Given that the Japanese and Indian strategic establishments have now engaged each other more intensively in the past five years than in the previous fifty, it would at first blush seem incongruous then to ascribe only modest expectation to the near and medium-term potential of this bilateral defence relationship. But the odds-on likelihood is that it will disappoint.
As already pointed out in an excellent post previously, the Japan-India Joint Declaration, unlike its Japan-Australia counterpart, lacks a trilateral reference point to the US force presence in the region. This assumes added significance given the fading away of the ‘Quadrilateral Initiative’ – the putative maritime axis of democratic powers (Australia-India-Japan-US) which presumably sought to situate their exclusive forum as a subsidiary body within the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) framework, and selectively expand membership thereafter. While Beijing’s objections were foreseeable, it is less clear why it was assumed that key sub-regional actors such as Indonesia (and ASEAN as a group) would – in deferring their agenda-setting powers to a body that they had no part in creating – invite their own self-marginalisation within the emerging practice of Asian security multilateralism.
Common strategic interests listed in the Japan-India Declaration and Action Plan are comparatively tame too. Unlike its Australian counterpart (let alone the robust common objectives detailed in the US-Japan Security Consultative Committee Joint Statement of 2005), the Japan-India framework skirts any reference to specific geographic or national entities within the Asia-Pacific region – favouring instead an enumeration of functional competencies. The functional elements, further, revolve primarily around maritime constabulary duties and omit any supporting reference to bilateral military logistics cooperation or classified information sharing.
By contrast, Foreign Minister Okada was in Canberra earlier this February, putting flesh on the bones of a logistics support capability, as outlined in the Japan-Australia agreement. A similar arrangement is also envisaged in the US-India Framework for Maritime Security Cooperation of 2006, though New Delhi’s indecision in arriving at a domestic consensus on military logistics sharing – to Defence Secretary Robert Gates’ visible dismay – has stymied forward movement in bilateral negotiations to this end. Altogether, the omissions and dilutions in the Japan-India security framework are unlikely to significantly raise the currently shallow operational ceiling to such cooperation.
Practical Obstacles to Cooperation
Frameworks and legalities aside, Secretary Gates’ fruitless visits to New Delhi in 2008 and 2010 also point to a more practical impediment to military logistics sharing, and overall security cooperation, with India. Numerous observers have already noted New Delhi’s extreme aversion to extending security obligations abroad is only matched by its dogged defence of strategic autonomy. It is also by no means clear that, in principle, it is keen to engage in ‘coalition of the willing’ naval operations, its recent record of support of multilateral initiatives having hewed closely to the line calling for explicit UN-authorisation of such. In this regard, Indian naval doctrine bears a striking similarity with China’s PLAN – a reluctance to participate within multilateral maritime security missions, even as it cooperates with such missions.
At a more practical level however, until there is an observed need at the Indian end for such reciprocal exchange of logistics support, supplies and services, its benefits are likely to be viewed as one-sided and unbalanced in New Delhi. Ambition notwithstanding, India’s naval modernisation program remains a work in progress. Its emerging force structure built around a desired power projection capability (three-carrier navy, expanded fleet of surface and sub-surface combatants including indigenously-built nuclear submarines) remains removed as yet by a decade or perhaps more. Until such time that its own task forces run up against the predicament of replenishment during open sea operations – in turn, registering an imperative for enhanced military logistics sharing, New Delhi’s dependence on more modest operational turnaround (OTR) arrangements along the Indian Ocean littoral is likely to suffice.
At the Japanese end, meantime, real doubts exist about the Hatoyama Government’s appetite for non-constabulary international security operations beyond the Far East geographic theater. Tellingly, the open-ended phraseology introduced in the 2004 Defence Guidelines – ‘international peace cooperation activities’ – that allowed Tokyo to elevate and geographically widen its security cooperation beyond the East Asian region, finds no mention in the Japan-India Action Plan. This is in contrast to the Japan-Australia Action Plan where cooperation towards such international operations is expressly provided for.
Fears that the positive momentum generated in the current Defence Guidelines might be dissipated in its forthcoming review is also not far-fetched, given the prime minister’s personal reservations on issues such as loosening of the three arms export principles. Indeed, with India aspiring to graduate from a ‘Buyers Navy to Builders Navy’, as expressed just a day prior, incidentally, to Mr. Kitazawa’s arrival in New Delhi by Defence Minister A.K. Antony, strategically-minded ODA routed towards an altogether more robust maritime infrastructure upgradation program (ship-building, ship-lift, dry-dock expansion, perhaps even hydrographic surveys) might perhaps be a fitting Japanese expression of strategic intent. Given, however, that the majority of India’s shipyards are clustered under the administrative control of its Defence Ministry, Tokyo’s arms sales-restraint provisions will need revisiting. Good luck with that one!
Sourabh Gupta is a senior research associate at Samuels International Associates, Inc.
It is difficult to disagree with some of Mr Gupta’s conclusions about Japan-India maritime security cooperation – particularly that the relationship is unlikely to develop quickly under the Hatoyama government.
However, Mr Gupta has introduced several red-herrings into the analysis which relate more to issues in the India-US relationship than the India-Japan relationship. One should not assume that constraints in the US relationship will translate into the Japan relationship. Some examples:
First, the political controversy in New Delhi over the proposed India-US logistics sharing agreement is driven by (not wholly unreasonable) fears of the Indian military might gradually be webbed into the US security system. Any India-Japan logistics sharing arrangement is likely to be seen in entirely different terms, as an agreement between equals.
Second, is India’s hesitancy in participating in multilateral maritime security missions. India’s hesitancy about participating in multilateral naval operations in the Gulf of Aden for example was driven both by legal concerns and (probably) the leading role that the Pakistan navy played in CTF-150. One should not assume that this indicates hesitancy in New Delhi about bilateral India-Japan naval cooperation if the opportunity arises.
That being said, I agree that it is difficult to see the Hatoyama government making any clear foreign policy decisions at all, including in relation to easing Japan’s defence export restrictions to India. However, some may see the Hatoyama government as not long for this world.
Dear Mr. Brewster:
I am, in most part, in agreement with your observations. Suggesting that I introduced some red herrings might be a tad strong though.
Yes, India-Japan logistics sharing certainly does not run into same sensitivities as the U.S.-India equivalent. And so, theoretically, this could be more easily arrived at bilaterally. But that still leaves open the question as to why New Delhi would be inclined to arrive at such an arrangement in the first place, given that its call on Japanese facilities and resources would be relatively marginal, and certainly not – from a functional point of view – an equal bargain. Besides, the scope of Japanese security cooperation with India has tended to trail its American equivalent. Hence I don’t see Tokyo working out military logistics sharing with India independent of the U.S.
On the Pakistan connection in CTF-150, you raise a very important point … and I totally concur. New Delhi is neuralgic to participating internationally on equal terms with anything that has Pakistani military footprints, let alone an effort for which Islamabad has had command responsibility three times! My only reason for dropping this out was because in that section I wanted discuss the practical obstacles to naval logistics sharing, and feared that I was prefacing this with too many ‘principle’-based observations. But you are right – Pakistan’s role in CTF-150 looms large.
Finally, about Hatoyama, while there is much left to be desired in his government’s strategic affairs management, it is by no means clear to me that – Maehara/
Nagashima cluster aside perhaps – the vast body of the Japanese center-left will be any more forthcoming with regard to such India-Japan security cooperation. And they do have parliamentary majorities which will not lapse anytime soon. Besides, Hatoyama has stitched up, or is on the verge of stitching up, the logistics pact with Australia … so he is capable of (rare) commendable leadership on the security side. No reason why provision for a corresponding pact could not be made from the Japanese end aside for lack of intent, or interest.
Best wishes, Sourabh