire to embroil India in a formalised defence relationship isn’t a terribly new idea. Congressman Ro Khanna, a progressive Democrat from California, has long been advocating tying India closer to a defence security alignment with the US. He told an Indian news agency last year that adding India as the ‘sixth country’ to the NATO-Plus framework would facilitate and make it easier to have a growing defence partnership and formalise the alignment in a way that makes it easier for India to get quick Congressional approvals for defence agreements. As we shall presently see, that’s a compelling, but not a convincing argument. Khanna’s comments came close on the heels of the US House of Representatives in July last year approving with an overwhelming majority an amendment to the National Defence Authorization Act (NDAA) that seeks to deepen India-US defence ties. Hewing India closer to NATO is an idea that has found acceptance even across the Atlantic. In April this year, Julianne Smith, US NATO ambassador, said that the alliance is “open to more engagement should India seek that” even if the expansion of the military alliance was not yet on offer. She was quite clear that “in terms of the future with India, I think NATO’s door is open…”, hinting at more possibilities. The idea has found acceptance among some influential Indian commentators. C Raja Mohan, for instance, has written that “a pragmatic engagement with NATO must be an important part of India’s new European orientation, especially amidst the continent’s search for a new role in the Indo-Pacific.” Yet the idea of India engaging with NATO, or becoming a member of the extended NATO-Plus framework, deserves closer scrutiny. Washington’s enthusiasm for enmeshing India into a security alliance is understandable. It seeks to build on India’s shared interest in thwarting Chinese hegemonic plans in Indo-Pacific and hopes that bolstering India’s capabilities through close security cooperation and military-to-military teamwork will eventually lead to a formalization of the relationship resembling the Euro-Atlantic framework. American strategic culture is partial towards treaty-bound alliances, unlike limited-liability partnerships that India favours. The carrot being held out, as the US Congressional panel points out, that NATO-Plus allows for “seamless intelligence sharing between members” and India would therefore “access the latest military technology without much of a time lag.” For a country desperate to attain and upgrade its defence industrial capabilities, this should be a deal-breaker. Or is it? There are compelling arguments against India’s joining of the NATO framework, and the carrot being dangled by the US — albeit at a nascent, ideational level — isn’t a deal-sealer. First, it is possible to argue that India may still enjoy tangible benefits of an ally of the US without binding itself in a treaty-based framework. The backbone of India-US defence partnership is the bilateral initiative on Critical and Emerging Technologies (iCET) signed in early 2023, that has injected much-needed impetus into defence industrial cooperation by expanding technology partnership between governments, businesses, and academic institutions. The impact of iCET has been significant. Before its signing, despite more structured and organized security cooperation, as Gopal Nadadur and Dhruva Jaishankar point out in a paper for ORF America, “defense coproduction and research and development (R&D) have not grown as significantly, despite some marginal successes. The Defense Trade & Technology Initiative (DTTI), despite some modest success with air-launched unmanned aerial systems, has not produced the results that were once envisioned.” That has changed rather dramatically. Indian media is reporting that Modi’s state visit to the US might witness the announcement of a major defence deal — a multi-billion-dollar government-to-government agreement for America’s GE (General Electric) to coproduce F414 jet engines in India for MK2 Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) being built by Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL). The spadework for this deal was done during Ajit Doval’s meeting with Jake Sullivan in Washington in January when the iCET initiative was announced. A White House fact sheet released on January 31 had pointed out that the “United States has received an application from General Electric to jointly produce jet engines that could power jet aircraft operated and produced indigenously by India. The United States commits to an expeditious review of this application.” The speed with which it fructified indicates Biden administration’s urgency in producing a ‘tangible’. The deal, pending Congressional review and approval, involves “100 percent transfer of technology (ToT)” aimed at boosting India’s capabilities in defense innovation and production. This wouldn’t have been possible without the iCET framework and the White House lifting the heavy load in lowering the barriers. The Print reports, quoting sources in India’s defence establishment, that once production of GE F414 starts in India, it “will power all future fighter jets including the Tejas Mk II, Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA) as well as the indigenous Twin Engine Deck Based Fighter (TEDBF) for the Indian Navy.” To circle back to the original question, has India’s status — that of a strategic partner and a major defence partner, but not a treaty ally — been a hindrance in achieving a breakthrough in a deal of such import? Importantly, though it’s not a ‘done deal’ yet, the answer is in the negative. So, the argument that India must join a NATO-Plus or an equivalent security alliance to get access to sophisticated tech bypassing the export control framework isn’t a valid one. The counter-argument is that American allies get better and faster access to top tech. Scratch the surface and it becomes evident that even the staunchest of US treaty allies, such as Australia, fall prey to America’s gargantuan bureaucracy and iffy-ness from some lawmakers when it comes to cutting-edge technology. An Australian defence official has recently blamed the “ permafrost layer of middle management” for delay in transfer of technology on AUKUS. As Seema Sirohi writes in Times of India, “The hope is the GE deal won’t get caught up in the wider debate on tech transfer issues related to the Australia-UK-US (AUKUS) nuclear submarine deal, which is experiencing delays because of export controls.” India is a middle power situated in a tough neighbourhood. The case may be made for India hitching its boat to NATO or any other military-defence framework led by the US. There have even been murmurs of the upgradation of QUAD into a defence alliance. Yet the moment India signs into a hub-and-spokes alliance system (that includes NATO, which has expanded to evolve into a US-centric alliance from a multilateral system), New Delhi relinquishes its great-power aspirations and makes it difficult for itself to rise as the third pole. India’s unique positioning, which External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar has described as “a responsible development partner, a First Responder, and a voice of the Global South… aspects (that) reflect a quest towards becoming a leading power”, along with its status as the fastest-growing large economy, the world’s most populous nation (with a young demography to boot), the fifth largest economy that powers the world’s second-largest military, endow New Delhi with ambitions that can’t be met with junior-partner status. India is still in the state-building stage, trying to enhance its capacities and unlock the full potential of its citizens. The best option for India right now would be to manage external turbulences, leverage rival power centres and derive benefits for itself — as it has done in dealing with the war in Europe — and create more policy space to facilitate its own rise. Given the formidable threat posed by China, the prospect of joining a US-led alliance system may be lucrative, but ultimately self-defeating. Third, Tellis is right when he says that India won’t rush to assist the US or “involve itself in any confrontation with Beijing that does not directly threaten its own security.” On the flip side, India does not expect the US to explicitly provide support in the event of a China-related crisis. Does this provide a basis for a security alliance or operational integration? The answer is, no. Any security pact constraints India’s hand and does not allow it to pursue an independent China policy, even though both nations have a mutual interest in arresting China’s aggressiveness in Indo-Pacific. Writing in Foreign Affairs, Arzan Tarapore points out that “India and the United States sometimes have differing policy priorities and use different tactics to achieve similar goals… These differences do not make India an outlier among Washington’s global partners. Even formal US allies—those with written security guarantees—do not see eye to eye with Washington when it comes to China.” What this means in real terms is that India seeks to profit from its status as a swing state amid great power rivalries. Though it has steadily intensified security and defence partnership with the US, it is under no obligation to take part in the security competition or any possible conflict over Taiwan. In fact, if such an eventuality were to arise, India would hope that by not taking a direct part in the conflict between China and US-plus-allies, or avoiding a strong antagonistic posture against Beijing, it may ease off some of the tension that exists in its Himalayan border. It hopes that the West will not hold its neutrality against it because it has never pretended otherwise. The West may out pressure but as the Ukraine conflict has shown, India is adept at dealing with it. Joining a US-led security alliance would harm India’s attempt at optimal positioning and pursuit of interests during conflicts and degrade its ability to walk the tightrope or be diplomatically nimble, whichever the case may be. New Delhi is well positioned to become China’s biggest rival in Asia, the democratic bulwark against an authoritarian one-party system that aims to become Asia’s hegemon. The West would be well served to facilitate India’s rise, not force it into a treaty alliance. 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